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Last asked: 24 Jul
Question Topics
Compressor
Jet Engines
Mechanical Engineering
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Jet Engines: What's the difference between compressor surge and stall?
3 Answers
Nalin Yadav
Nalin Yadav, Maschinenbauingenieur
Upvoted by Gurvinder Arora, Suspension Design Project Engineer
8.4k Views
Surging and Stalling both lead to unstable flow in compressors.
To understand the concept behind Stalling and Surging, we should first know the
flow over an airfoil. An aerofoil stalls when the air flow completely separates
from the top side or suction side of the blade.
The left edge of this blade where the flow starts is called the leading edge (LE
) and the right edge where the flow leaves is called the trailing edge (TE). On
the top side or suction side the air is initially accelerated from the leading e
dge (LE), causing a reducing pressure gradient. As the flow reaches the maximum
thickness of the airfoil, it starts to slow down, causing pressure to increase,
or a positive pressure gradient starts to occur. This pressure gradient is unsta
ble as the airflow is still positive (LE towards trailing edge (TE)). This unsta
ble condition forces a flow separation - there is reverse flow over the airfoil
surface past the separation point. If the angle of attack of the airfoil increas
es, this separation point will move forward towards the LE, making the flow sepa
ration area bigger. It will come to a point that the whole flow over the airfoil
separates, starting from the LE. This condition is called stall. It is a local
phenomenon.
Surging is the complete breakdown of steady through flow, affecting the whole ma
chine, in other words, when stalling takes place on all the blades simultaneousl
y. This leads to choking of the flow. Sometimes even reversal of the flow may ta
ke place. Heavy vibrations also occur.
In a high pressure ratio multistage compressor, the axial velocity is already re
latively small in the higher pressure stages on account of high densities. In su
ch stages a small deviation from the design point causes the incidence to exceed
its stalling value and stall cells first appear near the hub and tip regions. A
t very low flow rates they grow larger and affect the entire blade height. It re
sults in significant reduction in delivery pressure.

Written 9 Mar, 2014

More Answers Below.
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Matt Joyce
Matt Joyce Request Bio
313 Views
Nalin Yadav makes a good explanation of the mechanism difference between the two
though I though it might be worth adding that there is also a significant opera
tional difference between the two phenomena with respect to operating an aircraf
t powered by jet engines.
A compressor stall results in less air reaching the combustion chamber resulting
in an excessively rich fuel to air mixture typically resulting in an engine fla
meout, which literally means what it sounds like the flame in the engine goes ou
t and the whole turbine quits. Depending on the cause the engine may be able to
be restarted, unless the compressor stall is a result of physical damage to the
engine itself or the compressor blades.
A compressor surge in an engine on the other hand is operationally a dangerous c
ondition, requiring an immediate throttling back of the engine to clear the surg
e. Allowing an engine to continue operating in a surge condition results in dan
gerous buildup of pressure inside the engine and if allowed to continue can resu
lt in destruction of the engine itself. Failure to clear a surge before attempt
ing to command more thrust from the engines to comply with an ATC instruction to
climb was one of the causes of the Southern Airways Flight 242 crash in which b
oth engines were destroyed by extended surging of the engines.
Written 18d ago
View Upvotes
Rohit S Iyer
Rohit S Iyer, Research in turbomachinery
113 Views
Yes,exactly true..but what keeps me wondering about stall is that,why should the
angle of incidence for a rotor blade increase when there is a decrease in mass
flow rate..??... If rotating stall is the cause for the axial compressor to chok
e and then reach a disastrous condition of surge, there shall be a reason why st
all occurs and I am more interested to avoid the root cause of surge itself ,whi
ch offcourse is stall!!!.
Written 8d ago
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