A Developed Methodology in Design of Highly Loaded Tandem Axial Flow Compressor Stage

This study, primarily reports the development of a 3D design procedure for axial flow tandem compressor stages and then the method is used to design a highly loaded tandem stage. In order to investigate the effects of such arrangement, another stage with conventional loading with single blade for both rotor and stator rows is designed with similar specification. In order to ease the comparison of results, chord lengths and hub/shroud geometries are selected with the same dimensions. At the next stage a three dimensional numerical model is developed to predict the characteristic performance of both tandem and conventional stages. The model is validated with the experimental results of NASA-67 stage and the level of the accuracy of the model is presented. Employing the model to simulate the performance of both stages at design and off-design operating points show that, tandem stage can provide higher pressure ratio with acceptable efficiency. In another word, tandem stage is capable having the same pressure ratio at lower rotational speed. The safe operation domain and loss mechanism in tandem stage are also discussed in this report.