Rotating stall control of an axial flow compressor using pulsed air injection

This paper presents the use of pulsed air injection to control rotating stall in a low-speed, axial flow compressor. In the first part of the paper the injection of air is modeled as an unsteady shift of the compressor characteristic, and incorporated into a low dimensional model of the compressor. By observing the change in the bifurcation behavior of this model subject to nonlinear feedback, the viability of various air injection orientations is established. An orientation consistent with this analysis is then used for feedback control. By measuring the unsteady pressures near the rotor face, a control algorithm determines the magnitude and phase of the first mode of rotating stall and controls the injection of air in the front of the rotor face. Experimental results show that this technique eliminates the hysteresis loop normally associated with rotating stall. A parametric study is used to determine the optimal control parameters for suppression of stall. The resulting control strategy is also shown to suppress surge when a plenum is present. Using a high-fidelity model, the main features of the experimental results are duplicated via simulations.