State-of-the-art axial compressors of gas turbines employed in power generation plants and aero engines should have both high efficiency and small footprint. Thus, in many cases, axial compressors are designed to have thin rotor blades and stator vanes with short axial distances, and are driven at high rotational speed. Recently, problems of high cycle fatigue (HCF) associated with forced response excitation have gradually increased as a result of these trends. Rotor blade fatigue can be caused not only by the wake and potential effect of the adjacent stator vane, but also by the stator vanes of two, three or four compressor stages away. Thus, accurate prediction and suppression method of them under the resonance condition are necessary in the design process. Concerning the forced response excitation associated with the adjacent stator vanes, there are many previous studies on simulating the vibration by fluid structure interaction (FSI) simulation. In these studies, the aerodynamic force acting on the blade is simulated by an efficient unsteady computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method such as the nonlinear harmonic (NLH) method. These methods can be available in commercial CFD solvers and can significantly reduce computational cost. However, there are few examples of the problems associated with the stator vanes from two and three compressor stages away and no efficient simulation method is available. In this study, the problem of rotor blade vibration caused by the stator vanes of two and three compressor stages away is studied. Ways to accurately predict and effectively control the vibration are also investigated. In the first part of the study, one-way FSI simulation is carried out using a full annulus CFD model. To validate the accuracy of the simulation, experiments are also conducted using a gas turbine test facility. The vibration level of the blade is measured using a blade tip timing (BTT) measurement system and the obtained results are compared with the simulated data. It is found that one-way FSI simulation can accurately predict the order of the vibration level. In the second part of the study, a method of controlling the forced response excitation is investigated by optimizing the clocking of the stator vanes. It is confirmed that by controlling the clocking of the stator vanes, the vibration amplitude can be effectively suppressed without reducing the compressor performance. Through this study, ways to evaluate and control the unsteady pressure force and vibration response of the rotor blade are validated. By optimizing the clocking of stator vanes, the blade vibration level can be effectively reduced.

The accurate prediction of high cycle fatigue (HCF) is becoming one of the key technologies in the design process of state-of-the-art axial compressors. If they are not properly designed, both rotor blades and stator vanes can be damaged. There are two main factors to cause HCF. One is low engine order (LEO) and the other is high engine order (HEO) excitation by fluid force associated with adjacent rotor-stator interaction. For the front stages of axial compressors for power generations and aero engines, the inlet Mach number of a rotor tip typically exceeds the speed of sound and strong shock waves tend to be induced. This can be the source of HEO excitation fluid force, and adjacent stator vanes are sometimes severely damaged. Thus, the aim of this study is to establish an efficient method for predicting the vibration response in this type of problem with high accuracy. To achieve this, numerical investigations are carried out by one-way fluid structure interaction (FSI) simulation. To validate the accuracy of FSI simulation, experiments are also conducted using a gas turbine engine for power generation. In the experiment, the vibration level is measured with strain gauges mounted on the surface of stator vanes and the data are compared with the predicted results. In the first part of the study, efficient prediction methods of excitation fluid force on the stator vane are investigated by time transformation (TT) and harmonic balance (HB) methods. Their accuracies are evaluated by comparing the results with those calculated by transient rotor stator (TRS) simulation whose pitch ratio is one between rotor and stator computational domains. It is found that the TT method can accurately predict the excitation fluid force with lower computation load even when there are pitch differences between rotor and stator regions. In the second part of the study, forced response analyses are carried out using the excitation fluid force obtained in the unsteady flow simulation. To obtain the total damping of the system, both hammering test and flutter simulations are carried out. Computed results are validated with experimental data and it is found that the predicted vibration level is in good agreement with experimental results. Through this study, the effectiveness of one-way FSI simulation is confirmed for this type of forced response prediction. By utilizing the combination of efficient unsteady computational fluid dynamics (CFD) methods and harmonic response analysis, vibration amplitude can be predicted accurately and efficiently.

In this paper, the performance of vaned diffusers on low specific speed centrifugal compressors, was investigated experimentally and analytically. There is a problem of non-uniform distribution of the flow at impeller exit, as a factor to deteriorate the performance of the diffuser. This problem appears remarkably on the low specific speed type, because the blade height is relatively small and the flow inclines toward circumferential direction. The experiment was carried out with 2nd stage compressor of two-stage centrifugal type, focusing on the effect of number of diffuser vanes, vaneless ratio and throat area. Furthermore, unsteady fluid analysis was carried out by using Non Linear Harmonic method in order to understand about the phenomenon associated with the problem of non-uniform distribution of the flow. NOMENCLATURE A th throat area of diffuser AR area ratio of diffuser from throat to exit b blade height BL blockage factor (= 1-effective area / geometrical area) Cp static pressure recovery coefficient, Cp = (p-p 2) /(P 2-p 2) c v Specific heat at constant volume D diameter G mass flow ' non-dimensional flow, = G (R T 1) 0.5 / (D 2 2 P 1) ad Non-dimensional adiabatic head = adiabatic head / (RT 1) ad = { /(1)}(/(1) 1) M absolute Mach number ' Non-dimensional revolution speed ' = D 2 /(R T 1) 0.5 S specific speed (non-dimensional value) S = ' '0.5 / ad 3/4

State-of-the-art axial compressors of gas turbines employed in power generation plants and aero engines should have both high efficiency and small footprint. Thus, compressors are designed to have thin rotor blades and stator vanes with short axial distances. Recently, problems of high cycle fatigue (HCF) associated with forced response excitation have gradually increased as a result of these trends. Rotor blade fatigue can be caused not only by the wake and potential effect of the adjacent stator vane, but also by the stator vanes of two, three or four compressor stages away. Thus, accurate prediction and suppression methods are necessary in the design process. In this study, the problem of rotor blade vibration caused by the stator vanes of two and three compressor stages away is studied. In the first part of the study, one-way FSI simulation is carried out. To validate the accuracy of the simulation, experiments are also conducted using a gas turbine test facility. It is found that one-way FSI simulation can accurately predict the order of the vibration level. In the second part of the study, a method of controlling the blade vibration is investigated by optimizing the clocking of the stator vanes. It is confirmed that the vibration amplitude can be effectively suppressed without reducing the performance. Through this study, ways to evaluate and control the rotor blade vibration are validated.