The impact of realistic casing geometries and clearances on fan blade tip aerodynamics

During engine operation, fan casing abradable liners are worn by the blade tip, resulting in the formation of trenches. This paper describes the influence of these trenches on the fan blade tip aerodynamics. A detailed understanding of the fan tip flow features for cropped and trenched clearances is first developed. A parametric model is then used to model trenches in the casing above the blade tip and varying blade tip positions. It is shown that increasing clearance via a trench reduces performance by less than increasing clearance through cropping the blade tip. A response surface method is then used to generate a model that can predict fan efficiency for a given set of clearance and trench parameters. This model can be used to influence fan blade design and understand engine performance degradation in service. It is shown that an efficiency benefit can be achieved by increasing the amount of tip rubbing, leading to a greater portion of the tip clearance sat within the trench. It is shown that the efficiency sensitivity to clearance is biased toward the leading edge (LE) for cropped tips and the trailing edge (TE) for trenches.