Effect of forward sweep in a transonic compressor rotor

Abstract

This paper presents the design and testing of a transonic compressor rotor with forward sweep. The rotor was used to investigate the influence of forward sweep on the performance and stability of a single-stage transonic compressor compared with a baseline design with radially stacked blade sections. The comparison was done numerically with the three-dimensional Navier—Stokes code TRACE-S and experimentally in the Darmstadt transonic compressor test rig. It was found that the new rotor with forward sweep has an increased efficiency and also a much better stall margin (much more in the rig test than predicted by the three-dimensional Navier—Stokes calculation). Particularly close to stall, the forward sweep diverts the flow towards the blade tip region which helps to stabilise this region. For that reason it is possible to throttle the forward-swept rotor much further than the radially stacked rotor, although the forward-swept rotor does already suffer from separated flow in the hub.