EFFECT OF BACKWARD SWEEP ON AERODYNAMIC PERFORMANCE OF A 1.5-STAGE HIGHLY LOADED AXIAL COMPRESSOR

As a degree of freedom in the three-dimensional blade design of axial compressors, the sweep technique significantly affects the aerodynamic performance of axial compressors. In this paper, the effects of backward sweep rotor configurations on the aerodynamic performance of a 1.5-stage highly loaded axial compressor at different rotational design speeds are studied by numerical simulation. The aim of this work is to improve understanding of the flow mechanism of backward sweep on the aerodynamic performance of a highly loaded axial compressor. A commercial CFD package is employed for flow simulations and analysis. The study found that at the design rotational speed, compared with baseline, backward sweep rotor configurations reduce the blade loading near the leading edge but slightly increases the blade loading near the trailing edge in the hub region. As the degree of backward sweep increases, the stall margin of the 1.5-stage axial compressor increase first and then decrease. Among different backward sweep rotor configurations, the 10% backward sweep rotor configuration has the highest stall margin, which is about 2.5% higher than that of baseline. This is due to the change of downstream stator incidence, which improves flow capacity near the hub region. At 80% rotational design speed, backward sweep rotor configurations improve stall margin and total pressure ratio of the compressor. It's mainly due to the decreases of the rotor incidence near the middle span, which results in the decreases of separation on the suction surface. At 60% rotational design speed, detached shock disappears. Backward sweep rotor configurations deteriorate stall margin of the compressor, but increase total pressure ratio and adiabatic efficiency when the flow rate is lower than that at peak efficiency condition. Therefore, it's necessary to consider the flow field structure of axial compressors at whole operating conditions in the design process and use the design freedom of sweep to improve the aerodynamic performance.