1999 Turbomachinery Committee Best Paper Award: Development of Advanced Compressor Airfoils for Heavy-Duty Gas Turbines— Part I: Design and Optimization

Abstract

A new family of subsonic compressor airfoils, which are characterized by low losses and wide operating ranges, has been designed for use in heavy-duty gas turbines. In particular the influence of the higher airfoil Reynolds numbers compared to aeroengine compressors and the impact of these differences on the location of transition are taken into account. The design process itself is carried out by the combination of a geometric code for the airfoil description, with a blade-to-blade solver and a numerical optimization algorithm. The optimization process includes the design-point losses for a specified Q3D flow problem and the off-design performance for the entire operating range. The family covers a wide range of inlet flow angle, Mach number, flow turning, blade thickness, solidity and AVDR in order to consider the entire range of flow conditions that occur in practical compressor design. The superior performance of the new airfoil family is demonstrated by a comparison with conventional controlled diffusion airfoils (CDA). The advantage in performance has been confirmed by detailed experimental investigations, which will be presented in Part II of the paper. This leads to the conclusion that CDA airfoils that have been primarily developed for aeroengine applications are not the optimum solution, if directly transferred to heavy-duty gas turbines. A significant improvement in compressor efficiency is possible, if the new profiles are used instead of conventional airfoils. [S0889-504X(00)02102-4]

Maximum Thickness Location Selection of High Subsonic Axial Compressor Airfoils and Its Effect on Aerodynamic Performance

“…With shock-free and controlled diffusion features, controlled-diffusion airfoil (CDA) introduced in the early 1980s was originally designed for supercritical cascades (Dunker et al, 1984;Niederdrenk et al, 1987;Elazar and Shreeve, 1990;Steinert et al, 1991;Jiang et al, 2015). As CDA blades were primarily developed for aero-engines but not the optimum solution for heavy-duty gas turbines, Köller et al (2000) and Kusters et al (2000) designed a high subsonic compressor airfoil family (Ma ≤ 0.8, θ≤ 30 °, e/b 25%). The optimization results demonstrated that the well-controlled front loading airfoil obtained good performance through promoting early transition without strong laminar separation.…”

CFD-based blade shape optimization of MGT-70(3)axial flow compressor

“…In direct design method, optimum geometry is achieved by evaluation of secondary aerodynamic properties such as profile loss. Koller et al (2000) and Kusters et al (2000) applied this method to generate new developed sections for axial flow compressors in subsonic regimes. They found that the Reynolds number and turbulence intensity can change the shape of airfoil by means of minimum loss value and maximum operating range.…”

Design optimization of a multi-stage axial compressor using throughflow and a database of optimal airfoils

“…The compressor consists of different types of airfoils along the stages: special airfoil designs in the front, multi-circular arc thickness distributions in the mid and NACA 65 thickness distributions in the rear. In the 90s numerical optimization emerged in compressor design: Köller et al (2000) employed direct numerical optimization in combination with the blade-to-blade flow solver MISES to generate a set of optimal airfoil geometries for systematically varying cascade properties. At component level, early work conducting throughflow design optimization includes the studies of Oyama and Liou (2002).…”

“…At component level, early work conducting throughflow design optimization includes the studies of Oyama and Liou (2002). Blade-to-blade optimized airfoil sections with a strategy similar to Köller et al (2000) have been applied to the mid stages of an industrial compressor in (Sieverding et al, 2004). The new blade designs have been evaluated with 3D CFD and measurements.…”

“…This is realized by using the airfoil family presented in (Schnoes and Nicke, 2017b). It was generated by filling a database with optimized airfoil shapes similar to the work of Köller et al (2000). On this basis, a functional relation between a set of design requirements and corresponding optimal airfoil shape was derived.…”