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In the present study, the numerical analysis of blade tip geometry effect on the performance of a single-stage axial compressor has been the focus of attention. The studied geometries included a rotor with variable tip clearance. For the first model, the tip clearance increases as it moves toward the blade trailing edge. The tip clearance of the second model reduces as it approaches the trailing edge, whereas in the third model, the tip clearance remains constant. The results indicated that the tip clearance of the first sample, as the worst tip clearance case, creates a 10% reduction in the stall margin with respect to the third standard model, and the second sample tip clearance brings about a stall margin reduction of 4% efficiency with respect to the third standard model. Then, the effect of blade tip clearance geometry on outlet flow angle of the rotor was inspected. The results showed that in the first model, the outlet flow angle has the largest deviation than the third standard model and the second model performance places somewhere between the two other tip clearance geometries. Also evident from the result is that taking advantage of the variable blade tip clearance is not an appropriate method for improving compressor performance.

In the current study, the influence of blade tip clearance in different stages of a three-stage compressor is investigated. Performance diagrams of compressor were verified against experiment when there is no change in the tip clearance, after which the effect of tip clearance for the cases, 1, 1.5 and 2 mm, in the first, second and third stages of rotor was studied. The results indicated that the impact of tip clearance increase did not have any effect on choked flow rate value in the first and second stages, and only the change in the third stage tip clearance reduced the choked flow rate. For the same tip clearance value, the highest compressor performance loss occurs in the case of applying the tip clearance in the third stage, which is also the final stage and is highly sensitive to tip clearance changes. Moreover, modifying the tip clearance is effective on the flow angle in the trailing edge and as the tip clearance increases, the same thing happens about the flow angle. The maximum value of flow angle changes by modifying the tip clearance belongs to the third stage of the compressor.

The present research investigates the effect of the location and the width of single shallow circumferential groove casing treatment on the flow field and the stability improvement of NASA Rotor 37 utilizing the help of computational fluid dynamics. At first, steady state simulation of Rotor37 was presented for smooth casing (without groove). Then, forty five various grooved casing were simulated and compared with the smooth casing. The results indicated that narrow grooves had slight effect on the adiabatic efficiency but as the width of the groove was increased, a decline in efficiency was observed. The investigation on the stall margin revealed that narrow grooves next to the leading edge could improve the stall margin by a reduction in the size of vortex breakdown zone. Medium-width grooves displayed an effective role in delaying the separation- produced by shock wave and boundary layer interaction- on the blade suction side near the casing. This type of grooves could improve the stall margin more than narrow grooves when located on the top of separation zone near the blade suction side. Wide grooves had negative effect on the stall margin and caused a significant drop in the efficiency and the total pressure ratio of the compressor.