Several flow control schemes were designed and tested to determine the most suitable method for reducing the momentum deficit in a rotor wake and thus attenuate rotor-stator interaction noise. A secondary concern of the project was to reduce the amount of blowing required air for wake filling and thus limit the efficiency penalty in an aircraft engine environment. Testing was performed in a linear blow down cascade wind tunnel, which produced an inlet Mach number of 0.345. The cascade consisted of five blades with the stagger angle, pitch, and airfoil cross-section representative of 90% span of the rotor geometry for NASA's Active Noise Control Fan (ANCF) test rig. The Reynolds number for the tests was based on inlet conditions and a chord length of 4 inches. Trailing edge jets, trailing edge slots, ejector pumps, and pressure/suction side jets were among the configurations tested for wake filling. A range of mass flow percentages were applied to each configuration and a pressure loss coefficient was determined for each. Considerable reduction in wake losses took place for discrete jet blowing techniques as well as pressure side and suction side jets. In the case of the pressure and suction side jets, near full wake filling occurred at 0.75% of the total mass flow. In terms of loss coefficients and calculated momentum coefficients, the suction/pressure surface jets were the most successful. Jets located upstream of the trailing edge helped to re-energize the momentum deficits in the wake region by using a flow pattern capable of mixing the region while also adding momentum to the wake. The slotted configuration was modeled after NASA's current blowing scheme and served as a baseline for comparison for all data. Digital particle image velocimetry was performed for flow visualizations as well as velocity analysis in the wake region. / Master of Science

An aeroacoustic investigation was performed to assess the effects of adding mass flow at the trailing edges of four stators upstream of an aircraft engine simulator. By using trailing edge blowing to minimize the shed wakes of the stators, the flow into the rotor was made more uniform. In these experiments a reduced number of stators (four) was used in a 1/14 scale model inlet which was coupled to a 4.1 in (10.4 cm) turbofan engine simulator with 18 rotors and 26 downstream stators. This study is a preliminary step toward a more in depth investigation of using trailing edge blowing to reduce unsteady rotor-stator interaction. Steady-state measurements of the aerodynamic flow field and acoustic far field were made in order to evaluate the aeroacoustic performance at three simulator speeds: 40%, 60%, and 88% of the design speed. The lowest test speed of 40% design speed showed the most dramatic reduction in radiated noise. Noise reductions as large as 8.9 dB in the blade passing tone were recorded at 40% design speed, while a tone reduction of 5.5 dB was recorded at 60% design speed. At 88% design speed a maximum tone reduction of 2.6 dB was recorded. In addition, trailing edge blowing reduced the overall sound pressure level in every case. For both the 40% design speed and the 60% design speed, the fan face distortion was significantly reduced due to the trailing edge blowing. The addition of trailing edge blowing from the four upstream stators did not change the total pressure ratio, and the mass flow added by the blowing was approximately 1%. The results of these experiments clearly demonstrate that blowing from the trailing edges of the stators is effective in reducing unsteady rotor-stator interaction and the subsequent forward radiated noise. / Master of Science

This research performs an experimental study of a trailing edge blowing system that can adapt to variations in flow parameters and reduce the unsteady stator-rotor interaction at all engine operating conditions. The fan rotor of a 1/14 scale turbofan propulsion simulator is subjected to spatially periodic, circumferential inlet flow distortions. The distortions are generated by four struts that support a centerbody in the inlet mounted onto the simulator. To reduce the unsteady effects of the strut wakes on the rotor blades, the wake is re-energized by injecting mass from the trailing edge of the strut. Each strut is provided with discrete blowing holes that open out through the strut trailing edge. Each blowing hole is connected to a MEMS based microvalve, which controls the blowing rate of the hole. The microvalve is actuated by a signal voltage, generated by a PID controller that accepts free stream and wake axial flow velocities as inputs and minimizes their difference. To quantify the effectiveness of trailing edge blowing the far-field noise is measured in an anechoic chamber. The experiments are performed for two simulator test speeds, 29,500 rpm and 40,000 rpm, with and without trailing edge blowing. The maximum reduction recorded at 29,500 rpm is 8.2 dB, and at 40,000 rpm is 7.3 dB. Reductions of 2.9 dB and greater are observed at the first five harmonics of the blade passing frequency. The sound power level at the blade passing frequency, calculated from measured far-field directivity, is reduced by 4.4 dB at 29,500 rpm and by 2.9 dB at 40,000 rpm. The feasibility and advantage of active control is demonstrated by the ability of the system to respond to a step change in the inlet flow velocity, and achieve optimum wake filling in approximately 8 seconds. / Master of Science

The research effort presented in this dissertation consists of employing active trailing edge blowing control to reduce the unsteady stator-rotor interaction in a turbofan simulator. Two active flow control systems with different wake sensing approaches are successfully implemented on the engine simulator. The first flow control system utilizes Pitot probes as flow sensors. Use of Pitot probes as sensors is appropriate as a first step toward a more in depth investigation of active trailing edge blowing control. An upper performance limit in terms of wake-filling can be obtained and serves as the baseline in evaluating other control systems with indirect wake sensors. The ability of the system to achieve effective wake filling when subjected to a change in inlet flow conditions demonstrates the feasibility and advantage of active flow control. Significant tonal noise reductions in the far field are also obtained. The second control system involves using microphones as indirect wake sensors. The significance of these acoustic sensing approaches is to provide a practical TEB approach for realistic engines implementations. Microphones are flush mounted on the inlet case to sense the tonal noise at the blade passing frequency. The first sensing approach only uses the tone magnitude while the second novel sensing approach utilizes both the tone magnitude and phase as error information. The convergence rate of the second sensing approach is comparable with that of the Pitot-probe based experiments. The acoustic results obtained from both sensing approaches agree well with those obtained using Pitot probes as sensors. In addition to the experimental part of this research, analytical studies are also conducted on the trailing edge blowing modeling using an aeroacoustic code. An analytical model for trailing edge blowing is first proposed. This model is then introduced into the two-dimensional aeroacoustic code to investigate effect of various trailing edge blowing managements in the tonal sound generation. / Ph. D.

This thesis documents trailing edge blowing research performed to reduce rotor / stator interaction noise in turbofan engines. The existing technique of filling every velocity deficit requires a large amount of air and is therefore impractical. The purpose of this research is to investigate new blowing configurations in order to achieve noise reduction with lesser amounts of air. Using the new configurations air is not injected into every fan blade, but is instead varied circumferentially. For example, blowing air may be applied to alternating fan blades. This type of blowing configuration both reduces the amount of air used and changes the spectral shape of the tonal interaction noise. The original tones at the blade passing frequency and its harmonics are reduced and new tones are introduced between them. This change in the tonal spectral shape increases the performance of acoustic liners used in conjunction with trailing edge blowing. This thesis presents numerical predictions performed to estimate the sound power reductions due to these concepts, as well as experimental results taken on the ANCF rig at NASA Glenn for validation purposes. The results show that the new concepts are successful in increasing the efficiency of trailing edge blowing. / Master of Science

An aerodynamic investigation was performed to assess the effectiveness of combined boundary layer suction and trailing edge blowing at reducing the blade profile losses and the wake momentum deficit of a cascade of tandem IGV's operating at realistic flow conditions. Two trailing edge blowing designs were tested: metal-angle blowing, which oriented the blowing jets very near to the blade exit angle, and deviation-angle blowing, which oriented the blowing jets at a significant deviation angle from the blade exit angle. Both blowing designs used the same boundary layer suction arrangement. A linear cascade of five IGV's was tested with a flap deflection angle of 40 degrees and an inlet Mach number of 0.3. The Reynolds number based on the overall IGV chord length for these experiments was greater than 500,000. The inlet and exit angles of the IGV at this flap setting were 0 degrees and 55 degrees, respectively. Tests performed with no flow control showed significant suction surface flow separation that generated large wakes with high losses and large momentum deficits. The application of boundary layer suction reduced the baseline pressure loss coefficient and wake momentum thickness by 22%. A suction mass flow of 0.4% of the passage flow was used to obtain these results. The addition of metal-angle blowing with the suction resulted in total reductions of 48% and 38% for the pressure loss coefficient and wake momentum thickness. A blowing mass flow of 3.1% of the passage flow was used in addition to 0.4% suction mass flow to obtain these results. The application of the deviation-angle blowing was detrimental to the aerodynamics of the IGV, as both the pressure loss coefficient and wake momentum thickness increased slightly over their suction-only values. This was attributed to a manufacturing defect which distorted the flow of the blowing jet. The results of the deviation-angle blowing experiments were not considered representative of the design intent and reinforced the importance of the hole design for creating a proper blowing jet. While low speed tests of this cascade showed results and trends very similar to those of previous research, the application of flow control proved to be less effective at higher speeds due to the generation of significantly larger wakes. / Master of Science

A series of experiments were conducted in a F109 turbofan engine to investigate the unsteady wake profiles of an Inlet Guide Vane (IGV) at a typical spacing to the downstream fan at subsonic and transonic relative blade velocities. The sharp trailing-edge vanes were designed to produce a wake profile consistent with modern IGV. Time averaged baseline measurements were first performed with the IGV located upstream of the aerodynamic influence of the fan. Unsteady experiments were performed with an IGV-fan spacing of 0.43 fan chords. High-frequency on-vane pressure measurements showed strong peak-to-peak amplitudes at the blade passing frequency (BPF) of 4.7 psi at the transonic fan speeds. High-frequency total pressure measurements of the IGV wake were taken between the IGV and fan. Results showed that the total pressure loss coefficient of the time averaged IGV wake is reduced by 30% for the subsonic fan, and increased by a factor of 2 for the transonic fan compared to the baseline. Time resolved wake profiles for subsonic fan speeds show constructive and destructive interactions over each blade pass generated by the fan potential flow field. Time resolved wake profiles for the transonic fan speeds show that shock interactions with the IGV surface result in the wake shedding off of the vane at the BPF. Furthermore, the effectiveness of trailing edge blowing (TEB) flow control was investigated. TEB is the method of injecting air aft of the IGV to reduce the low pressure regions (deficits) in the viscous wakes shed by the vanes. Minimizing the IGV wakes reduces the forcing function on the downstream fan blades, thereby reducing high cycle fatigue. The TE span of the vane contains discrete holes at the axial centerline for TEB. Baseline results showed that TEB eliminates the IGV wake, while using only 0.03% of the total engine mass flow per IGV. TEB for the subsonic fan at the close spacing shows complete wake filling using the same mass flow as the baseline. TEB for the transonic fan shows a reduction of 68% in the total pressure loss coefficient, while requiring 2.5 times the mass flow as the baseline. / Ph. D.

The main contributor to the high-cycle fatigue of compressor blades is the response to aerodynamic forcing functions generated by an upstream row of stators or inlet guide vanes. Resonant response to engine order excitation at certain rotor speeds is especially damaging. Studies have shown that flow control by trailing edge blowing (TEB) can reduce stator wake strength and the amplitude of the downstream rotor blade vibrations generated by the unsteady stator-rotor interaction. In the present study, the effectiveness of TEB to reduce forced blade vibrations was evaluated in a modern single-stage transonic compressor rig. A row of wake generator (WG) vanes with TEB capability was installed upstream of the fan blisk, the blades of which were instrumented with strain gages. Data was collected for varied TEB conditions over a range of rotor speed which included one fundamental and multiple harmonic resonance crossings. Sensitivity of resonant response amplitude to full-span TEB flowrate, as well as optimal TEB flowrates, are documented for multiple modes. Resonant response sensitivity was generally characterized by a robust region of substantial attenuation, such that less-than-optimal TEB flowrates could prove to be an appropriate design tradeoff. The fundamental crossing amplitude of the first torsion mode was reduced by as much as 85% with full-span TEB at 1.1% of the total rig inlet flow. Similar reductions were achieved for the various harmonic crossings, including as much as 94% reduction of the second leading edge bending mode resonant response using 0.74% of the rig flow for full-span TEB. At least 32% reduction was achieved for all modal crossings over the broad flow range of 0.5 to 0.9% of the rig flow. Thus the results demonstrate the modal- and flowrate-robustness of full-span TEB for reducing forced response in a modern, closely-spaced transonic compressor. Reduced spanwise TEB coverage was generally found to provide less peak reduction. Widely varying sensitivities of the vibration modes to the spanwise TEB distribution were also noted. While the second chordwise mode experienced roughly the same maximum response reduction of 80% for all of the spanwise TEB configurations, some other modes were amplified from the baseline case under part-span TEB conditions. Part-span TEB was thus found to be less modally-robust than full-span TEB. / Ph. D.

A high-turning compressor stator with a unique flow control design was developed and tested. Both boundary layer suction and trailing edge blowing developed from a single supplied motive pressure source are employed on the stator. Massflow removed through boundary layer suction is added to the motive massflow, and the resulting combined flow is used for trailing edge blowing to reduce the total pressure deficit generated by the stator wake. The effectiveness of the flow control design was investigated experimentally by measuring the reduction in the total pressure loss coefficient. The experiment was conducted in a linear transonic blowdown cascade wind tunnel. The inlet Mach number for all tests was 0.79, with a Reynolds number based on stator chordlength of 2,000,000. A range of inlet cascade angles was tested to identify the useful range of the flow control design. The effect of different supply massflows represented as a percentage of the passage throughflow was also documented. Significant reductions in the total pressure loss coefficient were accomplished with flow control at low cascade angles. A maximum reduction of 65% in the baseline (no flow control) loss coefficient was achieved by using a motive massflow of 1.6% of the passage throughflow, at cascade angle of 0°. The corresponding suction and blowing massflow ratio was approximately 1:3.6. Cascade angle results near 0° showed significant reductions in the loss coefficient, while increases in the cascade angle diminished the effects of flow control. Considerable suction side separation and the presence of a leading edge shock are noticeable as the cascade angle is increased, and contribute to the losses across the stator surface. Also identified was the estimated increase in wake turning due to flow control of up to 4.5°. / Master of Science

The study of the flow of a fan blade was conducted to improve tonal fan noise reduction by optimizing an existing flow control configuration. The current configuration consisted of a trailing edge Slot with a flow control area of 0.045 in² per inch span with an exit angle of -3.3° with respect to the blade exit angle. Two other flow control configurations containing discrete jets were investigated. For the first configuration, the trailing edge jets (TEJ), the fan blade was modified with discrete jets spaced 0.3 inches apart with a flow control area of 0.01 in² per inch span positioned on the trailing edge aimed at -3.3° with respect to the blade exit angle. Similarly, discrete jets were also placed on the suction surface at 95.5% chord aimed at 15° with respect to the local blade surface. This configuration is referred to as the suction surface jet (SSJ). The discrete jets for both configurations were designed to be choked while injecting a mass flow rate of 1.00% of the fan through-flow. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) was used to model new configurations and study subsequent changes in total pressure deficit using a blade design inlet Mach number of 0.73, Reynolds number based on chord length of 1.67 à 106, and design incidence angle of 0°. Experimental testing was later conducted in a 2D cascade tunnel. The TEJ and SSJ were tested at design blowing of 1.00% and at off-design conditions of 0.50%, 0.75%, and 1.25% fan through-flow. Results between the different flow control configurations were compared using a blowing coefficient. CFD showed the TEJ and SSJ offered aerodynamic improvement over the Slot configuration. Testing showed the SSJ outperformed the TEJ, as validated in CFD, producing wider and shallower wakes. SSJ area-averaged pressure losses were 25% less than TEJ at design. Noise predictions based on CFD findings showed that both TEJ and SSJ provided additional tonal sound power level attenuation over the Slot configuration at similar blowing coefficients, with the SSJ providing the most attenuation. Noise prediction based on experimental results concurred that the SSJ provided more total attenuation than the TEJ. Experimental results showed that the SSJ performed better aerodynamically and, based on analytical prediction, provided 2 dB more total attenuation than the TEJ. / Master of Science