COMPRESSION SYSTEM STABILITY AND ACTIVE CONTROL

The compression system instabilities known as surge and rotating stall are natural limits to the performance of all compressors and are especially troubling in gas turbine engines. In the last 15 years, rapid progress has been made in understanding this complex problem through the application of control technology; in particular, system identification techniques have proven to be useful. New findings include the roles of compressibility and nonlinearity in the stall-inception process. These findings have been used to implement feedback control schemes that have achieved increased stability in a variety of compressors and engines. Approaches fall into one of two categories: (a) operating range extension through active damping of linear disturbances, or (b) manipulation of the nonlinear system dynamics to maintain the operating point close to the instability boundary in the presence of disturbances seen in operation.