The Influence of Tip Leakage Flow on Flowfields in a Highly Loaded Transonic Rotor with Forward Sweep

A three-dimensional numerical simulation on a highly loaded transonic rotor with zero, 0.2 mm, 0.3 mm, and 0.5 mm tip gap, respectively, is performed in this article. The flowfields above 60% span of transonic rotors are affected by leakage flow, but the stall margin of rotor has obviously improved with small tip gap. Typical leakage vortex structures with double cores are generated by the interaction of incoming flow, leakage flow, and second flow in flowfields, and then the two vortex cores merge into a stronger one in front of shock. The shape of passage shock changes seriously by strong leakage vortex after interaction and a large low-velocity region generates behind shock in tip region. The blockage, produced by leakage flow and boundary layer separation, induces detached shock wave near leading edge of rotors and triggers the rotating stall of compressor. However, with tip gap increasing, the blockage produced by leakage flow tends to be dominant in occurrence of rotating stall. Once the tip clearance adds to 0.5 mm, vortex breakdown in tip region of rotor appears and the flow deteriorates drastically, which aggravates the onset of stall in rotor.