文献笔记 - Research on Instability Characteristics of Ducted Fans in Ground Effect

Abstract. Ducted fan is a potential propulsion unit for flying cars in the future, and it has a wide range of application prospects. In ground effect, due to the aerodynamic interference with the ground, the ducted fan easily enters an unstable state caused by rotating stall. In this paper, a simulation platform is built based on a modified MGmodel, and the simulation of the ducted fan in ground effect is carried out for hovering and landing conditions. The static and dynamic effects of the ground effect are discussed in detail and the sensitivity analysis of parameters is carried out. The results showed that the instability of the ducted fan increases with the decrease in altitude or the increase in speed under hovering conditions, while it doesn’t occur under landing conditions. In addition, the study pointed out that the pressure rise characteristics and flow characteristics of the ducted fan have a significant impact on its instability. The combination of high peak pressure rise coefficient and low corresponding flow coefficient can effectively improve the stability.

摘要。风机是未来飞行汽车的一种潜在推进装置，具有广泛的应用前景。在地面效应中，由于与地面的气动干扰，涵道风扇容易因旋转失速而进入不稳定状态。本文基于改进的MG模型构建了一个仿真平台，对涵道风扇在悬停和着陆条件下的地面效应进行了仿真。详细讨论了地面效应的静态和动态效应，并对参数进行了敏感性分析。结果表明，在悬停条件下，涵道风扇的不稳定性随着高度的降低或速度的增加而增加，而在着陆条件下则不会发生。此外，研究指出，管道风机的压力上升特性和流动特性对其不稳定性有显著影响。高峰值压力上升系数和低对应流量系数的组合可以有效提高稳定性。

1 Introduction

Ground effect (GE) is the most common external environmental disturbance of flying vehicles during vertical takeoff and landing. When the vehicles operate in ground effect, the ground affects the flow field at the outlet of the ducted fan, making the exhaust mode change from free jet to restricted jet, and the vertical velocity component at the ground boundary rapidly decreases to zero. The ducted fan presents the characteristics of thrust deviating from the design value and being easy to enter the rotate stall. The data from the helicopter suggested that 46% of accidents occurred during the vertical takeoff and landing state from 2014 to 2016 [2], and the strong interaction between the propeller and the complex air flow near the ground caused by the ground effect was an important cause of failure. The existence of ground effect seriously affects the safety of flying cars in the air, which is the key factor restricting the commercialization of flying cars in cities. It is necessary and urgent to carry out research on the instability in ground effect.

地面效应（GE）是飞行器垂直起降过程中最常见的外部环境干扰。当飞行器在地面效应范围内运行时，地面会改变涵道风扇出口处的流场，使排气模式从自由射流转变为受限射流，且地面边界处的垂直速度分量迅速衰减至零。此时，涵道风扇的推力会偏离设计值，并容易进入旋转失速状态。直升机数据显示，2014至2016年间，46%的事故发生在垂直起降阶段[2]，而地面效应引发的螺旋桨与近地面复杂气流间的强相互作用是导致故障的重要原因。地面效应的存在严重影响了飞行汽车在空中的安全性，成为制约其在城市商业化应用的关键因素。因此，针对地面效应下的不稳定性开展研究具有必要性和紧迫性。

Most of the existing researches focus on the thrust characteristics in ground effect. Mi [3] compared the flow field structures of the ducted fan with or without ground effect through numerical simulation. Ground effect changes the direction of the exhaust, which bounces off the ground and forms a vortex ring around the duct. The larger average pressure difference on the surface of the blade pressure side and suction side makes the rotor thrust increase, and at the same time reduced air velocity around the duct leads to a decrease in duct thrust. When the height between the ducted fan and the ground is further reduced, the vortex ring of the duct gradually moves up, and the duct thrust is further reduced. The total thrust of the ducted fan shows a slight upward trend. Deng et al. [4] carried out the flow field PIV measurement and pressure measurement at the import and export of contra-rotating ducted fans, and the results showed that when the height above the ground is reduced, a low-speed vortex core is formed between the blade wheel and the ground. High back pressure contributes to the increase in the rotor thrust. Existing studies show that the ground effect will lead to the reduction of the duct thrust and the increase of the rotor thrust.

现有研究大多聚焦于地面效应下的推力特性。Mi [3] 通过数值模拟对比了涵道风扇在有/无地面效应时的流场结构：地面效应改变了排气方向，使得气流撞击地面后反弹，并在涵道周围形成涡环结构。叶片压力面与吸力面的平均压差增大导致转子推力上升，而涵道周围气流速度降低则导致涵道推力下降。当涵道风扇与地面的高度进一步减小时，涵道涡环逐渐上移，涵道推力进一步衰减，但涵道风扇总推力呈现小幅上升趋势。Deng 等人 [4] 对共转涵道风扇的进出口流场进行了 PIV 测量与压力测量，结果表明，当离地高度降低时，叶轮与地面之间会形成低速涡核，高背压促使转子推力增大。现有研究表明，地面效应会导致涵道推力下降与转子推力上升。

Only few studies focus on unsteady characteristics of ducted fans in ground effect. Wang et al. [5] made a dynamic measurement of the pressure downstream of the exhaust, and found that the pressure under the ducted fan presents asymmetric distribution. With the enhancement of the ground effect, the high pressure area under the ducted fan concentrates into the projection circle and there is an obvious boundary between high and low pressure areas. Jin et al. [6] studied the unsteady flow characteristics of the ducted fan and its influence on aerodynamic stability under near-ground conditions through experiments and numerical methods. The results showed that the ground and the duct together restrict the effective exhaust area and direction of the ducted fan, which leads to radial flow distortion at the outlet of the ducted fan, and induces large separation near the blade root. As the height from the ground decreases, the throttling effect increases, and the flow rate further decreases. The ducted fan enters a rotating stall state, and the stall cells appears in the blade tip area. The circumferential rotating speed of the stall cells is 21.4% of the fan blade speed, and the thrust appears unsteady fluctuation. The above literature shows that once the take-off and landing of the ducted fan aircraft enters the influence range of the ground effect, the internal air flow of the propulsion system is prone to instability, resulting in unsteady thrust fluctuation and unsteady torque. Losing control of the flying vehicles attitude and even crashing may happen in this situation.
In this paper, the instability of ducted fans in ground effect is studied. By introducing the ground effect Moore-Greitzer model of the ducted fan, the mechanism of the height and speed on the instability in hovering conditions and landing conditions is analyzed, combined with the results of parameter sensitivity analysis. The influence law of the fan characteristics on the rotating stall is then summarized.

目前仅有少量研究关注地面效应下涵道风扇的非定常特性。Wang 等人 [5] 对排气下游压力进行了动态测量，发现涵道风扇底部压力呈非对称分布：随着地面效应增强，高压区逐渐汇聚至投影圆内，且高低压区交界明显。Jin 等人 [6] 通过实验与数值方法研究了近地工况下涵道风扇的非定常流动特性及其对气动稳定性的影响。结果表明，地面与涵道共同限制了涵道风扇的有效排气面积与方向，导致其出口处出现径向流动畸变，并诱发叶片根部附近的大范围流动分离。随着离地高度降低，节流效应加剧，流量进一步下降，涵道风扇进入旋转失速状态，失速团集中出现在叶尖区域，其周向旋转速度约为叶片转速的21.4%，此时推力呈现非定常脉动。

[6]

CONCLUSIONS

The modified model is capable of estimating the aerodynamic stability of the ducted fan in ground effect. Compared with the threedimensional numerical results, the stability critical height estimated by the model is slightly lower. Furthermore, both the model results and the simulation results need to be validated by experiments.

修正后的模型能够估算涵道风扇在地面效应下的气动稳定性。与三维数值结果相比，模型估算的稳定临界高度略低。此外，模型结果和仿真结果都需要通过实验进行验证。

For the ducted fan in ground effect, the aerodynamic instability occurs as a rotating stall, rather than a surge. The development process of the rotating stall depends on the height and the rotational speed of the ducted fan. A smaller height and a larger rotational speed reduced the time consumption of the rotating stall development, with the height dominating the effect.
对于地面效应下的导管风扇，气动不稳定性表现为旋转失速，而不是喘振。旋转失速的发展过程取决于导管风扇的高度和转速。较小的高度和较大的转速降低了旋转失速发展的时间消耗，其中高度起主导作用。

Based on the three-dimensional unsteady simulations, a rotating stall occurs in the ducted fan in the h = 0.5 case, with only one stall cell. In the h = 0.2 case, there is the combination of two stall types: a rotating stall and a ground effect stall. At the blade tip region, both types of stalls exist at the same time, while the ground effect stall dominates at the blade hub region. The transient pressure signals indicate that the ground effect stall has the same pattern with the rotating stall but remains stationary in the ground reference frame.
基于三维非定常模拟，在h=0.5的情况下，导管风扇中发生旋转失速，只有一个失速单元。在h=0.2的情况下，存在两种失速类型的组合：旋转失速和地面效应失速。在叶片尖端区域，两种类型的失速同时存在，而在叶片轮毂区域，地面效应失速占主导地位。瞬态压力信号表明，地面效应失速与旋转失速具有相同的模式，但在地面参考系中保持静止。

上述研究表明，涵道风扇飞行器起降一旦进入地面效应影响范围，其推进系统内部气流易失稳，导致非定常推力脉动与扭矩波动，可能引发飞行器姿态失控甚至坠毁。
本文针对地面效应下涵道风扇的失稳特性展开研究，通过引入涵道风扇地面效应的 Moore-Greitzer 模型，结合参数敏感性分析结果，揭示了悬停与着陆工况中离地高度、飞行速度对失稳的作用机理，进而总结出风扇特性对旋转失速的影响规律。

2 GroundEffect Moore-Greitzer Model

The ducted fan is actually an axial flow compressor system with low compression ratio, which changes the pressure difference between the front and back of the blade, and gives the air a backward velocity increment to generate forward thrust. Different from compressors, traditional compressors mainly focus on pressure ratio and efficiency, while ducted fans focus on thrust. As a consequence, it is feasible to use axial flow compressor system model to analyze the dynamic changes of the ducted fan in theory. In related research papers [7], some researchers have proposed a ground-effect instability model for ducted fans based on the modified Moore-Greitzer (short for MG) model. MG model is a classic model for studying compressor system instability, which was first proposed by Moore and Greitzer [8] to describe the dynamic response of axial flow compression system after instability. The model consists of three third-order nonlinear differential equations, which correspond to the change of compression coefficient, flow coefficient and instability disturbance with time. The Galerkin method can greatly simplify the higher-order differential equations, and the obtained first-order differential equations can be used to judge the occurrence of instability and describe the evolution process of rotating stall [9, 10]. When the equivalent operating point of the compressor system moves to the left of the surge line, it is considered that the compressor is unstable. However, the original MG model only aimed at the case of constant speed, and did not consider the transient change of speed. Therefore, Gravdahl and Egeland [11] proposed a modified MG model considering compressor speed, in which a new first-order differential equation of parameters was added as a function of speed transfer, in the following form.

涵道风扇本质上是一种低压缩比的轴流压缩机系统，其通过改变叶片前后的压差并赋予气流向后的速度增量以产生前向推力。与传统压缩机不同，传统压缩机主要关注压力比与效率，而涵道风扇以推力为核心目标。因此，理论上可通过轴流压缩机系统模型分析涵道风扇的动态特性。相关研究论文[7]中，学者基于改进的Moore-Greitzer（简称MG）模型提出了涵道风扇的地面效应失稳模型。MG模型是研究压缩机系统失稳的经典模型，由Moore和Greitzer[8]首次提出，用于描述轴流压缩系统失稳后的动态响应。该模型由三个三阶非线性微分方程组成，分别对应压缩系数、流量系数及失稳扰动量随时间的变化。伽辽金方法可大幅简化高阶微分方程，所得一阶微分方程可用于判定失稳发生并描述旋转失速的演化过程[9,10]。当压缩机系统的等效工作点移至喘振线左侧时，即认为压缩机进入失稳状态。
然而，原始MG模型仅针对恒定转速工况，未考虑转速的瞬态变化。为此，Gravdahl与Egeland[11]提出了考虑压缩机转速的修正MG模型，其中新增了一个一阶微分方程作为转速传递函数，其形式如下：

Different from the traditional rotating stall, the phenomenon of valve throttling will appear at the outlet of the ducted fan in ground effect, and the throttling effect becomes obvious with the decrease of height. Based on this, Jin et al. [6] adopted three-dimensional CFD simulation of flow field analysis and curve fitting way to set up the correct relationship between the valve coefficient and dimensionless height in MG model (The dimensionless height ignores the influence of differences in the size of ducted fans), which is shown as.

与传统旋转失速不同，地面效应下涵道风扇出口会出现阀门节流现象，且随着离地高度减小，节流效应愈发显著。基于此，Jin 等人 [6] 通过三维CFD流场分析与曲线拟合方法，在MG模型中建立了阀门系数与无量纲高度（该无量纲高度忽略不同涵道风扇尺寸差异的影响）的关联关系，具体形式如下：

4 Conclusions

Aiming at the instability characteristics of the ground effect of the ducted fan, the insta bility model of the ground effect of the ducted fan based on the modified MG model is established. The instability characteristics and influencing factors of the ground effect of the ducted fan under hovering and landing conditions are analyzed by numerical methods. The main conclusions are as follows:

修正的MG模型通过量化地面效应下的阀门节流与流量畸变，揭示了涵道风扇失稳的临界条件与演化规律，为飞行汽车起降安全设计与控制提供了理论工具。未来需结合实验数据完善公式细节，并扩展至多物理场耦合场景。

1. The height is a key parameter affecting fan instability. There is a height threshold below which the fan will be unstable. With the decrease of height or the increase of speed, the instability time of the ducted fan is shorter and the instability amplitude is larger.

2. Parameters related to fan characteristic curve have significant influence on ground effect instability. The increase of the peak pressure rise coefficient and the decrease of the corresponding flow coefficient make the fan less prone to instability. The decrease of the flow coefficient means the decrease of the thrust, so it can be inferred that the propulsion efficiency and stability cannot be achieved simultaneously under the ground effect condition.

3. The instability caused by ground effect will not occur in the moving condition of the ducted fan, and there is a time lag in the recovery of ground effect on the instability after the ducted fan stops moving.

Future research may include the influence mechanism and interaction law of ground effect on rotational stall in landing condition.

1.高度是影响风机不稳定性的关键参数。有一个高度阈值，低于该阈值，风扇将不稳定。随着高度的减小或速度的增加，涵道风扇的失稳时间缩短，失稳幅度增大。

2.风机特性曲线相关参数对地面效应失稳有显著影响。峰值压力上升系数的增加和相应流量系数的减小使风机不易失稳。流量系数的减小意味着推力的减小，因此可以推断，在地面效应条件下，推进效率和稳定性不能同时实现。

3.管道风机在运动状态下不会发生地面效应引起的失稳，管道风机停止运动后，地面效应对失稳的恢复存在时间滞后。

未来的研究可能包括着陆条件下地面效应对旋转失速的影响机制和相互作用规律。