Development and application of a CFD solver to the simulation of centrifugal compressors

A three-dimensional unsteady compressible viscous flow solver has been developed, and applied to a low speed centrifugal compressor configuration. Good agreement with experiments have been obtained for a compressor tested at NASA Lewis Research Center. Comparisons with measured surface pressures, and performance data are given. For this compressor, stall was found to occur in the diffuser region. It is demonstrated that this stall may be eliminated, and stable operation may be restored by the use of bleed valves located on the diffuser walls. INTRODUCTION In many army applications (tanks and rotorcraft) small gas turbine engines are often used. The mass flow rate in these engines is small (below 10 Ibs/sec). The compression is provided by one or two centrifugal compressor stages, sometimes in combination with an axial compressor stage. Centrifugal compressors are well suited for handling such low mass flow rates. They are rugged and compact. However, the geometric complexity of the blades and the twisting blade passages give rise to a host of aerodynamic problems such as unsteadiness, establishment of cross flows, flow separation at the trailing edge of the compressor blade, separation over diffuser guide vanes, and unsteady meandering motion of a 'tip vortex' that originates in the vicinity of the gap between the rotor and the casing. In many instances, this unsteadiness leads to rotating stall and surge. Considerable interest exists in the engine community in understanding and eventually controlling these phenomena, particularly compressor stall and surge. Computational fluid dynamics methods provide an efficient way of studying the complex flow phenomena within centrifugal compressors. Thanks to the availability of post-processing and scientific visualization software, the computed flow fields can be extensively analyzed. It is also convenient to test within a numerical model various control strategies such as bleeding, energizing of incoming flow using jets, excitation /wiggling of guide vanes, etc. Passive mechanisms such as slots, slats and flaps can also be easily studied within the scope of a numerical method. These simulations are thus a useful and economical first step to detailed flow control experiments. Finally, CFD simulations provide a wealth of numerical and flow physics information which are useful in developing reduced order models. For these reasons, a 3-D CFD code capable of analyzing centrifugal compressor configurations has been developed by the present investigators. Rather than solving the flow equations in a rotating coordinate system, the present calculations are carried out in an inertial system, with grid velocity terms used to simulate a rotor. Inflow and outflow boundary conditions appropriate for internal flows in general and centrifugal compressors in particular are used. This paper is organized as follows. The flow solution algorithm is first described. Next, results in the form of velocity fields, surface pressure data and performance map are presented for a NASA low-speed centrifugal compressor. The performance of this compressor for off-design low mass flow ratio conditions is subsequently studied. Methods for improving the compressor performance during such conditions are discussed. NUMERICAL FORMULATION The 3-D unsteady compressible Reynolds averaged Navier-Stokes equations are solved numerically using a time marching scheme. This involves solving the governing equations at each time step by marching in time from an initial flow condition with appropriate boundary conditions. The governing equations are cast in a curvilinear body-fitted coordinate system (£,T|,£) and solved using an Alternating Direction Implicit (ADI) scheme 1. This implicit scheme has been validated for a number of fixed wing and rotary wing configurations both in steady and unsteady flight conditions^'*. The partial derivatives in the governing equations are calculated using finite difference approximations. The Graduate Research Assistant, Student Member AIAA. * Regents' professor, Associate Fellow AIAA. Copyright© 1997, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc. inviscid flux terms are calculated using a third order upwind scheme and the viscous stress terms are calculated using standard central difference representations. The details of the upwind formulation are given by Roe". The time derivative is approximated using a two point first order backward difference. The finite difference representation of the governing Navier-Stokes equations at time level 'n' is components at the inflow boundary were set to zero, assuming that there was no swirl at the inlet. It is possible within the framework of the present boundary conditions to prescribe swirl, non-uniform total pressure and total temperature at the inlet. At every time step, the speed of sound a and the normal component of velocity un were found at the inflow boundary from the relations: AT 2a 2a — u = n — u n = I 8 f R + S S + S , T (1) Interior where Aq* is the change in the flow property vector q during adjacent time levels and At is the time step. The operators 8£, 5r| and 8^ are the standard central difference operators. The viscous terms are evaluated explicitly and the inviscid flux vectors F, G and H are calculated implicitly at time level n+1. A three factor approximate factorization is used to factorize the implicit coefficient matrix operator into block tri-diagonal matrices. The factorized system of equations is solved using the Thomas algorithm. Turbulence effects are modeled using the SpalartAllmaras model. INITIAL AND BOUNDARY CONDITIONS The centrifugal compressor is shown in figure 1. The boundary grids are also shown for a single blade passage. The volume grid is made of three segments: inlet region, the rotor, and the diffuser. The following boundary conditions were applied: Periodicity: In the present study, the flow through only a single blade passage has been studied, assuming blade-toblade periodicity. At the periodic boundaries, the flow properties are computed by averaging the properties on either side of the periodic boundary. Solid walls: At the solid walls, the no slip boundary condition was used. The velocity on the walls of the inlet and the diffuser were set to zero, while the velocity for grid points on the compressor blades and the shaft were set equal to Q x r. The pressure, density and temperature values at the solid surfaces were extrapolated from the interior using relationships such as 9p/3n=dT/9n=3p/3n=0, where n represents the direction normal to the solid surface. Inflow Boundary: At this boundary, the stagnation temperature T0 and the total pressure p0 were assumed known. In the simulation of a compressor drawing the air from the atmosphere, these quantities may be set based on ambient conditions. In a multistage compressor analysis, these quantities will be known at the downstream boundary of the previous stage. The tangential (vand w-) (2)