Impact of Downstream Potential Perturbations on the Nonlinear Stability of a Generic Fan

Abstract

The dependence of the aerodynamic stability of fan blades with amplitude and nodal diameter of potential perturbations associated with the presence of pylons is studied. The analysis is conducted using a novel block-wise spatial Fourier decomposition of the reduced-passages to reconstruct the full-annulus solution. The method represents very efficiently unsteady flows generated by outlet static pressure non-uniformities. The explicit spatial Fourier approximation is exploited to characterize the relevance of each nodal diameter of outlet perturbations in the fan stall process, and its nonlinear stability is studied in a harmonic by harmonic basis filtering the nonlinear contribution of the rest. The methodology has been assessed for the NASA rotor 67. The maximum amplitude of the downstream perturbation at which the compressor becomes unstable and triggers a stall process has been mapped. It is concluded that the fan stability dependence with the amplitude of the perturbation is weaker than in the case of intake distortion. For perturbations with an odd number of nodal diameters, the nonlinear stability analysis leads to the same conclusions as to the small amplitude linear stability analysis. However, if the perturbations have an even number nodal diameters, the flow exhibits a supercritical bifurcation and have a stabilizing effect.