Foreign Object Damage (FOD) refers to damage caused by external objects entering an engine and can induce severe and diverse forms of deterioration on engine blades. The size, shape, and impact conditions of FOD vary widely and are difficult to define...
Foreign Object Damage (FOD) refers to damage caused by external objects entering an engine and can induce severe and diverse forms of deterioration on engine blades. The size, shape, and impact conditions of FOD vary widely and are difficult to define precisely. In this study, the effects of dent damage occurring at the leading edge of axial fan blades on the performance and flow characteristics of an axial compressor were investigated. Numerical simulations were performed using the commercial CFD code ANSYS CFX 18.0 based on the NASA Stage 67 compressor model. Dent damage was introduced at the leading edge of the fan blade, and damaged models were constructed by varying the damage location along the spanwise direction at 20%, 50%, and 80% span. The results were obtained through comparisons with an undamaged baseline model. In addition, a full-damaged model, in which all blades were damaged, was compared with a single-damaged model, where only one blade was damaged, to examine the flow characteristics and the extent of damage propagation. The results showed that all dent-damaged models exhibited a degradation in overall compressor performance compared to the baseline model, and the performance loss increased as the damage location moved from the hub toward the tip. The influence of dent damage on flow characteristics and performance was quantitatively analyzed through total pressure, isentropic efficiency, entropy generation, iso-Mach number distributions, and streamline analyses. Among the damaged cases, the D80 model exhibited the most significant performance degradation, where flow instabilities originating in the rotor propagated into the stator passage, leading to expanded low-velocity and flow separation regions.
This study confirms that the spanwise location of fan and compressor blade damage has a substantial impact on performance degradation, with tip-region damage having the most severe effect on compressor performance and stability.
Furthermore, it was verified that the full-damaged (full-annulus) configuration resulted in a much wider loss region and a more pronounced impact on stage performance compared to the single-damaged configuration. Overall, FOD-induced dent damage significantly alters the internal flow structure of the compressor, causing reductions in pressure ratio and efficiency, and may induce cascading effects on downstream blade rows.