Compressor surge 

is a form of aerodynamic instability in axial

Description
Compressor surge can be classified into deep surge and mild surge. Compressor surge
with negative mass flow rates is considered as deep surge while the one without
reverse flows is generally termed mild surge. On a performance map, the stable
operating range of a compressor is limited by the surge line. Although the line is named
after a surge, technically, it is an instability boundary which denotes onsets of
discernible flow instabilities, such as compressor surge or rotating stall. When the mass
flow rate drops to a critical value at which discernible flow instabilities take place,
nominally, the critical value should be determined as a surge mass flow rate on a
constant speed line; however, in practice, the surge line on a performance map is
affected by specific criteria adopted for determining discernible flow instabilities.

Effects
Compressor surge is a disaster to the compressor and the whole machine. When
compressor surge happens, the operating point of a compressor, which is usually
denoted by the pair of the mass flow rate and pressure ratio, orbits along a surge cycle
on the compressor performance map. The unstable performance caused by compressor
surge is not acceptable to machines on which a compressor is mounted to ventilate or
dense air. In addition to affecting performance, compressor surge is also accompanied
with loud noises. Frequencies of compressor surge can range from a few to dozens
Hertz depending on the configuration of a compression system. Although Helmholtz
resonance frequency is often employed to characterize the unsteadiness of mild surge;
it was found that Helmholtz oscillation did not trigger compressor surge in some cases.
Another effect of compressor surge is on solid structure. Violent flows of compressor
surge repeatedly hit blades in the compressor, resulting in blade fatigue or even
mechanical failure. While fully developed compressor surge is axisymmetric, its initial
phase is not necessarily axisymmetric. Actually, severe damage of compressor surge is
often related to very large transverse loads on blades and casing in its initial transient. A
chain reaction of compressor surge is the flameout of a jet engine. Due to a lack of air
intake in the case of compressor surge, there will be unburnt fuel in the combustion
chamber, and that unburnt fuel will burn and cause flameout near the exit of the engine
where oxygen is sufficient.
Causes
In most low-speed and low-pressure cases, rotating stall comes prior to compressor
surge; however, a general cause-effect relation between rotating stall and compressor
surge has not been determined yet. On a constant speed line of a compressor, the
mass flow rate decreases as the pressure delivered by the compressor gets higher.
Internal flows of the compressor are in a very large adverse pressure gradient which
tends to destabilize the flow and cause flow separation. A fully developed compressor
surge can be modeled as a one-dimensional global instability of a compression system
which typically consists of inlet ducts, compressors, exit ducts, gas reservoir, and
throttle valve. A cycle of compressor surge can be divided into several phases. If the
throttle valve is turned to be a very small opening, the gas reservoir would have a
positive net flux. The pressure in the reservoir keeps increasing and then exceeds the
pressure at compressor exit, thus resulting in an adverse pressure gradient in exit
ducts. This adverse pressure gradient naturally decelerates flows in the whole system
and reduces the mass flow rate. The slope of a constant speed line near surge line is
usually zero or even positive, which implies that the compressor cannot provide a much
higher pressure as lowering the mass flow rate. Thus, the adverse pressure gradient
could not be suppressed by the compressor and the system would rapidly involve an
overshoot of adverse pressure gradient which would dramatically reduce the mass flow
rate or even cause flows to reverse. On the other hand, the pressure in the reservoir
would gradually drop due to less flux delivered by the compressor, thus rebuilding a
favorable pressure gradient in exit ducts. And then the mass flow rate would be
recovered, and the compressor is back to work on a constant speed line again, which
would eventually trigger the next surge cycle. Therefore, compressor surge is a process
which keeps breaking the flow path of a compression system down and rebuilding
it. Several rules of thumb can be inferred from the interpretation above. Compressor
surge in a system with a small gas reservoir is high-frequency and low-amplitude
whereas a large gas reservoir leads to low-frequency and high-amplitude compressor
surge; another rule of thumb is that compressor surge happens in a compressor with a
large external volume and compressor stall tends to show up in a system with a short
exit duct. It is also worth noting that the surge line of a compressor can have small
variations in different systems, such as a test bench or an engine.

Preventing surge
In the oil and gas industry the operation of gas compressors in surge conditions is
prevented by instrumentation around the compressor. The measured flow rate of gas in
the compressor suction line together with the pressure, and sometimes the temperature,
in both the suction and discharge lines is fed into the surge controller. Algorithms in the
controller use the data to establish the performance of the machine; the data identifies
the operating point in terms of the flow and the developed head. When the
compressor’s operation approaches the surge point the controller modulates a flow
control valve in the recycle line which allows gas to spill back from the discharge to the
suction of the compressor thereby maintaining the forward flow of gas through the
machine. The recycle line is ideally located to take cooled gas from downsteam of the
compressor after-cooler and to discharge it into the feed to the compressor suction
drum.