The effect of wake vortex on the unsteady characteristics of tip leakage flow in a high-loading counter-rotating compressor

Abstract

The effect of upstream wake vortex on the unsteady characteristics of downstream tip leakage flow (TLF) in a high-loading counter-rotating compressor, have been revealed. For the strength of the tip leakage vortex (TLV) is stronger than that of the upstream wake vortex and the TLF spills from the leading edge (LE) of the neighbor blade under near stall (NS) condition, the wake vortex can only transport bypass the interface, formed by the TLF and main flow, just below the tip. The TLV is separated into several parts by the wake vortex such that it weakened rapidly and the dominant frequency of the static pressure fluctuation near the trailing edge (TE) is about 1 relative blade passing frequency (RBPF) under the NS condition. When the extent of TLV breakdown is enough, the TLV is responsible for the dominant frequency near the LE. Therefore, there are two dominant frequencies (one is located near LE, the other is located near TE) in the tip region of the downstream supersonic rotor under NS condition. It’s harmful for the stable operation of compressors due to lower frequency resulting from TLV. At small tip clearance size, affected by the upstream wake vortex, when the static pressure fluctuation caused by the TLV at the LE of the downstream rotor just appeared, the momentum ratio increases. And it locates above the limit line (applied to judge the static pressure fluctuation caused by the self-excitation of the TLF), this means the wake vortex is beneficial to suppress the self-excitation of the TLF.