Design and Pre-Test Evaluation of a Low-Pressure Compressor Test Facility for Cryogenic Hydrogen Fuel Integration

Abstract

The use of hydrogen as aviation fuel is again resurfacing with unprecedented vigor. It is well known that hydrogen is a formidable heat sink and the use of heat sinks in the compression system of an aero engine may enable not only preheating of the fuel but also improve the gas turbine cycle itself. One such opportunity arises from extracting heat to the fuel as part of the compression process. This work presents the design process and pre-test evaluation of a low-speed compressor test facility dedicated to aerothermal measurements. The design has been derived from a high-speed transonic compressor developed for a large sized geared turbofan engine. The proposed pre-test evaluation methodology provides a comprehensive and affordable way to estimate facility accuracy by virtually addressing all the experimental procedures, from data acquisition to a final performance map. The evaluation of gathering compressor performance parameters via a gas-path investigation process was achieved while relying on results from numerical simulations. The pre-test evaluation details uncertainties introduced throughout this process with transducers, flow and probe specific errors, traverse discretization, and data normalization. A suitable instrumentation configuration is presented which shows that the performance parameters pressure ratio (Π) and isentropic efficiency (ηc) can be determined with uncertainties below 1% for most operating conditions and below 0.5% at design conditions.