The objective of the presented work is to perform numerical and experimental studies on compressor stators. This paper presents the modification of a baseline stator design using numerical optimization resulting in a new 3D stator. The Rolls Royce in-house compressible flow solver HYDRA was employed to predict the 3D flow, solving the steady RANS equations with the Spalart-Allmaras turbulence model, and its corresponding discrete adjoint solver. The performance gradients with respect to the input design parameters were used to optimize the stator blade with respect to the total pressure loss over a prescribed incidence range, while additionally minimizing the flow deviation from the axial direction at the stator exit. Non-uniform profile boundary conditions, being derived from the experimental measurements, have been defined at the inlet of the CFD domain. The presented results show a remarkable decrease in the axial exit flow angle deviation and a minor decrease in the total pressure loss. Experiments were conducted on two compressor blade sets investigating the three-dimensional flow in an annular compressor stator cascade. Comparing the baseline flow of the 42° turning stator shows that the optimized stator design minimizes the secondary flow phenomena. The experimental investigation discusses the impact of steady flow conditions on each stator design while focusing on the comparison of the 3D optimized design to the baseline case. The flow conditions were investigated using five-hole probe pressure measurements in the wake of the blades. Furthermore, oil-flow visualization was applied to characterize flow phenomena. These experimental results are compared with the CFD calculations.

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Currently, the influence and scaling of active flow control by means of pulsed jet actuators applied to a two-dimensional compressor cascade flow are well understood. However, the presence of a transverse pressure gradient in a 3D annular cascade configuration causes additional effects which need a more profound consideration. The objective of this study is to compare results from the linear cascade setup to the annular one and transfer the AFC technology respectively.

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Novel pressure gain combustion concepts invoke periodic flow disturbances in a gas turbine's last compressor stator row. This contribution presents studies of mitigation efforts on the effects of periodic disturbances on an annular compressor stator rig. The passages were equipped with pneumatic active flow control influencing the stator blade's suction side, and a rotating throttling disc downstream of the passages inducing periodic disturbances. For steady blowing, it is shown that with increasing actuation amplitudes $c_\mu$, a hub corner vortex's extension deteriorating the suction side flow can be reduced, resulting in an increased static pressure rise coefficient~$C_p$ of a passage. The effects of the induced periodic disturbances could not be addressed, by using steady blowing actuation. Considering a corrected total pressure loss coefficient $\zeta^*$, which includes the actuation effort, the stator row's efficiency decreases with higher $c_\mu$. Therefore, a closed-loop approach is presented to address the effects of the disturbances more specifically, thus lowering the actuation effort. For this, a Repetitive Model Predictive Control (RMPC) was applied, taking advantage of the disturbance's periodic nature. The presented RMPC formulation is restricted to a binary control domain to account for the used solenoid valves' switching character. An efficient implementation of the optimization within the RMPC is presented, which ensures real-time capability. As a result, $C_p$ increases in a similar magnitude but with a lower actuation mass flow of up to 66\,\%, resulting in a much lower~$\zeta^*$ for similar values of $c_\mu$.

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Novel pressure gain combustion concepts invoke periodic flow disturbances in a gas turbine’s last compressor stator row. This contribution presents studies of mitigation efforts on the effects of these periodic disturbances on an annular compressor stator rig. The passages were equipped with pneumatic Active Flow Control (AFC) influencing the stator blade’s suction side, and a rotating throttling disc downstream of the passages inducing periodic disturbances. For steady blowing, it is shown that with increasing actuation amplitudes Cμ, the extension of a hub corner vortex deteriorating the suction side flow can be reduced, resulting in an increased static pressure rise coefficient Cp of a passage. The effects of the induced periodic disturbances could not be addressed intrinsically, by using steady blowing actuation, Considering a corrected total pressure loss coefficient ζ*, which includes the actuation effort, the stator row’s efficiency decreases with higher cμ due to the increasing costs of the actuation mass flow. Therefore, a closed-loop approach is presented to address the effects of the disturbances more specifically, thus lowering the actuation cost, i.e., mass flow. For this, a Repetitive Model Predictive Control (RMPC) was applied, taking advantage of the periodic nature of the induced disturbances. The presented RMPC formulation is restricted to a binary control domain to account for the used solenoid valves’ switching character. An efficient implementation of the optimization within the RMPC is presented, which ensures real-time capability. As a result, Cp increases in a similar magnitude but with a lower actuation mass flow of up to 66%, resulting in a much lower ζ* for similar values of cμ.