Evaluation of Compressor Blading With Blade End Slots and Full-Span Slots in a Highly Loaded Compressor Cascade

Abstract High loading design is a permanent pursuit in the field of the modern compressors to reduce the size and weight of the aero-engine. Blading with slots is a potential way to improve compressor performance. An innovative double-slot scheme was proposed and validated to control corner separation in a highly loaded compressor cascade in our previous studies. To evaluate the three-dimensional (3D) performance of blading with slots, the current research compares the performance of blading with full-span slots to that with blade end slots. First, the two-dimensional (2D) configuration performance is evaluated both for the datum and slotted profiles. The slotted configuration could effectively supress separation, especially under positive incidence conditions where the separation of the datum profile is large. Thus, two 3D blading forms, the full-span slots and the blade end slots (covering 20% of the span from the endwall), are compared within. Results show that blading with full-span slots could effectively reduce the loss under positive incidence angles, while blading with blade end slots could effectively reduce the loss above an incidence angle of −4°. The loss for the end slotted blade is lower than that of the full-span slotted blade under most incidence angles (within the range of 4°). The additional mixing loss of the jet and the main flow are caused by the full-span slots at the mid-span regions where the flow remains attached for the unslotted geometry. Blading with slots alters the flow structures and reorganises the flow in the blade end regions. The self-adaptive jets from the slot outlet push the accumulated low-momentum flow downstream and restrain its migration toward the mid-span, such that the uniform main flow in the blade mid-span region is enhanced.