Parametric investigation of circumferential grooves on compressor rotor performance

This paper presents numerical and experimental investigations about grooved casing treatment with the help of a high-speed small-scale compressor rotor. First, the numerical investigation seeks to offer a contribution of understanding the working mechanism by which circumferential grooves improve stall margin. It is found that stall margin gain due to the presence of circumferential grooves arises from the suction-injection effect and the near-tip unloading effect. Based on that, the philosophy of design of experiment is then set up. Finally, parametric studies are carried out through systematical experiments. It is found that the orthogonal experiment and the factorial analyses are successful in identifying the "best casing configuration" in terms of stall margin improvement. However, the ineffectiveness of the deduction from simulations suggests that the secondary flow circulations on stall margin gain should not be neglected, and the overall contribution of each groove to stall margin gain depends on its unloading effect and the compound effect of suction-injection. Further numerical investigation will focus on how to set up quantitative criteria to evaluate the compound effect of suction-injection and the unloading effect on stall margin gain respectively in each groove.