Numerical study on near-stall flow unsteadiness in an axial compressor with casing treatment

Time-accurate numerical calculations were performed to investigate unsteady flow features in a low-speed axial compressor. The test compressor has axial skewed slots over the rotor tip region as casing treatment to improve the stall margin. The calculated data are in good agreement with the measured data. This paper reports the effect of casing treatment and flow unsteadiness on the rotor near stall by examining the flows in the smooth wall and casing treatment cases. The axial skewed slot can remove the blockage induced by the tip clearance leakage flow by removing and injecting the flow near the tip. However, for the casing treatment case, blockage is induced near the hub because the hub-corner stall is caused by a decrease in the axial momentum in this region. The tip leakage flow has inherent unsteadiness in the smooth wall case caused by the relatively large tip clearance, whereas the hub-corner stall has unsteadiness in the casing treatment case. The two types of unsteadiness have functions in inducing stall inception. Furthermore, axial slots of different sizes were tested to examine the effect of slot geometry on rotor flow stability. The change in flow structure related to the stall inception was subject to flow injection through the recirculation in the slots.