Exit flow from a transonic compressor rotor

Abstract

Summary: The three dimensional unsteady flow field behind a transonic compressor rotor with a design pressure ratio of 1.6 at a tip Mach number of 1.2 has been resolved on the blade-passing time scale, using the M.I.T. Blowdown Compressor Facility. Quantities determined were total and static pressures, tangential flow angle and radial flow angle. The spatial and temporal resolution achieved was sufficient to determine velocity components inside individual blade wakes and in the surrounding flow. From these measurements the flow structure is described at stations immediately behind the rotor and one chord downstream. Some dominant features of the flow just behind the rotor are large radial velocity components, large static pressure fluctuations near the blade wakes, and definite unsteadiness (in rotor coordinates) of the wakes. The wake behavior one chord downstream is described in terms of the effect of the strong mean swirl on the behavior of shear disturbances. In the outer portion of the annulus, where the mean flow approximates a solid body rotation, a strong, persistent oscillatory flow is found with 16 periods in the circumference as roughly predicted by theory. In the inner portion of the annulus the disturbances attenuate axially.