Influence of Active Flow Control of Synthetic Jet at Suction Surface on the Performance of a Subsonic Axial Compressor Rotor

Abstract

In order to investigate the effect of a synthetic jet arranged at the suction surface on the aerodynamic performance of an axial flow compressor, a high-speed subsonic axial flow compressor rotor was numerically simulated in this paper. The results showed that after being excited by the synthetic jet, the flow margin of the compressor decreased by 1.3%, but the peak efficiency increased by 0.47%. After analyzing the internal flow field, it was found that although the alternating blowing and suction effect of the synthetic jet can reduce the separation loss of the suction surface, the radial velocity of the flow is higher when stimulated and converges towards the blade tip, resulting in more severe blockage at the blade tip than in the prototype compressor, leading to a slight decrease in stability margin. To balance the stability margin of the compressor, a coupled flow control numerical simulation combining passive control of the casing treatment and active control of the suction surface synthetic jet was subsequently carried out. The results showed that the coupled flow control could exert their respective advantages, resulting in an increase of 17.84% in the compressor flow margin and a decrease of only 0.2% in peak efficiency.

Keywords

• axial flow compressor
• synthetic jet
• aerodynamic performance
• stability margin
• numerical simulation