Reynolds Number Effects on Aerodynamic Characteristics of Compressor Cascades for High Altitude Long Endurance Aircraft

In the jet engines on the aircrafts cruising at high altitude over 20 km and subsonic speed, the Reynolds number in terms of the compressor blades becomes very low. In such an operating condition with low Reynolds number, it is widely reported that total pressure loss of the air flow through the compressor cascades increases dramatically due to separation of the boundary layer and the secondary-flow. But the detail of flow mechanisms causes the total pressure loss has not been fully understood yet. In the present study, two series of numerical investigations were conducted to study the effects of Reynolds number on the aerodynamic characteristics of compressor cascades. At first, the incompressible flow fields in the two-dimensional compressor cascade composed of C4 airfoils were numerically simulated with various values of Reynolds number. Compared with the corresponding experimental data, the numerically estimated trend of total pressure loss as a function of Reynolds number showed good agreement with that of experiment. From the visualized numerical results, the thickness of boundary layer and wake were found to increase with the decrease of Reynolds number. Especially at very low Reynolds number, the separation of boundary layer and vortex shedding were observed. The other series, as the preparatory investigation, the flow fields in the transonic compressor, NASA Rotor 37, were simulated under the several conditions, which corresponded to the operation at sea level static and at 10 km of altitude with low density and temperature. It was found that, in the case of operation at high altitude, the separation region on the blade surface became lager, and that the radial and reverse flow around the trailing edge become stronger than those under sea level static condition.