Different Effects of Cantilevered and Shrouded Stators on Axial Compressor Performance

Numerical simulations with the steady 3D RANS were performed on the rear stage of a modern high pressure compressor. The labyrinth seal cavity model of the shrouded stator was simplified according to the actual stator structure, which the seal cavity gap is 1% of blade height. Several typical configurations (shrouded stator, idealized stator and cantilevered stators) were designed and carried out, and cantilevered stators contained no gap, small gap (CS1%), design gap (CS2.5%) and large gap (CS4%/CS5%). The results indicate due to the effect of leakage flow from 1% span seal cavity gap, the total pressure loss of SS is larger than IS, while IS instead of SS in the process of the compressor design, the stall margin will be enlarged nearly 6% numerically. At the design point, when the hub gap is 3.5% span clearance CS has the same loss with IS, and when the hub gap is 4.5% span clearance CS has almost the same loss with SS. Among all operation range, the total pressure loss of S1 increases with the increase of the hub clearance. When the hub gap is 0 (CS0), there is no leakage flow and the loss is the least. At the design point, comparing with SS, the total pressure loss coefficient of CS0 decreases 18.34%, CS2.5% decreases 8.46% and IS decreases 6.45%. It means if the cantilevered stator with 2.5% span hub clearance were adopted in the HPC, the performance would be better than the shrouded stator. However, because of the matching condition, the rotor that follows after cantilevered stator should be redesigned according to blade loading and inlet flow angle changed. The performance of cantilevered stator is impacted of various hub clearance, the loss below 25% span increases significantly with hub clearance, the maximum value of outlet flow angle deviation is 2.3 degree. The stator hub peak loading is shifted upstream toward the leading edge when hub clearance size is increased. The total pressure loss coefficient and pressure coefficient at different axial position had the function relation. When the hub clearance increases, the position of double leakage flow start backwards, in the rear part of stator the secondary flow becomes stronger leading to more mixing loss and lower total pressure.