Abstract
Tip leakage flow is one of the main sources of flow losses in an axial compressor, and the understanding of the tip leakage flow helps to explore better flow control methods and design more advanced compressors. Therefore, the vortex structures and loss mechanisms were analyzed in a compressor cascade with tip clearance in the present paper. Large eddy simulation was used to better resolve the vortices with more accurate numerical results. The iso-surface of Q criterion in the compressor cascade is captured for recognizing and analyzing the vortex structures. The horse shoe vortices, tip leakage vortex, induced vortex, tip separation vortex and passage vortex were well captured and their interactions were interpreted. Fast Fourier Transformation was also applied to analyze the frequency signal in the flow field. Afterwards, the case with an upstream bleeding slot was also calculated and compared with the original case without a bleeding slot. The bleeding rate is 2.8% of the mass flow rate at inlet. The removal of the inlet boundary layer resulting from the bleeding leads a 42.4% reduction of the total pressure loss coefficient compared with that of the case without the bleeding slot. In the case with the bleeding slot, the size of the passage vortex is greatly reduced, and the mixing between the tip leakage vortex and passage vortex is postponed. Better performance is achieved with the bleeding slot accordingly.