Study on Unsteady Pressure due to Fan Rotor-Stator Interaction

This paper describes the characteristics of the unsteady pressure on the stator surface induced by rotor viscous wakes. The primary object of this study is to investigate the effects of axial spacing between the rotor and the stator and three-dimensional vane geometries such as stator sweep and stator lean on the unsteady pressure fluctuations on the stator vane. To predict these fluctuations, unsteady three-dimensional Navier-Stokes analyses are performed. Furthermore, a three-dimensional analytical method using unsteady lifting-surface theory is also used to elucidate the mechanism of interaction of passing rotor wakes with downstream stator. Five different fan configurations with three sets of stator geometries, which are three radial stator configurations with different axial spacing, the swept stator and the swept and leaned stator, are used for this study. It is found that, in axial spacing between rotor and stator, the effect of radial phase skew of incoming rotor wake is important for the reduction of the induced unsteady pressure in addition to the rotor wake decay. It is also shown that incorporation of stator sweep and lean is effective to reduce this unsteady pressure.