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Design and Development of Low speed 4-stage Axial Contra- Rotating

Demonstrator Compressor

Conference Paper · August 2014

DOI: 10.13140/2.1.3880.6084

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 ACGT2014-142

Design and Development of Low speed 4-stage Axial Contra-

Rotating Demonstrator Compressor
Raj Patel, Achyut Panchal, Mitanshu Sharma, Nishant Khanduja, Bhaskar Roy
Department of Aerospace Engineering,
Indian Institute of Technology Bombay
Powai, Mumbai-400076, India
Phone: 9920972174, Email: [email protected]

ABSTRACT margin and hence improves the off design performance of the
Contra-rotation of rotors in compressor provides a good choice in compressor (Mistry and Pradeep, 2011 & 2012).
terms of reducing the both weight and length of the engine, keeping
the pressure ratio same; but it has its own mechanical complexity. Contra-rotating (CR) multi-stage compressor is not yet
A working model of a low speed contra-rotating 4-stage mini axial implemented. The mechanical complexity involved in driving
compressor has been developed to demonstrate its multifarious shafts and the gearbox reliability have restricted industries to
benefits over a conventional axial compressor that matches all the implement the concept in aircraft engines. In response to this need,
above requirements. The compressor has been designed, aided by a mini demonstrator of multi-stage contra-rotating compressor has
CAD software which helped to work out the mechanical been designed and developed. The development considered every
complexities and aided by CFD analysis using for predicting the aspect of the problem and aimed at producing a practical system
compressor steady state performance. The results produced by CFD which could be extended to more number of CR rotors and be
analysis are met with the design goals. adopted for a full-scale compressor. This paper describes the design
of a mini demonstrator and the CFD analysis. The mechanical
NOMENCLATURE details of the demonstrator unit have been discussed in details.
a Distance of maximum camber from leading edge
CAD Computer aided design DESIGN PROCESS
CFD Computational Fluid Dynamics The design process of the CR demonstrator primarily consist of two
CR Contra-Rotating parts, aerodynamic design and mechanical design, of which the
Cd Discharge coefficient mechanical design is the bigger challenge, mainly due to the contra-
c Chord length rotation. Both the design aspects are discussed in detail in the
D Diameter following sections.
d Depth
IBR Integrally bladed rotor Aerodynamic Design
IGV Inlet Guide Vane Aerodynamic design involved design of the bell-mouth intake, the
L Length, m IGV, the rotor blades & the exit duct. Although the aim is to develop
N Number of teeth in the connector a demonstrator, the component design is aided by CFD to maximize
s blade spacing the rotor blade aerodynamic matching. Design of all the parts are
T thickness discussed in the following sections.
𝛼 Flow angle
𝜃 Camber angle Rotor blade. Being a demonstrator there were no fixed input
𝜁 Stagger angle parameters, hence the design parameters are iteratively selected
subject to various constraints mainly imposed by available facilities
INTRODUCTION and the mechanical design requirement. Firstly, the mass flow and
Raising requirements for aircraft engine efficiency and fuel outer diameter of the mini compressor were fixed depending on the
consumption level combined with strong restrictions to engine previous experimental data available (Roy et al., 1992). The
weight and geometrical dimension pose serious challenges for rotational speed and number of blades are selected on the basis of
engineers who are working for new generation of engine the values of diffusion factor, degree of reaction, maximum blade
development. Contra-rotating propellers/ prop-fans is a well-known flow turning angle and solidity for each rotor (Mistry and Pradeep,
concept and has been implemented in the form of open rotor 2011 & 2012). The pressure rise for each rotor is pre-selected using
turbofan type engines. The term contra-rotating compressor is the past experimental data for the similar size of the rotor (Mistry
coined for a compressor in which consecutive blade rows are fixed and Pradeep, 2011). The design parameters are iterated to increase
to two shafts in opposite rotation and may be at different rotational the predicted efficiency. The tip clearance is set at 3% after a simple
speeds. It leads to the requirement of a turbine (for driving the vibration analysis. The number of blades vary in consecutive rotors
compressor) that is also contra-rotating (Moroz et al., 2009). This to avoid resonance.
potentially reduces both the size and the weight of the engine
significantly, as compressor and turbine constitutes almost 70% of The design inflow velocity is low subsonic with Mach number equal
the size and 60% of the weight of an aircraft power-plant. In to 0.15; hence blades are designed using low subsonic laminar flow
addition to this, counter-rotation is also found to increases the stall

1
airfoils. A first estimation of the design parameters has been derived Rotor 3 1.04
through 2-D velocity triangle analysis (Flack, 2008) (Fig.1). Rotor 4 24.3
Exit duct 1.50

The integrally bladed rotor (IBR) 3-D geometry is modeled in

CATIA. Images of inner and outer rotors are shown in Fig.2.

Fig. 1 Contra-rotating mini compressor velocity triangles

The free vortex law has been used to arrive at a first cut blade design
through an iterative design process. Also, the specific work done at
all radii is held constant, which means that the change in total
temperature across the stage is constant for all radii. The deviation
angle is calculated using following relation,
Fig. 2 Rotor Blades
s
δ=mθ√ , where, (1)
c CFD Analysis. The compressor was modeled using CAD
software CATIA® and the flow features have been analyzed by
2a 2 α2 ANSYS CFD solver. This analysis gave rise to the appropriate
m=0.23 ( ) +0.1 ( ) (2) modifications in the blade geometry, achieved through many CFD
c 50
simulations (described below). In design practice a transient
computation of complete compressor model is too expensive with
Customized blade profiles with circular cambers have been used.
respect to cost as well as time consumption, hence only steady state
The blade chord and the span values have been set at 3 cm and the
simulations are performed for predicting the results. The
maximum thickness to chord ratio is 13% at mid-chord. The
computational domain includes an inlet domain, an outlet domain
Diffusion factor is ≈0.5 near the hub and ≈ 0.45 near the tip to create
(each having length equal to one mean chord of blade) in addition
highly loaded blades but avoid any local stalls. Linearly varying
to all the four rotors. A refined mesh size of 2 million nodes was
incidence angle of 1 to -1 degree in given from hub to tip. The 1st
generated for each rotor domain to capture boundary layers near hub
and 3rd rotors have 8 blades and the 2nd and 4th rotor have 9 blades
and shroud using H/J/C/O grids in ANSYS® Turbogrid®. The
each row.
dimensionless wall distance (y+) values were set to below 3 in order
to capture the boundary layer effects, the values were also verified
TABLE 1 BLADE PARAMETERS after the CFD analysis and found to be less than 3.1. The mesh was
refined to ensure that the value of the maximum face angle was less
Stage Radius (mm) Hub Tip than 155 degrees and the minimum face angle is more than 20
degrees. The 3D ANSYS CFX® solver has been used for carrying
Hub Tip θ 𝜻 θ 𝜻 out the CFD analysis. The shear stress transport (SST) turbulence
1 37.5 69.5 36.9° -5.39° 25.18° 14.47° model was used for solving the 3D RANS equations. For turbulence
modeling first order scheme was used with high resolution
2 70 38 25.4° 36.79° 20.03° 31.27° advection scheme. Frozen rotor is used as a mixing model at the
3 37.5 69.5 36.3° -8.98° 25.19° 14.38° rotor interfaces. The solution convergence criteria were set for the
p-momentum, u-momentum, y-momentum and w-momentum RMS
4 70 38 33° 25.3° 20.22° 31.22° residuals to below 1E-5.The inlet boundary condition was given in
terms of total pressure set at 101325 Pa and the inlet temperature at
IGV is used to introduce a counter swirl into the hub of rotor-1. IGV 300 K, uniformly distributed over the inlet area and outlet condition
turn the incoming flow by 1.5 degrees, which increases the loading was set with the mass flow of 0.665 kg/s per machine.
of the rotor 1 and decreases the loading at rotor 2; thus increasing
the overall performance of the system. The rotors are designed for The results are shown for a tip clearance of 3% of the span. The
blade profile repeatability at every alternate stages, leaving a pictures show (Fig.4) that the flow quality at design point is clean
possibility for increasing number of stages for further studies without any significant flow separation anywhere inside the blade
without much additional design work. The flow angles at the mid- passages. The final CFD prediction is quite close to the design goals
span at the entry of each stage are tabulated in the table 2. and it is expected to achieve the performance of the compressor set
by design. The flow angles before each rotor are extracted from
Table 2 Flow Angles At Entry Of Stages CFD analysis and compared with design values.
Stage 𝜶 (deg.)
Rotor 1 1.50
Rotor 2 24.7

2
 45 Intake: Given the small size of the compressor, less ram pressure
40 is available to force the air into compressor; hence it’s important to
35 design a high efficiency intake having minimum pressure loss. A
Flow angle (degree)

bell mouth intake (Fig.6) based on ASME bell-mouth design

30
prescription, has been designed for the CR-compressor (Table-4).
25 The bell-mouth shape profile (CFD generated) is elliptical. The
20 intake has C𝑑 values of over 0.95 which works well up to Mach no
15 0.65, which is well above the design inflow Mach number. The
10 profile and intake parameters are as follows.
5
0
0 1 2 Rotors
3 4 5 6
Alpha_CFD Beta_CFD Beta_designed Alpha_designed

Fig. 3 Flow Angles At Mid-Span

Fig. 6 Bell-Mouth Intake

Fig. 7 Exit Duct

Table 4 Bell-Mouth Intake Parameters

Parameter Value
FIG. 4 TOTAL PRESSURE CONTOURS AT 10% SPAN Major Axis (mm) 145
Minor Axis (mm) 72.5
At 10% of the span which is a region very near to the tip of Rotor 2 Radius, R (mm) 29
and Rotor 4, there is an expected tip leakage flow which gives rise Inlet Diameter (mm) 290
to the reduction in efficiency (Agarwal and Roy, 1994). The Area Ratio 4:1
efficiency can be increased if the tip clearance reduces to 1% of the Minimum Center (mm) 351
span which is achievable with the advancement of technology.
Since these being a mini demonstrator model we choose to remain
at 3% tip clearance level. Exit duct: The demonstrator is mounted on a table. The gearbox
and the motor, which drives the gear box, are required to be
positioned close behind the exit duct. As the sizes of the gearbox
and the motor are almost equal to that of the exit duct, it obstructs
the straight exit flow and hence would have affected the CR
compressor flow characteristics. Gearbox and motor needed to be
placed closer to the last rotor to avoid the problems of wobbling of
the drive shaft. Thus, it is realized that a conventional nozzle cannot
be used for flow exit. So, a split s-type nozzle has been designed as
shown in the Fig 6.

The nozzle is a constant area nozzle such that the flow is translated
by a distance of 130 mm. The flow is turned in such a way that it
doesn’t separate neither in the first part (00 to 450) of the curved
nozzle nor in the second part (450 to 00). As it is a constant area
Fig. 5 Wake Profile Of Rotor 2
duct, the flow characteristics can be assumed to be sufficiently
symmetric in both the curves. Thus, a simple design assuming
The rotor performance in terms of total pressure rise and efficiency
inflection point at the center of the duct is considered. Moreover, to
for each rotor is mentioned in table 3.
ensure that the flow doesn’t separate, the surface of the nozzle exit
is not given completely smooth finish as other parts of the
Table 3 Rotor Performances
compressor to induce a little bit of turbulence to increase the kinetic
Stage Total Pressure Rise (Pa) Isentropic Efficiency energy of the passing flow.
Rotor 1 400 82.8%
Rotor 2 365 79.0%
Mechanical Design
Rotor 3 374 83.4% Mechanical design involved configuring the compressor parts, the
Rotor 4 384 83.5% connector, the gearbox; selection of the motor, the VFD, the
Overall 1330 74.1%

3
material; and the assembly. The design is completed through a From the figure 9 it can be observed that inner shaft is supported by
simple stress and vibration analysis. bearing 1 and bearing 2, which are again rested on IGV and outer
shaft respectively. Bearing 3 are resting on wooden support, which
Overall configuration: The 4 rows of rotors are mounted on 2 is not shown here. In case of bearing 2, load is transferred through
contra-rotating shafts. The 2nd and the 4th rotor blades are built in outer shaft, bearing 4 and exit support.4th rotor blades acts as torque
inward cantilever manner integrated to a rotating outer casing, transfer mechanism, hence are designed to sustain both
which is housed inside a stationary backbone shell (Fig 9).The 1st aerodynamic and torque. IGV blades act as a support to inner shaft,
and the 3rdrotors are integrated to an inner hollow shaft (figure 8) hence are designed to bear axial load. Bearings are chosen to sustain
which is in counter-rotation with the outer casing. Integrally bladed 8000-9000 rpm. It should be noted that Bearing 2 will indeed rotate
rotors (IBR) are manufactured in order to avoid complex blade at 7200 rpm at the design speed.
assembly. The outer shaft is manufactured in two unequal halves to
facilitate assembly of the CR compressor unit; they are A simplistic vibration analysis and critical speed analysis is done in
circumferentially divided in 2:3 and 1:3 ratios for fixing (Fig.8). order to ensure safe rotation at 3600 rpm. The thickness of the inner
Both the inner shaft and outer casing are to be rotated by a single shaft and the outer casing has been set at 0.5 cm based on the stress
motor using a contra- rotating gearbox. Gearbox is arranged so that and vibration analysis. Although shafts are rotating at 7200 rpm
the counter rotating compressor parts, the gearbox and the motor are relative to each other, two separate analyses are done for the two
co-axial. This CR configuration can be further extended for higher shafts considering one shaft steady while analyzing the other.
number of stages. During the analysis bearings are considered as simple supports
fixed to the ground. It is ensured that the critical speed stays higher
than 200% of operating speed. This may overdesign the compressor
mechanically, but since the overall compressor weight is not an
issue here it is considered acceptable. Wobbling is estimated from
the shaft rpm and the eccentricity of the shafts, which is matched
with the manufacturing tolerances.

It is ensured that mechanical features do not disturb flow

characteristics. A frontal cap helps in keeping the inlet flow smooth.
Near blade roots fillets are provided. Gap between the steady and
the rotating parts are designed to minimize flow loss; however this
Fig. 8 Inner IBR Configuration also needs wobbling to be very small. It is ensured that wobbling is
small enough to prevent friction between these parts.

Blade
root
fillet

Fig. 9 Outer IBR Configuration (Half)

Fig. 11 Blade Root Fillet Picture

In order to take measurements, pitot tubes are to be fixed in the

intake and exit sections. These are to be traversed in radial direction.
Due to mechanical complexity and small size of the CR unit it is not
possible to put sensors in between the rotating stages.

Material Selection: For small scale demonstrator, engineering

plastics gives a good choice. Parts are made from engineering
plastics Dura-form polyamide (nylon) and accura-60 (mostly of
accura-60). Engineering plastics being of very light weight
compared to metal, has a benefit in terms of decreasing wobbling.
Material properties suggest that (Table 5) that in spite of low
density, engineering plastics are not week. Engineering plastics give
a benefit in terms of ease in manufacturing of integrally bladed
rotors.

FIG. 10 CR COMPRESSOR BEARING CONFIGURATION

4
 Table 5 Material Properties
SLS –
SLA – Dura-
Property
Accura-60 Form
(nylon)
Appearance Clear White
Moisture Absorption (24 hours) 0.07% 0.07%
Specific Gravity (g/cm3) 1.21 1
Tensile modulus (MPa) 2690 1586
Flexural Modulus (MPa) 2700 1387
Tensile Strength, Ultimate (MPa) 58 43 Fig. 12 Gearbox Schematic
Flexural Strength, Ultimate (MPa) 87 48
Metal-to-acrylic connector: Connector is designed to connect
Hardness, Shore D (MPa) 86 73
engineering plastic compressor IBR rotors with the metal shafts of
the gearbox drive unit. This introduces some distance between the
gearbox and the compressor. As there are two concentric shafts of
Acucra60 is more brittle compared to Dura-form polyamide the compressor, two connectors are necessary (Figure 12) – the
(nylon), which has higher breaking stress. For all the shafts the outer one being a hollow one.
material is accura60. Transparency of accura60 helps in exhibiting
the flow patterns using die flow visualization. Since the blades are
attached to the shafts, it is not desirable to have an elastic material,
which can be easily deformed, giving rise to higher wobbling and
vibrations. Exit duct which is not rotating needs to be transparent
for flow visualization, is made of Dura-form polyamide material, of
higher strength.

The parts are manufactured using Solid-State Stereo-lithography

(SLA – Accura-60) and Selective Laser Sintering (SLS – Dura-
Form polyamide nylon) methods. Engineering plastics gets
deformed in humid atmosphere. Deformation can increase
eccentricity, wobbling and can change the blade shapes resulting in
lower performance. In order to prevent humidity effect and to
ensure smooth surface, laquer is applied on the surfaces of the parts.

Contra rotating gear box: To get the contra rotation done

through a single motor a customized gearbox having two co-axial Fig. 13 Connector Details
output shafts rotating in opposite direction (figure 11) has been used
where the outer shaft is hollow one. Both shafts end with a spline to Inner connector. This part is designed considering the gap
facilitate connectors for the respective compressor shafts. between inner and outer shaft. From the compressor side, a coil
spring coupling is used. Selecting this coupling prevents direct
Table 6 Gearbox Dimension contact of connector to compressor inner shaft. On the gear box
Inner shaft (LxD) (mm) 30 x 12 side, spline teeth coupling are used. This is a self-locking coupling
which is preferred than a manual locking system as the space
Outer Shaft (LxTxD) ( mm) 40x6.5X19 available is not much for handling every time for locking the
Length (mm) 357 coupling.
Width (mm) 150
Outer Connector. From gear box side, key way coupling is used
Height (mm) 160 as the outer shaft has small radial thickness. An engineering plastic
Weight (kg) 6 part with spline teeth has been designed to temporarily assemble
two parts of outer shaft together and then this part is coupled with
Gear ratio 1:1 the metal side of the connector with torque coupling. Figure 12
shows all the details of the connector parts.

These output shafts are designed with respect to their respective Table 7 Connector Dimension
coupling as the inner shaft has spline teeth coupling and the outer Inner connector (LxT) (mm) 200x2.5
shaft has a key way type coupling which are described in the earlier
‘coupling’ section. Coil spring coupling (LxD) (mm) 30x1.5
Inner Coupling (Gearbox Side) (dxLxN) (mm) 1.5x25x6
Outer Coupling(Compressor side)(dxLxN)(mm) 1.5x25x9
Outer coupling (Gear Box side) (d) (mm) 3

5
The dimensions are calculated based on shear analysis as shear
stress plays very crucial role in transferring torque. Shear strength
requirement analysis of the inner shaft spline and the outer coupling
is shown in table 8.

Table 8: Shear Calculation Inner and Outer Shaft Spline

Inner Shaft Outer Shaft
Power (w) 3728 3728
Omega (rpm) 3600 3600
Omega (radian/sec) 377 377
Torque (N-m) 9.89 9.89
Inner Diameter(mm) 12 48
Number of steps 6 9
Spline length(mm) 25 25
Force per step (N) 275 46
Total force(N) 1650 414 A. Final Assembly of CR compressor
Width of spline (mm) 3.14 12.57
Height of spline (mm) 1.5 1.5
Shear stress (MPa) 3.5 0.146

The shear strength of the inner connector and the outer connector
on the compressor side are 232 MPa and 17.2 MPa respectively
which are large enough for the couplings’ shear stress requirements.

Power selection. Motor requirements are based on design rpm

of 3600, design torque of 2.8 Nm, and as per Indian power supply
standards. In India, the single-phase voltage and frequency are
220V and 50 Hz respectively which bounds us to use motor having
at most synchronous speed 3000 rpm with two poles.
B Bearing 2 C Outer Shaft
To achieve the desired output rpm from the motor variable
frequency drive (VFD),which controls the motor speed and torque
by varying motor input frequency and voltage, is used. The speed
can vary up to 1.5 times of motor synchronous speed. The
combination of using VFDs alongside three-phase motors tends to
be smaller, cheaper, and more efficient than an equivalent single
phase motor.

TABLE 9 MOTOR PROPERTIES

Power (kW) 3.7

Rated RPM 2835
Efficiency 80%
Power Factor 0.9
Weight (kg) 19.7 D Bearings 1, 3, 4, 5 E Outer Cover

Assembly. Figure 13 shows the mechanical details and the

assembly steps followed. Metal ball bearings are used. Although
material strengths differ for engineering plastics and metal,
compressor parts were conveniently attached with bearings. In
order to keep the system with minimum relative displacements
between each individual component, a single table is used for
setting the whole system, which also reduces the efforts for axis
alignment of all components. The most crucial thing has been to
align axis of gearbox, motor and compressor with respect to
supporting table. In order to accomplish it, a base of appropriate
height is designed for gearbox and motor. Three detachable
supports are designed to ease axis alignment. Supports are
manufactured with plywood in order to be easily modified (if F Frontal cap & IGV G Inlet & Outlet
needed) and economically convenient. Complete assembly of the
CR demonstrator unit is shown in figure 14. The CR demonstrator Fig. 14 Assembly (A) And Assembly Steps (B-G)
unit cross section is shown in figure 15. Demonstrator fully
assembled picture is shown in figure 16.

6
 and Traditional Axial Aircraft Low-Pressure
Turbines Integral And Detailed Performances. In
Int. Symp. on Heat Transfer in Gas Turbine
Inlet IGV Outer Inner Exit Connector Systems 9-14 August 2009, Antalya, Turkey.
shaft shaft duct 2. Falck, N. (2008). Axial Flow Compressor Mean Line
Design. Lund University.
3. Roy B., Ravibabu K, Rao S. P, Babu S, A Raju and
Murthy P N, 1992, "Flow studies in ducted twin-rotor
Contra rotating axial flow fans", International Gas
Turbine and Aero engine congress and exposition,
German, Paper no. 92-GT-390, Proceedings of ASME /
IGTI TURBO EXPO conference 1992, Cologne,
Germany.
4. Agrawal L, B Roy; Casing Boundary layer control by
Recess Vaned Casing for a Twin Rotor Contra Rotating
Axial Flow Fan unit, Proceedings of ASME/ IGTI Turbo-
Expo conference, 1994, The Hague, The Netherlands.
5. Mistry, C. S., and Pradeep, A.M., 2011, “Design and
Fig. 15 Cr Compressor Cut-Out Diagram Performance Analysis of a Low-speed, High Aspect
Ratio Contra-rotating Fan Stage”, The 11th Asian
International Conference on Fluid Machinery and the 3rd
Inlet Compressor Exit Connector Gear Box Motor Fluid Power Technology Exhibition, India, Nov. 21-
Duct 23,2011,paper no-156,
6. Mistry, C. S. and Pradeep A. M., “Effect of Speed Ratio
and Axial Spacing Variations on the Performance of a
High Aspect Ratio, Low Speed Contra Rotating Fan”,
ASME Turbo Expo-2012, Copenhagen, Denmark, Paper
No- GT2012-268383, June 11-15, 2012.
7. Mistry, C. S. and Pradeep A. M., 2012, “Effect of
Variation in Axial Spacing and Rotor Speed
Combinations on the Performance of a High Aspect Ratio
Contra Rotating Axial Fan Stage”, Proceedings of the
Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part A: Journal of
Power and Energy., June, 2012, 1-4,92-GT-390.

Fig. 16 Demonstrator Compressor Picture

CONCLUSION

The study presents a methodology from the conceptual design of a

multi-stage contra-rotating compressor to the development of a mini
demonstrator. Rotor blades design is aided by CFD analysis. Two
sets of contra rotating co-axial integrally bladed rotors are driven by
a contra rotating gearbox connected by a spring, two splines and a
one way key coupling. The demonstrator has been tested at one-
fourth of the design rotational speed and has been found to be
mechanically integrated.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This undergraduate students’ group project has been funded by the

Industrial Research and Consultancy Centre, IIT, Bombay. The
funding by the IRCC head, Dean (R&D) is gratefully
acknowledged. We are also thankful to Apoorv Maheshwari, Amit
Mangtani and Pranav Raheja for their contribution towards this
project.

REFERENCES

1. Leonid Moroz, Petr Pagur, Yuri Govorushchenko,

K. G. (2009). Comparison of Counter – Rotating

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