The fundamental gust modeling assumption is investigated by means of a series of experiments performed in the Purdue Annular Cascade Research Facility. The unsteady periodic flow field is generated by rotating rows of perforated plates and airfoil cascades. In this paper, the measured unsteady flow fields are compared to linear-theory vortical gust requirements, with the resulting unsteady gust response of a downstream stator cascade correlated with linear theory predictions in an accompanying paper. The perforated-plate forcing functions closely resemble linear-theory forcing functions, with the static pressure fluctuations small and the periodic velocity vectors parallel to the downstream mean-relative flow angle over the entire periodic cycle. In contrast, the airfoil forcing functions exhibit characteristics far from linear-theory vortical gusts, with the alignment of the velocity vectors and the static pressure fluctuation amplitudes dependent on the rotor-loading condition, rotor solidity, and the inlet mean-relative flow angle. Thus, these unique data clearly show that airfoil wakes, both compressor and turbine, are not able to be modeled with the boundary conditions of current state-of-the-art linear unsteady aerodynamic theory.

The effects of high steady loading and separated flow on the unsteady aerodynamic response of turbomachine blade rows are experimentally investigated. This is accomplished utilizing a unique single-stage turbomachine research facility in which the flow is not generated by the blading but rather by an additional fan. Thus, for a particular stator incidence angle, the steady or mean stator aerodynamic performance were determined in a completely steady flow with no rotor and also with unsteady flow generated by a rotor composed of perforated plates at the same mean operating condition, thereby identifying the stator vane row dynamic stall conditions. The unsteady aerodynamic response of the very low-solidity stator vane row is then investigated over a range of incidence angle values, including attached and separated flows with dynamic stall.

The fundamental gust modeling assumption is investigated by means of a series of experiments performed in the Purdue Annular Cascade Research Facility. The unsteady periodic flow field is generated by rotating rows of perforated plates and airfoil cascades, with the resulting unsteady periodic chordwise pressure response of a downstream low solidity stator row determined by miniature pressure transducers embedded within selected airfoils. When the forcing function exhibited the characteristics of a linear-theory gust, as was the case for the perforated-plate wake generators, the resulting response on the downstream stator airfoils was in excellent agreement with the linear-theory models. In contrast, when the forcing function did not exhibit linear-theory gust characteristics, i.e., for the airfoil wake generators, the resulting unsteady aerodynamic response of the downstream stators were much more complex and correlated poorly with the linear-theory gust predictions. Thus, this investigation has quantitatively shown that the forcing function generator significantly affects the resulting gust response, with the complexity of the response characteristics increasing from the perforated-plate to the airfoil-cascade forcing functions.

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