NUMERICAL CHARACTERIZATION OF A HP COMPRESSOR STAGE EQUIPPED WITH A CLOSED SHROUDED STATOR CAVITY

In axial compressors, shrouded stator cavity flows are responsible for performance degradation due to their interaction with the power stream. The present paper aims at exploring the possibility of employing a single stage high pressure axial compressor as a test vehicle for cavity flows investigations. In a first step, the robustness of the adopted RANS approach is tested against experimental data on the closed-cavity baseline configuration (i.e. no downstream-to-upstream recirculation). In a second phase, the effect of different hub cavities layouts of different levels of realism is numerically investigated. The focus is set on the representativeness of a closed cavity configuration with injection. The cavity flow topology and impact on the overall performance are considered in the analysis. At its final extent, this paper provides numerical and experimental guidelines for the robust assessment of cavity flows topology and performance effects.