Effects of curved vanes on aerodynamic performance and flow structures in highly loaded tandem cascades

Combining tandem cascades and curved vanes can mitigate the separation in highly loaded compressor cascades. Flow loss mechanisms in curved tandem cascades are crucial for fundamental design and optimization. This study investigates the flow losses and vortex structures in curved tandem cascades with different curved angles and an original straight tandem cascade. Numerical simulations are conducted at variable incidence angles. The results indicate no consistent effect of curved angles on the aerodynamic performance of curved tandem cascades. The tandem cascade with a curved angle of 5(degrees) effectively reduces losses at all incidence angles, while the tandem cascade with a curved angle of 15(degrees) extends the critical incidence angle to 3(degrees). The comparative analyses reveal that curved vanes increase spanwise pressure gradients, causing low-energy fluid near endwalls to move toward the midspan. The weighting coefficient of losses quantitatively describes that curved vanes weaken the trailing edge shedding vortices of both vanes and passage vortex while enhancing the end wall spanwise vortex of the front vane, thus affecting the loss distribution. Finally, this study innovatively applies topological analysis methods to curved tandem cascades, establishing the relationship between topological structures and vortex structures in corner regions of tandem cascades, which provides a valid research approach to reveal the vortex dynamics mechanisms of the loss distribution in tandem cascades influenced by curved vanes.