Reynolds number effects on the aerodynamics of compact axial compressors
Repository URI
Repository DOI
Change log
Authors
Abstract
An axial compressor for a domestic appliance can be designed to be smaller than an equivalent centrifugal compressor. However, the performance of such a compact axial compression system is limited by increased viscous losses and reduced flow turning at low Reynolds numbers (
In domestic appliance compressors,
Experiments on a 5 times scaled-up single stage axial compressor have been conducted across a range of
It was found that losses in the rotor were greater than the stator losses across the whole range of
A major contributor to the rotor loss was an unexpected hub separation that increased in size as
The improved stator design was better matched to the radial distribution of rotor exit flow angle, which led to a decrease in stator loss across all
The introduction of compound lean to the the stator design had the expected result of decreasing the endwall corner separation loss and increasing midspan losses. The experiments have shown that there was a loss increase in both the midspan and casing region much greater than the corresponding decrease in the stator hub. Also the mass flow redistribution in the experiments was larger that the redistribution predicted by the CFD.
Three-dimensional RANS computations at low
This thesis has shown that with axial compressors designed specifically for low