2009 Second International Conference on Computer and Electrical Engineering

Analysis of 3D Numerical Simulation for an Airfoil Probe in a Compressor

Ju Luo
College of Energy and Power Engineering
Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics
Nanjing, China
sukiska@163.com

Abstract—A numerical simulation has been done using

CFX11.0 to study the effect of an airfoil probe installed at the
leading edge of first stage stator in a compressor. Combination
of structured and unstructured grids has been used during the
calculation. Result shows that blade loading with and without
probe is obviously different at 50% height of blade, while the
effect at 20% and 80% height of blade is not obvious. The
result has proved that probe indeed has an effect on
performance of a compressor, and especially on a compressor
with a high speed, high pressure ratio .A corresponding test
will be done to validate the result and for a further study.

Keywords;compressor; airfoil probe ;numerical simulation

I. INTRODUCTION
Fig.1 Section of compressor
Early in the last century, the main engine companies had
used the airfoil in the research of compressing components
[1], [2], after years of development the technology is quite
mature. Paper [3] has introduced a measurement result
between stages in a transonic compressor using a type of
airfoil. According to many published literature the effect of
probe can be divided into two aspects. One is to research the
effect of blockage of prove in the measurement precision and
the other one is for the effect of blockage on the performance
of compressor. Here the latter one is the target for this
paper .Base on the objective, the measurement precision will
not be discussed and it can be believed with the reasonable
calibration the measured data from probe is accurate. CFD
numerical stimulation will be done with CFX software. An
according test will be made in the next step to validate the
result and for a further research.

Fig 2.Installation location of probe

II. MODEL AND NUMERICAL CALCULATION METHOD
The calculation model is based on a small size
compressor, as shown in Fig.1 .Section Pm is the flow
measurement section and the static pressure will be
measured at this one for calculation of the flow rate. And
the location where airfoil probe will be installed is illustrated
in the Fig.2 .In the stimulation we temporarily calculate the
condition just for a probe installed at the leading edge of the
stator at 20%, 50% and 80% height.
Steady calculation is chosen in this paper and the data is
delivered at the interface between then rotor and stator
using mixing plane approach. For steady calculation of
multi-stage axial compressor only a blade passage is usually
calculated for each blade row and each blade interface is
dealt with mixing plane approach in which average
circumferential parameter of air flow is delivered to the
next blade, namely a blade row will gain the average
circumferential parameter as its boundary condition. The

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DOI 10.1109/ICCEE.2009.280
 steady parameters measured by the airfoil probe in this
paper should be the understood to be the average
circumferential parameter, which means that the mixing
plane approach is the most suitable one in the stimulation.
In order to simplify the problem, the probe has been
simplified to a cylinder at the leading edge of stator of the
first stage, illustrated as in Fig.3. What’s different from the
former calculation is that we need add a probe with a special
geometry shape in the blade row, which brings much
difficulty during the calculation. The existing of probe makes
the calculation domain very irregular. For the convenience of
generating grids, the unstructured grids are generated with
ICEM in passage where an airfoil probe is installed at the
leading edge of stator, illustrated in Fig.3, while the Fig.5 Unstructured mesh around the blade
structured grids in the passage of rotor where none of probes
is installed are generated automatically with the Turbogrid
module in CFX.
III. RESULTS AND ANALYSIS

To verify the reliability of unstructured mesh, the results

using structured, unstructured mesh are contrasted with the
experimental data , the pressure ration of the three are
illustrated in Fig.6.

1.025

1.020

1.015
*
π

Fig .3 Probe at the leading edge of stator 1.010

0.80

Compared with the structured and unstructured mesh we 0.60

structure mesh
Exp-1174 19:22:18:20
η*

can find that that unstructured grid has a much lower mesh 1.005
unstructure mash
density than the one of structured grid at the same quantity of 0.40

mesh, shown as follow in Fig.4 and Fig.5. So quantity of 0.20

unstructured mesh is increased markedly for the precision to 1.000

10 15 20 25 30 35
ensure the blade passage of unstructured mesh has the same 0.00
5 10
Corrected
15
Mass
Corrected
20
Flow(Kg/s)
Mass Flow(Kg/s)
25 30

grid density of the one of structured mesh.

Fig.6 .Pressure ratio from structured, unstructured mesh and test

Two kind of mesh use the same calculation domain and

Fig 4 Structured mesh around the blade
boundary condition setting as follow:
Numerical discretization method: high resolution scheme;
Turbulence model: SST
Inlet boundary condition:
total temperature--288.15K
total pressure--101325Pa
direction of velocity--axial
Outlet boundary condition:
static pressure--100000Pa
From Fig.6 we can see that unstructured and structured has
a high precision so it is reliable to calculation with the
combination of unstructured and structured mesh.
As to investigate the influence of airfoil probe to the
performance of compressor, we choose the location of stator

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of first stage at the height of 20%, 50% and 80% blade with
diameters of 3mm and 5mm to stimulation. The same
boundary condition is used for the stimulation which is the
same as before. Fig.7, Fig.8 and Fig.9 show the blade
loading at 20%, 50%and 80% height of blade respectively.
103000
unstructure mesh,80%span
3mm probe,80%span
5mm probe,80%span
102000

101000

pressure(Pa)
100000
104000
unstructure mesh,20%span
3mm probe,20%span
5mm probe,20%span
103000 99000

102000
98000
pressure(Pa)

101000
97000
0.08 0.1 0.12 0.14 0.16 0.18 0.2 0.22
z(m)
100000

99000
Fig.9 Blade loading at 80% height of blade
98000

97000
0.08 0.1 0.12 0.14 0.16 0.18 0.2 0.22
z(m)
IV. CONCLUDING REMARKS
The computation results have confirmed that probe has
Fig.7 Blade loading at 20% height of blade indeed an effect on the performance of compressor, which
means blockage foe the airflow and flow loss. While because
the probe’s geometry size is so small to the flow-field
geometry size of compressor, it may only influence a
relatively tiny area instead of the whole domain. Just like the
figures illustrated above, there is a relatively obvious change
at the 50% height of blade. Considering the high-speed
103000 aviation engine all have a small type unlike the compressor
unstructure mesh,50%span
3mm probe,50%span in this paper, a probe of regular size may exert a remarkable
5mm probe,50%span
102000
effect. Like Cumpsty says [4], even small changes can cause
a very big effect on performance of compressor. Test will be
101000
done in the next step to validate the numerical result and to
make a deeper research.
pressure(Pa)

100000

REFERENCES
99000

[1] Dudzinski T J. Effect of Inlet Geometry on Flow-angle

98000
Characteristics of Miniature Total Pressure Tube[R]. NASA-TN-D-
6406.
97000 [2] Kerrebrock, J.L., Epstein, A.H. and Thompkin, W .T . ,A Miniature
0.08 0.1 0.12 0.14 0.16 0.18 0.2 0.22
z(m) High Frequncy Sphere Probe, ASME Journal of Engineering for
Power, Vol. 130, April 1981.
[3] Lecheler S, Schnell R,Stubert B. Experimental and Numerical
Fig.8 Blade loadinging at 50% height of blade Investigation of Flow in a 5-stage Transonic Compressor
Rig[R].ASME 2001-GT-0344,2001.
[4] Cumpsty N A. Compressor Aerodynamics[M]. Longman Scientific&
Technical and Co-published with John Wiley&Sons, 1989.

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