The Numerical Simulation of a High-Speed Axial Flow Compressor

The advancement of high-speed axial flow multistage compressors is impeded by a lack of detailed flow field information. Recent developments in compressor flow modeling and numerical simulation have the potential to provide needed information in a timely manner. This paper, which consists of two parts, will explore this topic. The first part will address the development of a computer program to solve the viscous form of the average-passage equation system for multistage turbomachinery. Programming issues such as in-core versus out-of-core data storage and CPU utilization (parallelization, vectorization, and chaining) will be addressed. Code performance will be evaluated through the simulation of the first four stages of a five-stage, high-speed, axial flow compressor on a CRAY Y-MP8/8128 computer. The second part will address the flow physics, which can be obtained from the numerical simulation. In particular, an examination of the end-wall flow structure will be made, and its impact on blockage distribution assessed.