Investigation of irreversible losses in subsonic compressor cascade flow field: A study on viscous dissipation and temperature gradient term in entropy production rate

The entropy generation rate is a widely employed loss characterization approach in the design and optimization of fluid machinery. This approach is utilized to quantitatively determine various types of losses in the flow field, and it is considered that the temperature gradient term in the entropy generation rate can characterize irreversible losses. This research paper aims to address the question of whether the temperature gradient term in entropy production rate can represent the irreversible losses in a flow field. By employing the Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) numerical simulation method, the flow field of a subsonic compressor cascade, both with and without wall heating, was investigated. Statistical analysis was conducted to examine the contributions of viscous dissipation, the temperature gradient term in entropy production rate, wall shear stress work, and global power loss. The study reveals the distribution differences of viscous dissipation and the temperature gradient term in entropy production rate within the separated flow region. The research results demonstrate that, under wall heating conditions, viscous dissipation increased by approximately 45%, and the ratio of the temperature gradient term to global power loss increased from 4% to 125%, exceeding the mechanical energy loss in the flow field. The distribution of the temperature gradient term within the separated flow region cannot be explained by irreversible losses, and it exhibits significant discrepancies with the distribution of viscous dissipation losses. Therefore, the temperature gradient term in entropy production rate cannot represent the local irreversible losses, whereas viscous dissipation serves as an accurate measure of local irreversible losses. The research results provide theoretical support for accurately determining the irreversible losses in the flow field.