Partial rotating instability in a boundary layer ingesting fan
Hefang Deng, Songan Zhang, Kailong Xia, Xiaoqing Qiang, Mingmin Zhu, Jinfang Teng
Abstract
Rotating Instability (RI) is a typical unsteady flow phenomenon in compressors and may cause severe aerodynamic noise and even potential nonsynchronous vibration. Most studies of RI are based on the uniform inflow, ignoring the influence of inlet distortions. This study investigates the mechanism of RI in a transonic rotor through full-annulus unsteady simulations, with a particular focus on the effects of boundary layer ingesting distortions. The results show that at the uniform inflow, the RI fluctuations with the broadband hump can be observed over a relatively wide mass flow rate range, and its origin can be attributed to the coupling effect between the tip leakage flow and shear layer instability. At the inlet distortions, the broadband hump only occurs with partial circumferential locations. This kind of flow phenomenon is defined as Partial Rotating Instability (PRI). The PRI only occurs in a narrower mass flow rate range in which the circumferential range of strong shear is sufficiently large and the self-induced unsteady effects are strong enough. Further, this study confirms that the averaged tip leakage flow axial momentum at the onset of RI or PRI is close, so it can be used as the parameter to determine whether RI or PRI occurs.