Numerical Study on the Effects of Blade Leading Edge Shape to the Performance of Supersonic Rotor

Abstract

Recently, it is required to design a fan and compressor with higher stage pressure ratio while maintaining adiabatic efficiency high also. To increase the stage pressure ratio, blade rotational speed or diffusion factor should be increased. In the case of increased rotational speed, relative speed of flow at blade leading edge is well supersonic. With supersonic rotor blade, total pressure loss is mainly due to leading edge shock waves and the thickness should be thin enough to minimize this. As a result, the blade is like to be week in terms of mechanical strength and the manufacturing cost would be increased because high-precision NC machining is required. Furthermore, it is one of the biggest hurdles to maintain proper level of thickness while one making small stages. In this paper, aerodynamic performance of supersonic rotor blades with different leading edge thickness and shapes are calculated using the finite volume method. The effects of blade leading edge shape and thickness to the performance are investigated especially in terms of total pressure loss and the already known loss correlations of leading edge thickness are examined. Subsequently this will be verified by performance test on rig.