School of Aerospace Engineering

Study and Control of Surge in

Centrifugal Compressor
November 30, 1999

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Outline

Controller Essentials
Extension to Axial Compressor
Modeling of the Precursor Waves
Future Research - Centrifugal Compressor
Future Research - Axial Compressor
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Controller Essentials
Use only one pressure transducer at the inlet
of the compressor
Use a real-time observer that identifies the
frequency and amplitude of the pressure
signal
Set an alarm signal when precursor waves
are identified
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Controller Essentials (Contd.)

Use a very simple control scheme based on
the alarm signal
Vary the rate of fuel flow or the throttle
opening to reject or suppress the stall
Can suppress the stall but also reject it
Recover the maximum plenum pressure
Require no information about the
compressor characteristic map
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Controller Essentials (Contd.)

Data Acquisition Pressure
Computer Transducer
Pressures
Pressure
Measurements Control Variables
Throttle Valve

Inlet pressure readout

Control Computer

Frequency/Amplitude Self
entraining
servomotor
Observer
combustor
Control Law servomotor
Fuel Valve
Throttle and Fuel
Valve Commands
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Controller Essentials (Contd.)

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Extension to Axial Compressor

The connections to the axial compressor
facility were made
The controller was slightly modified to be
used on the compressor
The controller was implemented as a
throttle control and a bleed valve control
In this case also the controller was able to
reject and suppress the stall
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Modeling of the Precursor Waves

Gain better insight into the physics of the
precursor waves and model them
Plot amplitudes of surge and precursor
waves versus throttle opening for the
centrifugal compressor similar to the plots
of rotating stall amplitude versus throttle
opening in axial compressors

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Precursor Waves Results

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Precursor Waves Results (Contd.)

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Precursor Waves Results (Contd.)

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Future Research - Centrifugal

Compressor
Make the plots for different compressor
speeds to investigate the influence of RPM
Find a model for the precursor waves and
investigate how general it is and if it can be
cascaded with the Moore-Greitzer model to
better capture the dynamics of compressors
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Future Research - Centrifugal

Compressor (Contd.)
Develop a model to include precursors from
first principles
Develop Controllers based on precursor
model

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Future Research - Axial Compressor

We are in the process of purchasing a new
compressor and we are going to replace the
hardware and software used for data
acquisition and for control
We will also analyze experimental data
from the axial facility of NASA Lewis
The experimental data will be used to
investigate the existence and properties of
the precursor waves 14
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