Effects of tip clearance flow on rotating stall inception process in an axial compressor rotor

Flow fields near rotating stall inception in a low-speed axial compressor rotor with two different tip clearances have been investigated by instantaneous measurements of casing wall pressure distributions using 30 high response pressure transducers and by detached eddy simulations (DES) using 120 million grid points. It is found that the stall inception process in the large tip clearance case is dominated by the breakdown of the rotor tip leakage vortex, in contrast to the spike-type stall inception in the small tip clearance case which is dominated by the leading-edge separation near the rotor tip. The vortex breakdown induces the large oscillation of the tip leakage vortex with its unsteady nature, resulting in the low-pressure regions in the instantaneous casing wall pressure field and the high pressure fluctuation region on the pressure side of the adjacent blade tip in the ensemble-averaged casing wall pressure field. The large blockage effect due to the tip leakage vortex breakdown causes the rotating disturbance propagating in the circumferential direction, which can appear and disappear with a slight change in the flow rate.