A Study on the Fundamental Cause of Stall Stagnation Phenomena in Surges in Compressor Systems

Although the stall stagnation phenomena have often been experienced in site and also analytically in numerical experiments in surges in systems of compressors and flow paths, the fundamental causes have not been identified yet. In order to clarify the situations, behaviours of infinitesimal disturbance waves superposed on a main flow were studied in a simplified one-dimensional flow model. A ratio of the amplifying rate of the system instability to the characteristic slope of the compressor element was surveyed as the instability enhancement factor. Numerical calculations have shown the following tendency of the factor. In the situation where both the sectional area ratio and the length ratio of the delivery flow-path to the suction duct are sufficiently large, the enhancement factors are greater in magnitude, which means occurrence of ordinary deep surges. However, in the situation where the area ratio and/or the length ratio is relatively smaller, the enhancement factor tends to lessen significantly, which situation tends to suppress deep surges for the same value of the characteristic slope. It could result in the stall stagnation condition. In the domain of area ratio vs. length ratio of the delivery duct to the suction duct, contour-lines of the enhancement factor behave qualitatively similar to those of the stall stagnation boundaries of a fan analytically obtained, suggesting that a certain range of the enhancement factor values could specify the stagnation occurrence. The significant decreases in the factors are observed to accompany appearances of phase lags and travelling waves in the wave motions, which macroscopically suggests breaking down of the complete surge actions of filling and emptying of the air in the delivery duct. The strength of the action is deeply related with acoustic interferences and is evaluated in terms of the volume-modified reduced resonance frequency proposed by the author. These observations have shown the fundamental cause and the sequence of the stall stagnation in principle.