Stall Inception in a High-Speed Axial Compressor

A research program designed to provide understanding of the fluid dynamic mechanisms that lead to rotating stall in the Notre Dame Stage 01 high-speed axial compressor is described. The stalling behavior of this compressor was studied with unsteady casing pressure measurements from a circumferentially spaced array of sensors. In addition, over rotor casing surface streak measurements were performed to investigate the time-averaged end-wall flow near the rotor at operating points near stall. Several investigative tools were applied to the analysis and interpretation of the unsteady casing pressure data. Traditional methods such as visual inspection, spatial Fourier decomposition, traveling wave energy and wavelet analysis were shown to be insufficient to characterize the pre-stall and stall inception behavior of the compressor. A new technique based on a windowed two-point correlation between adjacent sensors was developed and demonstrated to provide spatial and temporal resolution of both pre-stall and stall inception behavior. The spatial correlation technique was then applied to the analysis of stall inception data from experiments with asymmetric tip clearance. The non-uniform tip clearance was produced using the magnetic bearings which levitate the rotor shaft of the Notre Dame Transonic Axial Compressor facility. Both steady rotor centerline offset and rotor whirl were investigated. The results of these experiments, along with the surface streak measurements, provide evidence in support of recent computational observations (found in the literature) that predict that short length scale stall inception is related to specific features of the rotor tip clearance flow.