A Boundary Layer Ingesting fan is designed to function in a tail cone thruster configuration on an existing aircraft. This means that the fan ingests part of the boundary layer developing over the fuselage all around the circumference. While the fuselage drag induced on the ingested flow makes it possible to obtain a higher propulsive efficiency, it also means that the fan will operate in a severely distorted flow. In the configuration studied here the incoming flow will generally have a lower impulse near the hub, but also substantial non-axisymmetric components. The incoming flow profile is evaluated from a CFD model of a complete Fokker 100 aircraft modified with a tail cone thruster installed. Having the aircraft modeled in detail allows the extraction of the flow entering the fan inlet, which makes up the inlet boundary condition to design for. In order to make a rational design of the fan, the incoming flow is circumferentially averaged at each radial location to form the radial profile used in the design. A fan map is created to evaluate critical points in the operating envelope in order to demonstrate that the given design is stable in operation. Operation of the fan in static ground conditions is within the operating envelope of the fan without variable nozzle area.
A new aerodynamic open-circuit test rig for studying boundary layer ingestion (BLI) propulsion has been developed by National Research Council of Canada. The purpose is to demonstrate the advantages of BLI in reducing the power required for a given thrust and to validate the performance of BLI fan concepts. The rig consists of a boundary layer generator to simulate boundary layer development over an aircraft fuselage. The boundary layer generator can be used to create a natural boundary layer due to skin friction but also comprises an array of perforated plates through which pressurised air can be blown to manipulate the boundary layer thickness. The size of the boundary layer thickness can be controlled upstream of the fan blades. Parametric studies of boundary layer thickness were then feasible. The test calibration was conducted to validate the concept.
This paper presents the description and application of a new method for stability and forced response analyses of aerodynamically coupled blades considering the interaction of various mode families. The method, here referred as MLS (Multimode Least Square), considers the unsteady forces due to the blade motion at different modes shape families and calculates the aerodynamic matrixes by means of a least square (L2) approximations. This approach permits the prediction of mode families’ interaction with capabilities of structural, aerodynamic and force mistuning. A projection technique is implemented in order to reduce the computational domain. Application of the method on tuned and structural mistuned forced response and stability analyses is presented on a highly loaded transonic compressor blade. When considering structural mistuning the forced response amplitude magnification is highly affected by the change in aerodynamic damping due to mistuning. Analyses of structural mistuning without aerodynamic coupling might result in over-estimated or under-estimated response when the source of damping is mainly aerodynamic. The frequency split due to mistuning can cause that mode families’ interact due to reducing their frequencies separation. The advantage of the present method is that the effect of mode family interaction on aerodynamic damping and forced response is captured not being restricted to single mode families.
Integrating a fan with a boundary layer ingestion (BLI) configuration into an aircraft fuselage can improve propulsion efficiency by utilizing the lower momentum airflow in the boundary layer developed due to the surface drag of the fuselage. As a consequence, velocity and total pressure variations distort the flow field entering the fan in both the circumferential and radial directions. Such variations can negatively affect fan aerodynamics and give rise to vibration issues. A fan configuration to benefit from BLI needs to allow for distortion without large penalties. Full annulus unsteady computational fluid dynamics (CFD) with all blades and vanes is used to evaluate the effects on aerodynamic loading and forcing on a fan designed to be mounted on an adapted rear fuselage of a Fokker 100 aircraft, i.e., a tail cone thruster. The distortion pattern used as a boundary condition on the fan is taken from a CFD analysis of the whole aircraft with a simplified model of the installed fan. Detailed simulations of the fan are conducted to better understand the relation between ingested distortion and the harmonic forcing. The results suggest that the normalized harmonic forcing spectrum is primarily correlated to the circumferential variation of inlet total pressure. In this study, the evaluated harmonic forces correlate with the total pressure variation at the inlet for the first 12 engine orders, with some exceptions where the response is very low. At higher harmonics, the distortion content as well as the response become very low, with amplitudes in the order of magnitude lower than the principal disturbances. The change in harmonic forcing resulting from raising the working line, thus, increasing the incidence on the fan rotor, increases the forcing moderately. The distortion transfers through the fan resulting in a non-axisymmetric aerodynamic loading of the outlet guide vane (OGV) that has a clear effect on the aerodynamics. The time average aerodynamic load and also the harmonic forcing of the OGV vary strongly around the circumference. In particular, this is the case for some of the vanes at higher back pressure, most likely due to an interaction with separations starting to occur on vanes operating in unfavorable conditions.
An investigation of the sensitivity of a geometrical scaling technique on the blade forcing prediction and mode excitability has been performed. A stage of a transonic compressor is employed as test object. A scaling ratio is defined which indicates the amount of scaling from the original geometry. Different scaling ratios are selected and 3D Navier Stokes unsteady calculations completed for each scaled configuration. A full annulus calculation (non-scaled) is performed serving as reference. The quantity of interest is the generalized force, which gives a direct indication of the mode excitability. In order to capture both up- and downstream excitation effects the mode excitability has been assessed on both rotor and stator blades. The results show that first harmonic excitation can be predicted well for both up- and downstream excitation using moderate amount of scaling. On the other hand, the predictions of second harmonic quantities do show a higher sensitivity to scaling for the investigated test case.
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