Original Article

Proc IMechE Part G:

J Aerospace Engineering
Aerodynamic design of an ultra-highly 2019, Vol. 233(1) 240–249
! IMechE 2017

loaded booster of a high bypass ratio Article reuse guidelines:

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turbofan DOI: 10.1177/0954410017728974

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Yuwen Chen, Zhenggui Zhou and Cui Cui

Abstract
Based on an existing high bypass ratio turbofan, this paper uses a new concept of diffusion blade profiles with large camber
and low flow losses to design a rotor for the booster, which characterizes the low wheel speed, thus achieving ultra-high
loading of the rotor, effectively increasing its stage pressure ratio and reducing the weight of the booster. A booster with
only one stage is designed by using the new blade profiles to replace the original booster with three stages. A two-
dimensional design method of S1 (blade to blade)/S2 (hub to tip) stream surfaces is applied to design the blades of the rotor
and the stator in the booster, and the two-dimensional blade profiles in the S1 stream surface are designed by means of an
optimization design method. The flow fields in the original and newly designed boosters are simulated by using a numerical
method. At the design point, the newly designed booster has nearly the same total pressure ratio and mass flow rate as the
original booster and exhibits higher efficiency than the original booster. The surge margins of both boosters are nearly
equal, and the newly designed booster can preferably match the original intermediate case.

Keywords
Booster, load coefficient, aerodynamic design, flow field simulation

Date received: 16 May 2017; accepted: 7 August 2017

modifications of the blade profiles at the tip and hub,

Introduction
A booster with only one stage was used for the CF6-6
high bypass ratio turbofan at General Electric to
reduce the fan hub loading and produce a high aver-
age total pressure at the inlet of the core compressor.1
Hereafter, the number of stages in the boosters
increased to three or four, which aims to improve
the cycle total pressure ratio and thereby the thrust
of the engines.2,3
Like a multistage high pressure compressor, an
increase in stage loading of a booster can lead to a
higher stage pressure ratio and a smaller number of
stages, thus reducing the total engine weight. In the
1990s, Wennerstrom4 wrote that increasing the stage
pressure ratio and reducing the stage count of the
axial-flow compressor had been a pursuit of aircraft
engine designers ever since an axial-flow compressor
was first incorporated into aircraft engines. Based on
existing designs, Broichhausen and Zieglar5 predicted
the development trend of key design parameters and
technologies of compressors with high stage loading.
Song et al.6 investigated feasible approaches to
increase the aerodynamic loading of a transonic fan
rotor with 195 variations of the rotor, including the
use of sweep and dihedral in the blade stacking line,
the technique of boundary layer suction, etc.
Analyzing effects of the stage inlet flow angle and
stage load coefficient on flow losses and surge margins
of a compressor stage, Dickens7 concluded that as
the stage loading increases, efficiency decreases
and the stage would stall due to the large separation
in the stator corner. Therefore, the stator should be
relieved by increasing the stage reaction, thus shifting
the burden to the rotor. Although increasing the stage
load coefficient can increase the stage pressure ratio, it
makes the aerodynamic design of the rotor and the
stator more difficult. Currently, the load coefficient is
usually not higher than 0.4,8–10 and boundary layer
control techniques (e.g., boundary layer suction)
should be applied to the design for a further increase
in the load coefficient.
Jiangsu Province Key Laboratory of Aerospace Power Systems, College
of Energy and Power Engineering, Nanjing University of Aeronautics
and Astronautics, P.R. China
Corresponding author:
Zhenggui Zhou, College of Energy and Power Engineering, Nanjing
University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, No.29, Yudao Street,
Nanjing, Jiangsu, P.R. China.
Email: zzgon@nuaa.edu.cn
Chen et al.
The 2D design method of S1/S2 stream surfaces is
the foundation of the aerodynamic design of axial
flow compressors. The S1 stream surface is the flow
surface of the blade to blade, namely an axisymmetric
rotary surface, while the S2 stream surface is the flow
surface of the blade hub to tip, namely a surface
similar to the blade suction or pressure surface. The
three-dimensional (3D) flow field in the compressor
can be simplified approximatively into two kinds of
the 2D flow fields. Generally, the blade is constructed
by several profiles in the S1 stream surface. Hence,
this simplification is not only the foundation of the
blade design but also in favor of the analysis to the
flow mechanism. The flow is mainly 2D; nonetheless,
it is 3D in the blade hub and tip regions, especially for
high loading designs. A 3D design method could be
used to further improve the 2D design results.11–16
In the 3D design method, the blade is designed
based on an analysis to the 3D flow field, while in
the 2D design method, the blade is designed based
on an analysis to the flow fields in the S1 and S2
stream surfaces. In general, the blade can be designed
by means of the direct approach, the inverse
approach,17 and the optimization design method.18
The multivariable coupling optimization and the mul-
tiobjective optimization can be achieved by means of
the optimization design method, which is weakly
dependent on the experiences of the designers and is
strongly complementary to the direct method. The
optimization design method has been gradually
applied to practical engineering.
In this paper, a new concept of diffusion blade pro-
files with large camber and low flow losses was used to
design a booster rotor, thus achieving the ultra-high
loading of the rotor and effectively increasing the
stage pressure ratio. A booster with only one stage
was designed by using those profiles to replace the
original booster with three stages. The blades of
the rotor and the stator in the booster were designed
by using a 2D design method of S1/S2 stream sur-
faces, and the 2D blade profiles in the S1 stream sur-
face were designed by using the optimization design
method. Moreover, this paper is aimed at validating
the practicality of the proposed design method.
Therefore, the 3D aerodynamic design has not been
conducted. In addition, the flow fields in the original
and newly designed boosters were simulated with a
numerical method, and the performances of both
boosters were compared with each other.
Design principle
Equation (1) suggests that the load coefficient H
increases with an increase in the total pressure ratio
k , while the circumferential velocity U remains
unchanged. According to equation (2), under a con-
stant U, as H increases, the twisted velocity
Cu
increases and the outlet relative tangential flow
angle 2 (the angle between the outlet relative velocity
241
W2 and the axial direction) decreases until it becomes
negative.
1

Lu cp T1 ðk  1Þ=k
H ¼ 2 ¼ ð1Þ
U U2
Lu ¼ U
Cu ð2Þ
Three kinds of 2 (2 4 0, 2 ¼ 0, and 2 5 0) and
corresponding velocity triangles (black solid lines) as
well as cascades are shown schematically in Table 1,
where 2 4 0 corresponds to conventional loading,
2 ¼ 0 corresponds to the maximum of diffusion,
and 2 5 0 corresponds to ultra-high loading.
Analyzing the schematic diagram of the velocity tri-
angle and the corresponding cascade when 2 5 0, it
can be seen that there are two advantages to using this
highly cambered blade profile. On one hand, it can
increase the twisted velocity
Cu , the specific work
Lu , and the load coefficient H,  and as a result, the
total pressure ratio of a rotor increases. On the
other hand, the convergent flow path in rear section
of the cascade contributes to controlling the develop-
ment of the boundary layer on the blade suction sur-
face, thereby reducing the flow losses and improving
the rotor efficiency.19
Aerodynamic design of the booster rotor
The 2D design method of S1/S2 stream surfaces was
adopted for the aerodynamic design of the rotor in the
booster, which includes the through-flow design of the
S2 stream surface and the 2D profile optimization
design in the S1 stream surface. A 3D aerodynamic
design has not been conducted in this paper, because
the aerodynamic design in the present paper is aimed
at validating the practicality of the proposed design
method. The blade design procedure is charted in
Figure 1.
Target of the aerodynamic design
The original booster in this turbofan engine is com-
posed of inlet guide vanes (IGV) and three axial flow
stages (Figure 2). The main aerodynamic parameters
of the original booster are summarized in Table 2.
From the table, it can be concluded that the original
booster was moderately loaded, and its total pressure
ratio is 1.298 due to the low wheel speed.
Additionally, as a result of the low stage pressure
ratio, the flow losses in the stators have a large influ-
ence on the efficiency of the booster; therefore, its
efficiency is quite low.
Effects of load coefficient
The effects of load coefficient on the inlet and outlet
parameters of the rotor were investigated by the S2
through-flow calculation. With the same wheel speed
242 Proc IMechE Part G: J Aerospace Engineering 233(1)

Table 1. Three kinds of velocity triangles and corresponding cascades.

Velocity triangles Cascades

2 4 0

2

2 5 0

Figure 2. Meridional view of the original booster.

Table 2. Booster design parameters.

Parameters Values

Mass flow rate 47.64 kg/s

Total pressure ratio k 1.298
Isentropic efficiency k 0.807
Surge margin 18.5%
Inlet circumferential velocity at tip of R1 191.1 m/s
Load coefficient of R1 0.29

Figure 1. Optimization design procedure of the rotor.

and mass flow rate (as shown in Table 2), as well as
the same meridional flow path as the original booster,
the flow fields in the S2 stream surface were calcu-
lated. At the design point, given the total pressure
ratios (constant along the blade span) of 1.1, 1.2,
1.33, and 1.4 (corresponding to the load coefficients
of 0.254, 0.483, 0.760, and 0.902), Figure 3 can be
obtained from the S2 through-flow calculations.
In Figure 3(a), it can be seen that increasing the
total pressure ratio or load coefficient reduces the
Chen et al.
Figure 3. Spanwise distributions of key parameters for the booster rotor.
outlet relative flow angle 2 . This angle is close to
0 degree when the total pressure ratio is 1.2, which
corresponds to 2 ¼ 0 in Table 1. A further increase in
design pressure ratio results in a negative 2 and a
convergent flow path of the rear section in a cascade,
which corresponds to 2 5 0 in Table 1. Owing to the
above variation of 2 with the total pressure ratio, the
diffusion factor first rises and then declines with an
increase in the total pressure ratio (Figure 3(b)).
Furthermore, as the total pressure ratio increases,
the outlet absolute flow angle and the outlet absolute
Mach number both increase (as seen in Figure 3(c)
and (d)), which increases the difficulty of the aero-
dynamic design of the matching stator.
To achieve the equivalent total pressure ratio of the
original booster (1.298, in Table 2), the rotor total
pressure ratio at the design point of 1.33 (the load
coefficient of 0.760) was selected in consideration of
the flow losses in the matching stator for the newly
designed booster with only one stage. The relative
outlet flow angle is approximately 20 along the
blade span (Figure 3(a)). The diffusion factors at the
rotor hub and tip are approximately 0.35 and 0.6,
243
respectively (Figure 3(b)). The outlet absolute flow
angles of the rotor (equal to the flow turning angle
of the matching stator) at the rotor hub and tip are
approximately 50 and 55 , respectively (Figure 3(c)).
The outlet absolute Mach number of the rotor is close
to 0.85 along the blade span (Figure 3(d)). The results
indicate that aerodynamic design of the rotor and its
matching stator are feasible and the design difficulties
mainly lie in the rotor tip region and full-span of the
matching stator.
Design of the rotor blade
Based on the results of the S2 stream surface calcula-
tion of the rotor that is designated the total pressure
ratio of 1.33, the blade profiles of the rotor were
designed with an automatic optimization method.20
In this method, the Bézier curves were used to
describe the modifications of initial profiles for the
profile parameters. The initial profiles were generated
by using a profile generating software, and every ini-
tial profile was determined by stagger angle, chord
length, circle radii at the leading and trailing edges,
244
Figure 4. Optimized blade profiles.
the leading and trailing angles, the maximum thick-
ness and its position, and the maximum deflection and
its position. The rationality of the initial profiles was
examined by a 2D flow field calculation of the S1
stream surface.
In the optimization design of a profile, seven design
variables were separately given on the suction and
pressure sides of the profile. Meanwhile, the stagger
angle and the chord length were also set as design
variables (16 design variables in all). An optimization
aimed at achieving high performance was conducted
by maximizing the following objective function.
! 
jk  kobj j
F ¼ c1 k þ c2 1 þ c3 1 
kobj
where F denotes the objective function; k denotes the
isentropic efficiency at the design point; k and kobj
denote the computed and objective values of the total
pressure ratio at the design point, respectively; s and
sobj denote, respectively, the computed and objective
values of the static pressure ratio at the design point;
and c1 , c2 , and c3 represent the weight coefficients of
the efficiency, total pressure ratio, and static pressure
ratio, respectively. Herein, c1 , c2 , and c3 were set as
50, 10, and 10, respectively. The optimized blade pro-
files at 10%, 50%, and 90% spans are shown in
Figure 4.
The optimized 2D profiles of each span were
stacked along the radial direction to form the 3D
blades of the rotor. The NUMECA software was
used to calculate the flow fields in the rotor by solving
the 3D Reynolds Navier–Stokes equation with a cen-
tral spatial difference scheme and the Spalart-
Allmaras turbulence model. The 3D grids were con-
structed by the Autogrid5 module in the software, and
the grid number was approximately 386,000. In the
calculations, the blade tip clearance of the rotor was
set as 0.3 mm. The calculated performance curves of
the rotor at the design wheel speed are presented in
Figure 5. It can be seen that the total pressure ratio
and isentropic efficiency at the design point are 1.33
and 0.9702, respectively. Meanwhile, the surge margin
is 16.5%. Due to the use of the new profile design
concept, the rotor obtains very high efficiency and a
much higher total pressure ratio than the original
rotor. Furthermore, as is shown in Figure 5(a), it
Proc IMechE Part G: J Aerospace Engineering 233(1)

js  sobj j
sobj
ð3Þ
Figure 5. Working performance of the rotor: (a) Total pres-
sure ratio; (b) Isentropic efficiency.
should be noted that the total pressure ratio declines
with a decrease in the mass flow rate. This is counter
to the conventional pattern, in which total pressure
ratio rises with a decrease in the mass flow rate.
The phenomenon can be explained by analyzing the
velocity diagrams in Table 1 (in the table, the black
solid lines and the blue dashed lines correspond to the
large and small mass flow rate, respectively). In the
table, with a decrease in the mass flow rate of an ultra-
highly loaded rotor (i.e., 2 5 0), the inlet axial vel-
ocity decreases and the attack angle increases because
of the constant circumferential velocity U. This also
leads to a decrease in outlet relative velocity while the
outlet relative flow angle remains nearly unchanged.
Therefore, the twisted velocity
Cu decreases, which
results in a decrease in the specific work Lu and con-
sequently the total pressure ratio. In contrast, with a
decrease in the mass flow rate of a conventionally
loaded rotor (i.e., 2 4 0), the twisted velocity
Cu
increases, thus the total pressure ratio increases.
The spanwise distributions of the total pressure
ratio and isentropic efficiency of the designed rotor
at the design point are presented in Figure 6.
Chen et al. 245

Figure 6. Spanwise distributions of (a) total pressure ratio

and (b) isentropic efficiency at the design point.

Figure 6(a) shows that the spanwise distribution of the

rotor total pressure ratio is essentially consistent with
the objective. Specifically, the total pressure ratio is
slightly higher than the target above the middle span
and slightly lower than the target below the middle
span. Figure 6(b) indicates that the isentropic efficiency
at the design point is above 0.98 at most of the spa;
however, it decreases dramatically near the blade tip
due to the effect of boundary layer in the annular end-
wall regions and the blade tip leakage flow.
Figure 7 plots the static pressure distribution on
the 3D blade surfaces at the design point at 10%, Figure 7. Static pressure distributions on the blade surface at
50%, and 90% spans and on the 2D profile surfaces the design point. (a) 10% span; (b) 50% span; (c) 90% span.
at corresponding spans. In the figure, it is clear that
the difference of the static pressure distribution loaded rotor, which is the reason for the high loading
between the 2D and 3D surfaces is small; hence, it of the rotor.
can be deduced that the flow in the rotor blade pas-
sages is basically a 2D rotatory surface (S1 stream Aerodynamic design of the matching
surface). In addition, it should be noted that the dif-
ference of the static pressure between the pressure sur-
stator
face and the suction surface in the ultra-highly loaded The flow parameters at the outlet of the above newly
rotor is evidently larger than that in a conventionally designed rotor at the design point were taken as the
246 Proc IMechE Part G: J Aerospace Engineering 233(1)

Figure 8. Meridional view of the booster.

flow parameters at the inlet of the matching stator to

perform through-flow design of the stator. The stator
blade profiles were also designed by using the opti-
mization method. The 2D profile design method of
the stator is similar to that of the rotor, with the
main difference between them being the setting of
the objective function. An optimization targeting
high performance of the stator was carried out by
maximizing the following objective function.
 
j
 
obj j
F ¼ c1 ð1  $Þ þ c2 1 

obj
  ð4Þ
js  sobj j
þ c3 1 
sobj

In equation (4), F denotes the optimization func-

tion; $ denotes the total pressure loss coefficient;

and
obj denote the computed and objective values
of the flow turning angle, respectively; s and sobj
denote, respectively, the computed and objective
values of the static pressure ratio at the design
point; and c1 , c2 , and c3 represent the weight coeffi-
cients of the total pressure loss coefficient, turning
angle, and static pressure ratio, respectively. Herein,
c1 , c2 , and c3 were set as 100, 10, and 10, respectively.
The designed rotor, the matching stator, as well as
the original IGV constituted a new booster. The
meridional view of the new booster is shown in
Figure 8.
Analysis to aerodynamic performance
of the booster
The flow field of the newly designed booster was cal-
culated by the NUMECA software. The grid numbers
of the IGV, rotor, and matching stator were approxi-
mately 313,000, 375,000, and 322,000, respectively,
and the interfaces between the IGV, rotor, and
stator were set as mix planes.
Figure 9 gives the working performance of the
booster. The performance parameters at the design
point are listed in Table 3. For convenience of the
comparison between the newly designed and original
boosters, the performance parameters of the original
booster are also listed in the table, which are objective
values for the new design. From Table 3, the total
pressure ratio is near the design objective, while the
Figure 9. Working performance of the booster: (a) Total
pressure ratio; (b) Isentropic efficiency.
isentropic efficiency and the surge margin are higher
than the objective. Therefore, the newly designed
booster with only one stage constitutes an aero-
dynamic improvement over the original booster with
three stages.
To exam the matching performance of the newly
designed booster with the original S-shaped inter-
mediate case, the calculated performance curves of
the booster plus the intermediate case are also pre-
sented in Figure 9. The key performance parameters
of the booster plus the intermediate case at the design
point are also listed in Table 3. It can be seen that the
efficiency of the newly designed booster with the case
is higher and the total pressure ratio is slightly lower
than that of the original booster with the case, which
demonstrates that the newly designed booster can
match the case with nearly the same degree as the
original booster.
Figure 10(a) indicates that the total pressure
recovery coefficient of the stator is above 0.98 in
most of its blade span; however, the flow losses of
the stator were high at the stator hub and tip due
to annular boundary layers. The stator outlet
flow angle in most of the blade span was in
Chen et al. 247

Table 3. Performance parameters of the booster at design point.

Boosters Boosters plus intermediate cases

Parameters The new The original The new The original

Total pressure ratio 1.293 1.298 1.268 1.280

Isentropic efficiency 0.8554 0.8070 0.7870 0.7751
Surge margin 23.6% 18.5% 31.2% 25.1%

Figure 11. Relative Mach number contours at the S2 stream

surface of the booster at the design point.

Figure 10. Spanwise distributions of (a) total pressure

recovery coefficient and (b) outlet tangential flow angle of the
stator at the design point.

range of  2 (Figure 10(b)). The relative Mach

number contour in the meridian plane is plotted in
Figure 11, which demonstrates that the flow losses
in the intermediate case mainly come from the local
diffusing in the case bottom.
According to the relative Mach number contours
in the S1 surfaces at 10%, 50%, and 90% spans Figure 12. Relative Mach number contours at the S1 stream
(Figure 12), it can be seen that the boundary layers surface at the design point. (a) 10% span; (b) 50% span; (c) 90%
on the rotor blade surfaces are thin and the size of the span.
248
Figure 13. Static pressure distributions on the stator blade
surfaces at the design point.
rotor blade wakes are small, which can be attributed
to the use of the new concept profiles.
The static pressure distributions on the stator blade
surfaces at 10%, 50%, and 90% spans at the design
point are shown in Figure 13. From the figure, it can
be seen that there is a sudden increase in the static
pressure in the suction surface near the leading edge at
the 50% span, which resulted from the local super-
sonic flow near the region (seen in Figure 12(b)).
Conclusions
1. According to the through-flow calculation in the
S2 stream surface, it can be concluded that with an
increase in total pressure ratio, the diffusion factor
of the rotor increases at first and then decreases.
When the total pressure ratio was increased to
1.33, the diffusion factors at the rotor blade hub
and tip were approximately 0.35 and 0.6, respect-
ively, which indicated it was feasible that the total
pressure ratio of the rotor at the design point was
set at 1.33.
2. A 2D design method of S1/S2 stream surfaces
was applied to design the blades of the rotor
and the stator in the booster, and a new concept
of diffusion blade profiles with high camber and
low flow losses was used to design a booster
rotor. The comparison of the pressure distribu-
tions on the blade surfaces in the 2D and 3D
flow fields proved that the design method was
applicable.
3. The numerical simulation results indicated
that the aerodynamic performances of the
newly designed booster with one stage were
not lower than the performances of the original
one with three stages; therefore, the original
booster can be replaced by the newly designed
booster.
Proc IMechE Part G: J Aerospace Engineering 233(1)
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with
respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of
this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research,
authorship, and/or publication of this article.
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Superscripts and subscripts

Appendix
1 rotor inlet
Notation 2 rotor outlet
cp specific heat at constant pressure