Effect of counter-rotating fan’s speed matching on stall inception and characteristics of tip clearance flow

Abstract

In order to study the effect of speed matching on behavior of tip clearance flow and its possible link to stall inception in counter-rotating fan, the Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equations are solved by the numerical method in conjunction with a SST turbulence model, the effect of speed matching on performance and stability margin are investigated, so are the difference of the tip clearance flow in different speed matching. Furthermore, the effect of speed matching on behavior of tip clearance flow and its possible link to stall inception are investigated. Research results show that: when the rotational speed of Rotor 2 is less than that of Rotor 1, with the decrease of rotational speed of Rotor 2 has no notable effect on tip clearance flow fields of the two rotors, therefore offset of stalling boundary is minor and strong blockage effect is observed in Rotor 1; when the rotational speed of Rotor 1 is less than that of Rotor 2, decrease of rotational speed of Rotor 1 show significant effect on the two rotors, which leads to major offset of stalling boundary, tip leakage flow performance of Rotor 1 improved, while that of Rotor 2 weakened and large blockage area occurs. By comparison, speed variation of Rotor 1 has more effect on stalling boundary of counter-rotating fan