The tandem airfoil has potential to do more work as a compressor blade than a single airfoil without incurring significantly higher losses. Although tandem blades are sometimes employed as stators, they have not been used in any known commercial rotors. While the long-term goal for this program is development of a commercially viable tandem rotor, this paper discusses tandem airfoils in subsonic, shock-free rectilinear cascade flow. Existing literature data on tandem airfoils in rectilinear cascades have been compiled and presented in a Lieblein loss versus loading correlation. Large scatter in the data gave motivation to conduct an extensive 2D computational fluid dynamics (CFD) study evaluating the overall performance as a function of the relative positions of the forward and aft airfoils. CFD results were consistent with trends in the open literature, both of which indicate that a properly designed tandem airfoil can outperform a comparable single airfoil on and off design. The general agreement of the CFD and literature data serves as a validation for the computational approach.
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e-mail: jmcglump@vt.edu
e-mail: wng@vt.edu
e-mail: steven.r.wellborn@rolls-royce.com
e-mail: severin.g.kempf@rolls-royce.com
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April 2009
Research Papers
Numerical Investigation of Tandem Airfoils for Subsonic Axial-Flow Compressor Blades
Jonathan McGlumphy,
Jonathan McGlumphy
Department of Mechanical Engineering,
e-mail: jmcglump@vt.edu
Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University
, Blacksburg, VA 24061
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Wing-Fai Ng,
Wing-Fai Ng
Department of Mechanical Engineering,
e-mail: wng@vt.edu
Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University
, Blacksburg, VA 24061
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Steven R. Wellborn,
Steven R. Wellborn
Compressor and Fan Aerodynamic Design,
e-mail: steven.r.wellborn@rolls-royce.com
Rolls-Royce Corp.
, Indianapolis, IN 46206
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Severin Kempf
Severin Kempf
Compressor and Fan Aerodynamic Design,
e-mail: severin.g.kempf@rolls-royce.com
Rolls-Royce Corp.
, Indianapolis, IN 46206
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Jonathan McGlumphy
Department of Mechanical Engineering,
Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University
, Blacksburg, VA 24061e-mail: jmcglump@vt.edu
Wing-Fai Ng
Department of Mechanical Engineering,
Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University
, Blacksburg, VA 24061e-mail: wng@vt.edu
Steven R. Wellborn
Compressor and Fan Aerodynamic Design,
Rolls-Royce Corp.
, Indianapolis, IN 46206e-mail: steven.r.wellborn@rolls-royce.com
Severin Kempf
Compressor and Fan Aerodynamic Design,
Rolls-Royce Corp.
, Indianapolis, IN 46206e-mail: severin.g.kempf@rolls-royce.com
J. Turbomach. Apr 2009, 131(2): 021018 (8 pages)
Published Online: February 3, 2009
Article history
Received:
August 8, 2007
Revised:
September 21, 2007
Published:
February 3, 2009
Citation
McGlumphy, J., Ng, W., Wellborn, S. R., and Kempf, S. (February 3, 2009). "Numerical Investigation of Tandem Airfoils for Subsonic Axial-Flow Compressor Blades." ASME. J. Turbomach. April 2009; 131(2): 021018. https://doi.org/10.1115/1.2952366
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