Experimental Studies on Stall Behavior in a Single Stage Transonic Axial Flow Compressor

This paper describes the study of flow behavior of the transonic compressor stage in un-stalled and stalled conditions. Experiments were carried out in an open circuit single stage transonic axial flow compressor test rig. The test compressor was designed for 1.35 total to total pressure ratio at corrected mass flow rate of 22 kg/s. Both steady and unsteady measurements were carried out. The operating envelop of the compressor was experimentally determined to demark the stable and unstable operating range of the compressor at different operating speeds. Variations in the rotor inlet axial and tangential velocity in the tip region were studied using a calibrated single component hot wire probe. The compressor blade element performance was obtained at full flow and near stall conditions using a three hole aerodynamic probe. The variation in flow parameters like absolute flow angle, axial Mach number, absolute Mach number, tangential Mach number, static and total pressure ratio profiles at the rotor exit were obtained and their variations along the blade height were studied at full flow and near stall conditions. Static pressure variation in the tip region along the rotor chord was studied which showed reduction in slope as stall approached. Hotwire measurements showed abrupt variation in the axial velocity as compared to tangential velocity at stalled condition. It was observed that the flow turned in tangential direction at stall, as tangential component of velocity shows more fluctuations at stall in comparison with unstalled condition. The FFT analysis of the raw signals was performed and it was observed that the nature of the rotating stall was abrupt and stall cell travels nearly at half the rotor speed.