Unsteady Lifting Surface Theory for a Rotating Cascade of Swept Blades

A lifting surface theory is developed to predict the unsteady three-dimensional aerodynamic characteristics for a rotating subsonic annular cascade of swept blades. A discrete element method is used to solve the integral equation for the unsteady blade loading. Numerical examples are presented to demonstrate effects of the sweep on the blade flutter and on the acoustic field generated by interaction of rotating blades with a convected sinusoidal gust. It is found that increasing the sweep results in decrease of the aerodynamic work on vibrating blades and also remarkable reduction of the modal acoustic power of lower radial orders for both forward and backward sweeps.