Three dimensional flows in multistage compressors

Abstract

Current multi-stage turbomachinery design/analysis methods are based on a time-averaged, axisymmetric representation of the flow field. The actual flow field is asymmetric and unsteady due to blade row interactions. The Reynolds averaged Navier-Stokes solvers are limited to single-stage machines for existing computers. Therefore, advanced multi-stage compressors will operate far off-design for portions of the flight regime. The objectives are to provide an experimentally validated average-passage calculation of multistage compressor blade row interactions and an experimentally validated time-accurate calculation of multi-stage compressor blade row interactions. Various aspects of this investigation are presented in viewgraph form.