Using Shock Control Bumps to Improve Transonic Fan/Compressor Blade Performance

Abstract

Shock control bumps can help to delay and weaken shocks, reducing loss generation and shock-induced separation and delaying stall inception for transonic turbomachinery components. The use of shock control bumps on turbomachinery blades is investigated here for the first time using 3D analysis. The aerodynamic optimization of a modern research fan blade and a highly loaded compressor blade is carried out using shock control bumps to improve their performance. Both the efficiency and stall margin of transonic fan and compressor blades may be increased through the addition of shock control bumps to the geometry. It is shown how shock-induced separation can be delayed and reduced for both cases. A significant efficiency improvement is shown for the compressor blade across its characteristic, and the stall margin of the fan blade is increased by designing bumps that reduce shock-induced separation near to stall. Adjoint surface sensitivities are used to highlight the critical regions of the blade geometries, and it is shown how adding bumps in these regions improves blade performance. Finally, the performance of the optimized geometries at conditions away from where they are designed is analyzed in detail.