BOUNDARY LAYER SUCTION VIA A SLOT IN A TRANSONIC COMPRESSOR - NUMERICAL PARAMETER STUDY AND FIRST EXPERIMENTS

In the present paper a numerical and experimental study aiming at the enhancement of the working range of a transonic compressor via boundary layer suction (BLS) is presented. The main objective of the investigation is to study the influence of BLS on the interference between shock wave and boundary layer and to identify the possible benefit of BLS on the compressor working characteristics. An extensive numerical study has been carried out for the DATUM blade and for 2 different suction location configurations for one speed line and varying back-pressure levels, ranging from choked conditions to stall. It was found that the working range of the transonic compressor with a nominal inlet Mach number of 1.2 and a nominal pre-shock Mach number of 1.35 could be increased by sucking 2% of flow on the SS away, in such a way that the maximum pressure ratio and maximum diffusion could both be increased by 10%, when compared to the DATUM case. For smaller pressure ratios with respect to the design pressure ratio, the BLS is located in a supersonic flow region and thus creates additional losses due to a more divergent flow channel, which additionally accelerates the flow and results in a higher preshock Mach number creating higher losses. First measurements carried out in LTTs annular cascade, do show reasonable agreement with the computations in terms of inlet Mach number, flow angle, main shock location and stall limit. The most pronounced difference between measurements and computations is the occurrence of a terminal normal channel shock behind a bowed detached shock wave and a separation on the SS of the blade, which were both not predicted by the CFD.