System Level Analysis of Compressor Eye-Labyrinth Seal Rotordynamic Forces: A Computational Fluid Dynamics Approach

Abstract Accurate characterization of compressor rotordynamic coefficients during the design phase reduces the risk of sub-synchronous vibration (SSV) problems occurring in the field. Although rotordynamists extensively investigate discrete compressor components (such as seals and front shrouds) to tackle instability issues, integrated or system-level analysis of compressor rotordynamics is rare. In reality, the impeller, eye labyrinth seal, and the front shroud heavily influence one another; and the collective dynamic behavior of the system differs from the sum of the dynamic behavior of isolated components. To further investigate, a CFD-based approach is taken to evaluate the dynamic behavior of the system as a whole. The geometry and operating conditions in this work are based on the recent experimental study of Song et al. (2019) on compressor seal and front shroud stiffness values. The compressor impeller is redesigned utilizing turbomachinery design software CFturbo. The commercial CFD code CFX 19.0 is used to resolve Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations to quantify eye labyrinth seal and front cavity stiffness, damping, and added mass, while the whole compressor stage is modeled to uncover the coupled behavior of the components, and assess the stability of the whole system instead of any discrete components. The coupled system is constructed by modeling the interacting upstream and downstream components to accurately capture key rotordynamic parameters such as damping, axial pressure, and pressure distribution evolution inside the cavities. Effect of turbulence is captured utilizing the shear stress transport (SST) k-ω model. In the current work, three CFD approaches, namely quasi-steady, transient static eccentric, and transient mesh deformation technique are tested, and predictions are made on stiffness, damping, and virtual mass. Effectiveness of each CFD method is evaluated by comparison with the experimental data. CFD results provide the non-axisymmetric pressure perturbation for the shroud and seal surfaces. Furthermore, rotordynamic coefficients are derived utilizing correlations from the literature, and compared with CFD based and experimental results.