Master of Sciences (Engineering), Case Western Reserve University, 0, EMC - Aerospace Engineering
The preliminary design of multistage axial compressors in gas turbine engines is typically accomplished with mean-line methods. These methods, which rely on empirical correlations, estimate compressor performance well near the design point, but may become less reliable off-design. For land-based applications of gas turbine engines, off-design performance estimates are becoming increasingly important, as turbine plant operators desire peaking or load-following capabilities and hot-day operability. The current work implements a one-dimensional stage stacking procedure, including a new blockage term, which is used to estimate off-design compressor performance and operability range of a 13-stage axial compressor used for power generation. The procedure utilizes stage characteristics which are constructed from computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations of groups of stages. The stage stacking estimates match well with CFD results. These CFD results are used to assess a metric which estimates the stall limiting stages.
Committee: Jaikrishnan R. Kadambi PhD (Committee Chair); J. Iwan D. Alexander PhD (Committee Member); John J. Adamczyk PhD (Advisor); Joseph M. Prahl PhD (Committee Member); Mark L. Celestina PhD (Advisor)
Subjects: Aerospace Engineering; Mechanical Engineering