Aerospace Propulsion
Lecture notes
Principles of Compressors and Fans
Compressors are fluid dynamic devices, i.e., they depend on fluid accelerations to compress and expand gases, in
contrast to positive displacement devices such as the familiar piston engine. The moving blades of a compressor
exert a force on the fluid by virtue of their motion, resulting in an added velocity of the fluid, and consequently
an increase in its energy in stationary coordinates. The force is dependent on the blades velocity, roughly as
the square, that makes this a dynamic machine. In contrast, the energy per unit mass added to the fluid in the
positive-displacement piston-cylinder mechanism is nearly independent of the speed of the piston, depending
only on the volumetric compression ratio.
Positive displacement
Fluid dynamic
Figure 6.1: Positive displacement devices vs. fluid dynamic devices.
Large aircraft engine compressors or fans are mainly of the axial-flow type, with rotating rows of rotor blades
intercalated with stator vanes. A cross-sectional view through the axis is shown in Fig. 6.2.
Figure 6.2: Cross-sectional view through the axis of an axial compressor. IGV denotes the inlet guide vanes; R
denotes the rotor blades; S denotes the stator vanes.
Both rows of blades function to deflect the flow in the tangential direction, the rotors adding angular
momentum in the direction of the rotation, the stators removing it. Because of their motion, the rotating
blades do work on the flow, increasing its energy. The stator vanes in contrast only diffuse the flow, exchanging
momentum for pressure rise.
If we make a cut as indicated in Fig. 6.2, we would obtain a surface, whose cross section would be formed
by a circumferential array of blades. To simplify the rotational symmetry of the actual blade rows, we think
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Aerospace Propulsion
Lecture notes
of a planar cascade, extending to infinity in both directions (Fig. 6.3). In this limit, we leave out the radial
motion of the fluid, and the rotor blades then have a constant velocity (while the stators are stationary).
Figure 6.3: Cross section of the blades.
To describe the effect of the blades, velocity diagrams are used (see Fig. 6.4), which show how the velocities
change across the rotor and stator rows, and in particular the effects of the relative motion of the two. The
subindex a stands for the station before the rotor blades, b stands for the station after the rotor and before
the stator and c stands for the station after the stator. The apex refers to velocities and angles in the
rotating reference frame which are also represented with dotted lines.
Figure 6.4: Velocity diagrams showing how the velocities change across the rotor blade and stator vane rows.
If the velocities at c are the same as at a, we call the stage (rotor + stator) a repeating stage.
6.1
Eulers equation
The energy exchange takes place in the rotor blade rows. The azimuthal force on a blade F is equal to the rate
of change of azimuthal momentum per blade:
F =m
per blade (vb va )
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(6.1)
v. 2016-2017
Aerospace Propulsion
Lecture notes
where v is the azimuthal (or tangential) component of V at any point.
The power delivered to the fluid by a blade is the force times the blade velocity and this must equal the
change in fluid energy per blade, across the rotor, so
Power
Power per blade
= F r
=
rm
perblade (vb va )
= m
perblade Cp (Ttb Tta )
(6.2)
(6.3)
(6.4)
leading to
Cp (Ttb Tta ) = r(vb va )
(6.5)
This is the famous (and important) Euler Equation, for a 2D cascade of rotor blades.
The energy exchange across the rotor is most generally understood as follows. We focus on a streamtube
passing through the rotor, with a mass flow m,
as shown in Fig. 6.5.
Figure 6.5: Sketch of a streamtube passing through the rotor.
The torque on the rotor, T , due to this stream tube is
T = m(r
b vb ra va )
(6.6)
Power = T = m(r
b vb ra va )
(6.7)
Power = mC
p (Ttb Tta ),
(6.8)
Cp (Ttb Tta ) = (rb vb ra va )
(6.9)
Cp (Ttb Tta ) = (rb )2 .
(6.10)
and the power is
Equating this to the total enthalpy rise of the fluid
This is the Euler Equation in its general form. The left hand side is replaced by the more general form
htb hta (the total enthalpy rise in the streamtube across the rotor) when the gas cannot be modeled as being
ideal.
The Euler Equation applies to other geometries than the axial flow one, e.g. the centrifugal or radial
compressor
In this case va = 0 and if the vanes are radial, vb r so we have
For the axial compressor, rb ra , and we have
Cp (Ttb Tta ) r(vb va ),
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(6.11)
v. 2016-2017
Aerospace Propulsion
Lecture notes
Figure 6.6: Sketch of a centrifugal compressor
and then
Ttb
(r)2
1
Tta
Cp Tta
vb va
r
R Ta (r)2
=
Cp Tta RTa
vb va
r
vb v a
r
,
(6.12)
leading to
Ttb
Ta 2
1 ( 1)
M
Tta
Tta T
(6.13)
where MT is the tangential Mach number of the blade motion.
6.2
Velocity triangles
In the previous section we discussed the basic mechanisms of energy exchange in compressors and drew some
simple velocity triangles to show how we go from the stationary coordinate system to one in the moving blades.
In more detail, the velocity triangle for the flow before the rotor and after the rotor is shown in Fig. 6.7 (note
that the axial velocities wa and wb are not necessarily the same as in the sketch).
Now we can write
va
vb
=
=
wa tan a
wb tan b = r
(6.14)
wb tan b0
(6.15)
where b0 is the flow angle in the rotating coordinate system of the rotor blades. The advantage of the latter
form for vb is that it is b0 which is nearly set by the shape of the blades, i.e. b0 is nearly constant. The difference
between the flow angle and the angle of the chord line at the trailing edge of the blades is called the deviation,
and is usually a small number of degrees.
Taking advantage of this small deviation, we can write the Euler equation as
( 1)MT2
wb tan b0
wa tan a
Ttb
=1+
1
,
(6.16)
Tta
r
r
1 2
1+
Ma
2
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Aerospace Propulsion
Lecture notes
Figure 6.7: Velocity triangle.
where Ma is the flow Mach number upstream and MT is the tangential Mach number of the blade motion.
Since the two flow angles expressed this way are nearly constant, the temperature ratio becomes a function
primarily of two variables, the tangential Mach number MT and the ratio of the axial flow velocity to the blade
speed. For the usual case of b0 > 0, a > 0 we get a functional dependence as shown in Fig. 6.8.
Figure 6.8: Temperature ratio vs. ratio of the axial flow velocity to blade speed for various tangential Mach
numbers.
6.3
Isentropic efficiency and compressor map
In reality, compressors provide a lower stagnation pressure raise than the ideal one for a given work input,
/(1)
c = c
, due to entropy increase by viscosity and other factors. Conversely, this means that we need to
provide more work than the ideal (i.e., we need to increase more the total temperature) to achieve the same
pressure ratio. If we consider a given stagnation pressure raise, the ratio of the ideal temperature increase to
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Lecture notes
the actual, necessary one is called the (isentropic) compressor efficiency,
(Tt )ideal
c =
=
(Tt )actual
Tta
ptb
pta
! 1
Ttb Tta
Tta
ptb
pta
! 1
Ttb
1
Tta
(6.17)
Since c < 1, we have c = [1 + c (c 1)] 1 < c1 .
We usually plot Eulers equation in terms of the pressure ratio rather than the temperature ratio, and include
superimposed lines of efficiency, so that the map looks like in Fig. 6.9.
Figure 6.9: Performance map for a typical high-pressure-ratio compressor (refer to the caption of Fig. 3.2.
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