Review on the aerodynamics of intermediate compressor duct

Abstract

In a turbofan engine, the air is brought from the low to the high-pressure compressor through an intermediate compressor duct. Weight and design space limitations impel to its design as an S-shaped. Despite it, the intermediate duct has to guide the flow carefully to the high-pressure compressor without disturbances and flow separations hence, flow analysis within the duct has been attractive to the researchers ever since its inception. Consequently, a number of researchers and experimentalists from the aerospace industry could not keep themselves away from this research. Further demand for increasing by-pass ratio will change the shape and weight of the duct that uplift encourages them to continue research in this field. Innumerable studies related to S-shaped duct have proven that its performance depends on many factors like curvature, upstream compressor’s vortices, swirl, insertion of struts, geometrical aspects, Mach number and many more. The application of flow control devices, wall shape optimization techniques, and integrated concepts lead a better system performance and shorten the duct length.  This review paper is an endeavor to encapsulate all the above aspects and finally, it can be concluded that the intermediate duct is a key component to keep the overall weight and specific fuel consumption low. The shape and curvature of the duct significantly affect the pressure distortion. The wall static pressure distribution along the inner wall significantly higher than that of the outer wall. Duct pressure loss enhances with the aggressive design of duct, incursion of struts, thick inlet boundary layer and higher swirl at the inlet. Thus, one should focus on research areas for better aerodynamic effects of the above parameters which give duct design with optimum pressure loss and non-uniformity within the duct.