The unsteadiness due to tip leakage vortex (TLV) breakdown was studied using a special experimental test campaign in parallel with numerical simulations. The back flow vortex (BFV), an isolated vortex caused by TLV spiral-type breakdown, was found to play a key role in rotating instability (RI). High-speed pressure transducers were used to measure the unsteady pressure field at the casing end wall of the blade in an isolated subsonic compressor rotor, which identified a low-frequency fluctuation at the near stall condition. A single-passage unsteady Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes simulation was used to study the evolution of unsteady flow structures, validated by the experimental measurements. Two distinct kinds of periodically unsteady flow were revealed by the simulations. A high-frequency fluctuation corresponding to 1.0 blade pass frequency (BPF) was caused by the spiral-type breakdown of the TLV. The other low-frequency fluctuation corresponding to 0.5BPF was caused by the feedback interaction between the BFV and the blade loading. The BFV was generated by the TLV breakdown, which was separated from the twisted vortex core of the TLV, and it moved downstream along the pressure side of the adjacent blade. A larger sized BFV reduced the local loading of the adjacent blade. The TLV was weakened as a consequence of the reduced loading, resulting in a smaller sized BFV. The blade tip loading was relatively less affected by the small sized BFV rather than the larger sized BFV. Therefore, the blade loading recovered and the size of the BFV increased, repeating the cycle. This feedback mechanism produced a pressure fluctuation with a frequency equal to 0.5BPF, which was closely related to RI.
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