Effects of inlet radial distortion on the type of stall precursor in low-speed axial compressor:

Experimental investigations of the effect of inlet blade loading on the rotating stall inception process are carried out on a single-stage low-speed axial compressor. Temporal pressure signals from the six high response pressure transducers are used for the analysis. Pressure variations at the hub are especially recorded during the stall inception process. Inlet blade loading is altered by installing metallic meshed distortion screens at the rotor upstream. Three sets of experiments are performed for the comparison of results, i.e. uniform inlet flow, tip, and hub distortions, respectively. Regardless of the type of distortion introduced to the inflow, the compressor undergoes a performance drop, which is more severe in the hub distortion case. Under the uniform inlet flow condition, stall inception is caused by the modal type disturbance while the stall precursor switched to spike type due to the highly loaded blade tip. In the presence of high blade loading at the hub, spike disappeared and the compress...