Unsteady Forcing vs. Efficiency: The Effect of Clocking on a Transonic Industrial Compressor

A numerical investigation on the impact of clocking on the efficiency and the aerodynamic forcing of the first 1.5 stages of an industrial transonic compressor was conducted. Using unsteady 3D Navier-Stokes equations, seven clocking positions were calculated and analyzed. Efficiency changes due to clocking were up to 0.125%, whereas modal excitation changes up to 31.7%. However, no direct correlation between the parameters of efficiency, stimulus and modal excitation was found as reported by others. It was found that potential forced response risks can be reduced by clocking, resulting only in minor efficiency penalties. Assuming almost sinusoidal behavior of efficiency and stimulus changes, as found in this investigation, both parameters can be set into correlation by using an ellipse interpolation. Direct impact of design changes on efficiency and stimulus through clocking can be deducted from that graph and quick estimations about extrema be made using only 5–6 transient simulations. Results however also stress the importance of considering modal excitation when optimizing for aerodynamic forcing, for which the ellipse interpolation is not necessarily possible. Highest efficiency is achieved with the IGV wake impinging on the stator blade leading edge at mid-span. It was found however that this alone is not a sufficient criteria in case of inclined wakes, as wake impingement at different span positions leads to different efficiencies.