Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical

Engineers, Part C: Journal of Mechanical

Engineering Science
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Axial flow compressor design?

S. J. Gallimore
Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part C: Journal of Mechanical Engineering Science 1999 213:
437
DOI: 10.1243/0954406991522680

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 437

Axial flow compressor design†

S J Gallimore
Rolls-Royce plc, PO Box 31, Derby DE24 8BJ, UK

Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to set out some of the basic principles and rules associated
with the design of axial flow compressors, principally for aero-engines, as well as the practical con-
straints that are inevitably present. The thrust is primarily on the aerodynamic design but this cannot
be divorced from the mechanical aspects and so some of these are touched upon but are not gone
into so deeply. The paper has been written from the point of view of the designer and tries to cover
most of the points that need to be considered in order to produce a successful compressor. The
emphasis has been on the theory behind the design process and on minimizing the reliance on empirical
rules. However, because of the complexity of the flow, some empiricism still remains.

Keywords: compressor, aerodynamics, design, computational fluid dynamics (CFD), secondary

flows, endwall flows, boundary layers, tip clearance flow, rotors, stators, stall, surge, reaction

NOTATION ences the design process, starting with the fundamental

D incompressible flow dynamic head (0.5rV 2)
U blade speed
V axial flow velocity
a guarantee to predict the absolute values of these quantit-
DH enthalpy rise
Dp static pressure rise
r density
1 INTRODUCTION
To write a short paper on axial flow compressor design
is a demanding task because of the many decisions and
interactions that take place in the course of the design
process. Complete books have been devoted to the aero-
dynamics of compressors (e.g. reference [1]), to which
the reader is referred for a more detailed description of
the phenomena described here. A whole research indus-
try (with the associated literature) as well as considerable
engine company effort is expended trying to improve our
understanding of these machines. Teams of engineers
from various disciplines are employed and it might as
well be said at the outset that it is not a precise science
and many judgements have to be made based on experi-
ence where the science behind the design does not give
accurate answers. This lack of accurate prediction influ-
The MS was received on 20 February 1998 and was accepted after
revision for publication on 18 December 1998.
† Invited paper for the Special Issue on Turbomachinery Design published
in two parts in the Proceedings, Part C, 1999, Vol. 213, Issues C1 and C2.
C02198 © IMechE 1999
requirements of a compressor to pass a certain flow at
a given pressure ratio and efficiency with adequate
operating range for stable operation. To the author’s
knowledge there are no methods currently available that
ies to a sufficient accuracy that a new design can be said
to be risk free. The lack of predictive capability per-
meates through the whole design process down to the
fine details of three-dimensional and unsteady flow
behaviour and necessitates the skill and judgement of
the engineer at every step. Notwithstanding this, there
have been significant improvements in the predictive
capability available to the designer over the years, with
improved modelling of the flow physics and increased
computing power. This has led to improved designs with
more certainty of achieving the desired results, but of
course the demands for higher efficiency, reduced cost,
etc. continue to push the compressor designer beyond
the current established practice.
The reason for this lack of certainty in the predictions
lies in the complicated nature of the flow through axial
flow compressors which is described in the next section.
The flow is unsteady and three-dimensional and viscous
effects play a dominant role, with separations of the
boundary layer flows being common. Unfortunately it
is these very features that are difficult to model accu-
rately and hence the uncertainty in the design process.
Because of this complexity, assumptions have to be made
about the flow in order to make it a tractable problem
that can be calculated, but the danger of this approach
is that some of the important flow physics will be
left out of the model and this can lead to unexpected
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438
behaviour of the real machine that was not predicted.
In an attempt to minimize this risk a series of rules have
been developed over time that attempt to add back in
the missing physics but are not necessarily based on
that physics.
The design process is iterative and interactive and can
broadly be described as design by analysis. It uses a
range of tools from the most simple mean line methods
to the most sophisticated three-dimensional compu-
tational fluid dynamics (CFD). Each has its own part to
play in the overall process, with more complicated mod-
elling being used as the design becomes more refined.
The design can iterate between the various stages of the
design process. There is a continual interaction with
other disciplines such as whole engine modelling and
performance, mechanical design and stress, each of
which has its own objectives. To simplify this paper the
design process can, somewhat artificially, be split into
roughly four stages: preliminary design, throughflow
design, blading design (two-dimensional ) and blading
design (three-dimensional ). These headings will be
expanded upon below and used as sections to explore
the axial flow compressor design process. Firstly, how-
ever, the flow field that the design process is trying to
control will be described.
2 DESCRIPTION OF THE COMPRESSOR
FLOW FIELD
The purpose of this section is to give a description of
the main features present in the complex flow field of a
multistage axial flow compressor. While it is not possible
Fig. 1 Schematic diagram of flows in a compressor blade row
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S J GALLIMORE
to go into all the phenomena in great depth in this paper,
it is hoped that this description will prove sufficient to
allow the approximations used in the various design
methods discussed later to be appreciated.
Figure 1 is a schematic representation of the flow
through an axial flow compressor rotor with some of the
significant flow features illustrated. In general the flow
is unsteady because of the relative motion between suc-
cessive blade rows in the compressor. This not only
means that the wakes of the upstream blade row pass
intermittently through the row but also that the back
pressure seen by the row also varies because of the
upstream potential effect from the downstream row. It
is also true that the effects of blade rows even further
upstream can be detected some rows downstream. If
these unsteady effects are ignored, the picture of the flow
illustrated in Fig. 1 is obtained.
The flow into the blade row is radially non-uniform
and can be typified as a freestream region and two annu-
lus wall boundary layers where the flow velocities vary
towards the endwall values. Because of the change in
rotation between successive blade rows any reduction in
axial velocity towards the annulus walls produces a
change in inlet angle in the frame of reference of the
blade row under consideration. Generally, the relative
air inlet angles increase towards the walls. The frees-
tream is turned towards the axial direction and diffused
through the blade row. This sets up a tangential pressure
gradient which then acts on the endwall boundary layer
fluid. Because this fluid has a different momentum at
inlet to the blade than the freestream flow, and is also
subject to the effects of shear on the endwalls and within
the flow field, it will turn a different amount than the
C02198 © IMechE 1999
 AXIAL FLOW COMPRESSOR DESIGN
freestream flow in the pressure gradient. This results in
flow under- or overturning and radially non-uniform exit
flow angles from the blade row.
At fixed blade ends the endwall flow cannot sustain
the amount of diffusion required in the suction surface
endwall corner and it tends to separate. This separation
region is fed by endwall fluid that is overturned by the
mechanism just described and results in reduced turning
in this region. On the blade surfaces the blade boundary
layers do not behave in a two-dimensional way. Because
they are travelling slower than the freestream flow they
tend to be centrifuged radially outwards on rotors. In
stator blade rows the radial pressure gradient imposed
by radial equilibrium tends to force the blade boundary
layers radially inwards.
The process of transition of the blade surface bound-
ary layers is complex and has been the subject of extens-
ive study recently (e.g. reference [2]). This work has
revealed that the process is unsteady and heavily influ-
enced by the incoming wakes from the upstream blade
row. The process of transition varies with time as the
wakes pass over the blade, with the position of the start
of the fully turbulent boundary layer moving along the
blade chord with time. This is illustrated in Fig. 2.
Because of the effect of the wakes the boundary layer
flows in compressors tend to behave more like turbulent
ones rather than laminar ones and this means that blades
with Reynolds numbers above about 2×105 will all have
essentially the same type of boundary layer character-
istics and not be subject to laminar boundary layer
separations. This accounts for most engine compressors
except for the very smallest at high altitudes. It is also
a useful factor in allowing the use of large-scale low-
Fig. 2 Schematic diagram of unsteady transition
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439
speed compressors for detailed aerodynamic research.
Increasing the Reynolds number of a compressor will
generally reduce losses as the boundary layers thin until
no further improvement is possible. The precise value of
the Reynolds number beyond which no loss reduction
occurs depends on details of the design such as the blade
surface roughness.
At blade ends with a tip gap (rotors at the outer casing
and cantilevered stators at the hub) the flow is domi-
nated by the flow across the tip clearance. This flow is
driven by the viscous drag of the endwall passing over
the blade tip and also by the pressure difference across
the blade. The tip clearance flow interacts with the flow
already on the endwall to produce a complex flow pat-
tern that is often typified by a vortex type structure as
the tip clearance flow rolls up and passes downstream.
The flow patterns just described are well known, if not
fully understood, and are generally categorized as sec-
ondary flows (apart from the transition). This is a slight
misnomer because it may give the impression that they
are of secondary importance. In fact it is these flows that
tend to dominate the behaviour of multistage com-
pressor blade rows, particularly when the aspect ratios
approach unity in the latter stages of a machine. They
determine the stall behaviour of the blade row and are
responsible for at least half the losses.
Recently, another category of flows has received atten-
tion and their importance in determining compressor
behaviour has become more widely appreciated. These
are the flows associated with the mechanical design and
real geometry of the machine such as shroud leakage
flows and bleeds. These flows enter and leave the main
annulus through axial gaps between rotating and station-
ary parts of the hub and bleed holes in the outer casing.
Even if there is no net flow into or out of the annulus
the circumferential non-uniform static pressures pro-
duced by the blades mean that flow goes both into and
out of these gaps in a non-uniform manner. These flow
disturbances interact with the main flow field and can
change the nature and magnitude of the secondary flows
as well as producing losses. This was illustrated on an
isolated rotor [3] where even the presence of a small
axial gap just upstream of a rotor influenced the flow
field over a significant part of the span.
The result of the types of flow just described is that
the flow field in a compressor blade row is extremely
complicated and can be categorized as being unsteady,
three-dimensional and dominated by viscous effects. This
makes it extremely difficult to model and predict accu-
rately and so for compressor design to proceed several
simplifications need to be made in order to produce prac-
tical design tools. An example of the exit flow field meas-
ured on a low-speed compressor serves to illustrate this
and is shown in Fig. 3. The data are taken from reference
[4] and show contours of measured total pressure defect
taken downstream of the third stator and circumfer-
entially averaged flow angles and loss coefficients for the
Proc Instn Mech Engrs Vol 213 Part C
440 S J GALLIMORE

Fig. 3 Example of the complexity of flow in a compressor blade row. (After Howard et al. [4])

same blade. The stators are cantilevered and the tip flow ring at one speed, and consequently the most significant
at the hub of the stator is clearly shown in the contours. mechanism for practical purposes is the ‘spike’ type. This
Towards the outer casing there is evidence of separation breakdown occurs near rotor tips in discrete patches
in the suction surface endwall corner. The effect of the which rotate in the same direction as the rotor but at
tip clearance is again seen clearly in the underturning of between 30 and 70 per cent of the rotor speed, illustrated
the flow measured downstream of stator 3. There is a in Fig. 4. This is called part span rotating stall and can
significant increase in the losses in this region, associated have more than one stall cell initially but as the stall
with the tip clearance flow. Near the outer casing there develops they tend to coalesce into one cell. Eventually
is both under- and overturning of the flow as well as an the instability in one blade row can disrupt the flow in
increase in the losses. the whole compressor, leading to a bulk instability of
So far in this description one of the most important
phenomena in compressors, stall or surge, has not been
touched upon. It is now generally accepted that stall
occurs in compressors when the flow breaks down under
increasing adverse pressure gradients. Two types of
breakdown have been identified, one associated with a
short lengthscale disturbance known as a ‘spike’, and
the other identified with a longer lengthscale known as
a ‘modal oscillation’. The ‘modal oscillations’ are related
to an instability of the whole compression system while
the ‘spike’ type of instability can be related to a more
local disturbance in the flow, commonly caused by high
incidence at a rotor tip [5]. For ‘modal oscillations’ to
occur the compressor has to be axially well matched,
with none of the stages being significantly more stalled
than the rest. This situation will be fairly unusual even
in a well-designed high-speed multistage compressor
operating over its full speed range, perhaps only occur- Fig. 4 Schematic diagram of a part span rotating stall
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 AXIAL FLOW COMPRESSOR DESIGN
the flow through the whole compressor which is called
surge. However, in a multistage compressor it is possible
for one or perhaps more blade rows to be stalled without
the compressor surging. This typically occurs at low
speed with the front of the compressor stalled but the
rest of the machine being healthy enough to support it.
For the compressor designer it is important to be able
to predict the onset of stall because generally it is not
satisfactory to operate a compressor in stall for any sig-
nificant part of engine operation. However, it may be
judged from the preceding description of the phenom-
enon that predicting stall onset is a difficult task and
remains one of the biggest challenges to research into
compressor aerodynamics.
3 PRELIMINARY DESIGN
This is the phase of a design where the basic outline of
the compressor is established, such as the annulus lines,
number of stages and overall length. Depending on the
nature of the project the designer will have more or less
freedom to change these parameters. For a new engine
there will be many iterations before the compressor
arrangement has been fixed to fit in with whole engine
requirements of flow, efficiency and surge margin at the
required shaft speed. Because of this, relatively simple
and fast tools tend to be used to screen out the various
possibilities before the most promising options are sub-
jected to a more detailed analysis. However, it is this
part of the process that is the most crucial of all because
if fundamental mistakes are made here, such as choosing
too few stages or too short a compressor for example,
then no amount of later changes to blade profiles or
numbers will be able to rectify the situation. Changing
the fundamental architecture of the compressor later on
in the project will have serious consequences.
The basic inputs to the design will be requirements for
a certain flow capacity, pressure ratio, efficiency and
surge margin for a range of engine operating points.
These must be achieved at shaft speeds appropriate for
the compressor and turbine. The mechanical restrictions
of compressor length and radius to fit in with the whole
engine arrangement need to be met. The anticipated level
of tip clearance in the compressor is an important par-
ameter because of its large influence on both the
efficiency and surge margin [6 ]. The design decisions will
have to be taken against the project background of
acceptable risk, technology level, timescales and cost.
Previous experience will play a major role in assessing
what is an acceptable design in the circumstances. A civil
engineering project will require a different balance
of risk, etc., compared with a military or industrial
application.
The basic tools to deal with this part of the design are
mean line performance prediction programs. These
assume that the flow through the compressor is steady,
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441
inviscid and one-dimensional. Viscous effects are
included by using losses taken from correlations to rep-
resent the annulus loss and blade losses. Blade turning
is either specified or is taken from correlations that relate
blade deviation to the blade two-dimensional profile.
Annulus wall boundary layer blockage is also calculated
from correlations or perhaps by simple methods such as
that of Stratford [7]. The details of the correlations used
will vary because they will be heavily dependent on the
past experience of the organization carrying out the
design but fundamentally they all do the same thing.
Examples of typical correlations may be found in the
work of Miller and Wasdell [8] and Wright and Miller
[9]. The regions of the flow that tend to dominate the
behaviour of a compressor, the endwall regions, are not
modelled well in this process and so empirical adjust-
ments have to be made to any theoretical limits to blade
loading, etc., that may exist.
The procedure is to iterate through the mean line pre-
diction program, which is in effect just solving the mean
velocity triangles through the compressor, until an annu-
lus, number of stages, blade numbers and flow angles
have been arrived at that are deemed satisfactory. At
this point in the process the prime considerations are
blade and endwall loadings. These are fundamentally
linked to the three-dimensional viscous nature of the real
flow field, but at this point some parameters are used to
guide the decisions without recourse to a full knowledge
of the flow field.
Some decisions can be made without postulating blade
profile inlet and exit angles, blade numbers, etc., but by
just specifying the turning of the air imposed by the
blades. The velocity triangles provide knowledge of the
stage loading, DH/U2, and axial velocity, V /U, once the
a
flow angles have been decided. With an initial estimate
of efficiency this will give the pressure ratio. High V /U
a
will give relatively higher DH/U2 and hence the stage
pressure ratio for a given blade loading, as quantified by
the incompressible static pressure rise coefficient (Dp/D)
which is discussed below. It will also reduce the annulus
area for a given mass flow, giving a smaller compressor.
However, the general velocity level in the compressor
will be higher which may present problems in terms of
high Mach numbers and so possibly losses in the front
stages and high exit Mach numbers from the compressor
which could cause problems with the diffuser and com-
bustor design and so increase the losses there. Typically,
exit Mach numbers above 0.25 are to be avoided and
rotor 1 tip Mach numbers above 1.4 can give high losses
in certain circumstances.
Some decisions can be made on the flow angles which
will determine the reaction of the compressor. The reac-
tion is the ratio of the static pressure rise achieved in the
rotor to the overall stage static pressure rise. For 50 per
cent reaction the relative velocity triangles through both
rotor and stator are identical and they have equal
diffusion. At first sight this might seem to be the obvious
Proc Instn Mech Engrs Vol 213 Part C
442
choice because it evens out the loading across the blade
rows. However, the reaction is not necessarily a com-
pletely free choice. The inlet flow angle to the compressor
will be determined by what is upstream. If the inlet flow
angle is axial and there is no requirement for variable
stators on the compressor for part speed surge margin
then perhaps axial flow into the first rotor is the best
option. At exit from the compressor there is generally a
requirement for axial flow into combustion chambers.
However, if the rotor 1 Mach numbers are high then
some inlet flow swirl angle in the direction of rotation
would reduce them, but the swirl will have to be removed
by the point at which the flow leaves the compressor and
this increases the stator loadings. The choice of reaction
will also influence the bearing loads which need to be
monitored. While this is not a fundamental constraint,
changes later on in the design process may have impli-
cations for the mechanical design of the engine. There
are successful compressors with 50 per cent reaction,
high reaction (zero stator exit flow angle) and axially
varying reaction, which indicates that the choice of reac-
tion for its own sake is not a crucial design parameter
in determining efficiency and surge margin and is more
likely to be the result of the other design considerations
discussed above. A more complete discussion on the
choice of reaction, which reaches similar conclusions to
those here, can be found in reference [1].
The fundamental parameters that are used in com-
pressor design are measures of flow diffusion and veloc-
ity. Common examples of diffusion parameters are the
Leiblein diffusion factor and the incompressible static
pressure rise coefficient, Dp/D (or the De Haller number
if preferred); Dp/D is fundamental to the velocity tri-
angles and is simply a measure of the static pressure rise
through a blade row non-dimensionalized by the inlet
relative dynamic head. A value of unity would indicate
that all the dynamic head had been turned into static
pressure and the flow had stagnated. This does not
happen because the annulus and blade boundary layers
have less stagnation pressure than the freestream and
will separate before the static pressure rise is achieved.
This creates separations which in turn produce loss and
increased deviation. Typical design values for a com-
pressor would be about 0.45, but this will vary depending
on the type of operation that the particular compressor
is required to perform. The diffusion factor is a measure
of the diffusion on the suction side of a blade. If this
becomes too large the blade boundary layer will separ-
ate, causing losses and increased deviation. Again, design
values of around 0.45 are typical. The detailed choice of
design levels for these types of parameter depends on
the application, previous experience and the amount of
surge margin required. The limits used in a particular
design will be based on previous experience. Care must
be taken at this point to acknowledge inlet radial distri-
butions of total pressure. If there is a significant radial
variation then the loading of some parts of the blade
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S J GALLIMORE
will be significantly above the mean levels and so a
reduced mean level of design loading would be appro-
priate in these cases. Of course, near the endwalls the
loadings will always be higher than the mean levels
because of the annulus wall boundary layers. However,
this is usually taken into account in the acceptable mean
levels of loading used as design criteria which will be
somewhat below the equivalent values that are appro-
priate for a purely two-dimensional cascade.
Mach number levels are also chosen by the designer.
High Mach numbers will give high dynamic heads
and reduce the loading coefficients described above.
However, excessive Mach numbers give shock losses that
can result in low efficiencies if there is insufficient work
or turning in the blade row.
The correlations for loss and deviation will generally
be based on the loading coefficients described above
and the blade tip clearance. The predicted losses and
efficiencies give the designer another guide to the choice
of blade numbers, loadings, Mach numbers, etc. The
balance between profile and secondary losses might
influence the choice of aspect ratio, as will the constraints
on overall compressor length. The aspect ratio also plays
an important role in determining the surge margin of
the compressor. Lower aspect ratios tend to give more
surge margin at a given two-dimensional blade loading.
There is no agreed scientific explanation for this, but it
is generally thought that low aspect ratio blades control
the endwall boundary layer flow better and so delay the
onset of stall. The trend has been for compressor aspect
ratios to become lower over the years. There is no sure
way of choosing the aspect ratio, but one measure that
can be used is that derived by Koch [10] which is based
on a diffuser analogy of the compressor blade passage.
The overall length of the compressor may also influence
the choice of aspect ratio. Preliminary rules for the axial
gaps between the blades will need to be established to
allow sufficient room for surge deflections and the decay
of the blade potential fields to reduce the vibration forc-
ing on the blades. There is some evidence to suggest that
there is an optimum (smaller) axial gap between blade
rows that gives the best efficiency (e.g. reference [11]).
This happens because of the possibility of recovering
some of the velocity defect in the blade wake as it passes
through the downstream blade row and so reducing
the wake mixing losses. However, the demonstrated
efficiency gains are small and it is generally the mechan-
ical constraints that determine the minimum axial gap.
Some decisions will also be made on blade incidence
settings at this point. These are primarily dependent on
the matching of the compressor and the surge margin
requirements.
Once preliminary blades have been set up at the design
point the mean line programs can be used to predict a
set of overall characteristics for the compressor. These
use the blade numbers, stagger and cambers as input
to correlations to predict losses and deviations.
C02198 © IMechE 1999
 AXIAL FLOW COMPRESSOR DESIGN
Correlations are also used to calculate annulus and
secondary flow losses and blockage. At this point the
estimation of surge margin becomes important. This
needs to be assessed at part speed as well as at design
to establish whether variable stators, handling bleeds or
casing treatments are required to enable the compressor
to operate satisfactorily over the speed range. The blade
incidence settings at design may need adjusting at this
point to compensate for the off-design operation. At part
speed, front stages are forced towards stall while the
rear stages are driven towards negative incidence. The
methods used to determine the surge margin at this stage
of the design process are heavily empirical. The initi-
ation of stall is a complex, unsteady, three-dimensional
phenomenon which is still not fully understood. At this
point in the design process this flow phenomenon is not
included in the models used to predict compressor per-
formance and consequently the onset of stall is related,
through correlations and experience, to the bulk loading
and flow properties available. It is possible to establish
stability criteria based on the performance of the individ-
ual stages such as those discussed in references [9] and
[12]. These rely on the accurate prediction of stage
characteristics and even then do not guarantee success.
Other aspects of the flow field that can be used to corre-
late with stall are blade loadings and incidence as well
as limiting diffusion (e.g. reference [10]). It must be
remembered that in a multistage compressor it is possible
for an individual stage to be stalled while the machine
as a whole remains stable. Perhaps the most accurate
method of assessing the surge or stall line is to calibrate
the methods against the known performance of similar
machines using a range of criteria such as those men-
tioned above. It is generally acknowledged that stall
initiates in the endwall regions of compressors, particu-
larly at rotor tips where the tip clearance plays a domi-
nant role. There is some evidence that an optimum tip
clearance exists that gives maximum efficiency [13, 14].
This is not fully understood but is likely to be associated
with the balance of losses associated with the tip clear-
ance flow mixing out into the blade passage and the
losses associated with the secondary flow in the corner
of the blade suction surface and the endwall. The level
of the optimum clearance is about 1 per cent of blade
chord, a small value, which for most practical appli-
cations is difficult to achieve mechanically. Consequently,
the practical approach is to try to have the smallest clear-
ance that can be mechanically designed. This will also
give the greatest surge or stall margin.
Generally the preliminary design programs available
cannot be expected to give the correct absolute values
of efficiency and surge margin, as well as other flow
properties. In particular, the correlations used for blade
and endwall losses are generally based on traditional
blade profile types such as DCA or NACA without any
three-dimensional design features such as endbends.
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443
However, they can be used with some confidence to pre-
dict relative changes between machines.
During the preliminary design phase the decision
will have to be made whether to have cantilevered or
shrouded stator blade rows. To the author’s knowledge
there is no clear evidence to suggest that one solution is
better than the other in all cases. Shrouds have the
advantage of removing the tip flow and resultant losses
associated with cantilevered designs. However, some
leakage flow through the shroud will still be present and
this will interact with the main annulus flow, changing
the secondary flows around the hub and increasing the
loss. It is possible, however, for the shroud design to run
at a very small clearance because the seal fins can be
allowed to rub more readily than the free end of a stator.
This can lead to improved performance retention over
the lifetime of the compressor as the clearances increase.
On the other hand the cantilevered solution allows thin-
ner stator blade sections near the hub, because of
mechanical and vibration considerations, and this can
be advantageous in high Mach number applications. The
tolerance of the blades to damage from debris passing
through the compressor in service also needs to be con-
sidered; a shrouded stator will need to crack through
completely at two radial locations before any blade is
lost, whereas it only needs one such crack to release part
of a cantilevered stator. The fact that there are both
shrouded and cantilevered compressor designs in service
perhaps indicates that the choice is not a clear one. For
the compressor designer the choice is often made to stay
with the style of design that has worked adequately in
similar compressors in the past.
4 THROUGHFLOW DESIGN
Once the preliminary design phase has screened out some
of the proposals it is necessary to examine the remaining
options in more detail. This means introducing the radial
or spanwise dimension into the design using a through-
flow procedure. The simplest of these again does not
include the major, significant flow features for similar
reasons to the preliminary design methods. They are too
complicated for computation and prediction and so
again recourse is made to correlations and empirical
rules. However, it is at this stage that the radial matching
of the compressor is established and more attention can
be given to the endwall regions.
In the simplest throughflow methods the effect of the
endwall boundary layers is included by specifying a
blockage and extra loss in the calculations. The blockage
is equivalent to the displacement thickness of a boundary
layer but in reality has a wider role than this because it
is part of the semi-empirical input to the calculations
that may be adjusted through experience to give better
agreement between the calculations and experimental
data. Blockage levels can be calculated using integral
Proc Instn Mech Engrs Vol 213 Part C
444
boundary layer methods, one of the simplest and most
accurate methods being that of Stratford [7]. Typical
values for blockage can reach over 10 per cent of the
annulus area in the rear stages of a multistage com-
pressor. If the level of blockage specified is not correct
then the compressor will be mismatched from front to
back, with some stages not running at their design con-
ditions at the overall compressor design operating point.
This can lead to reduced efficiency and surge margin.
The need for the empirical blockage can be removed
by modelling the endwall boundary layers in a more
direct manner [15, 16 ] and more realistic spanwise vari-
ations in flow properties can be obtained by using a
throughflow including the effects of spanwise mixing
[17, 18]. Spanwise mixing is particularly important in
multistage compressors because it prevents the continu-
ous growth of the endwall boundary layers through the
machine by mixing the endwall losses towards mid-span.
It also radially redistributes the high endwall tempera-
tures caused by the endwall losses. The causes of span-
wise mixing have been the subject of considerable
research (e.g. references [19] and [20]), with one mech-
anism being a turbulent diffusion type of process caused
by the unsteady flow and wakes coming from upstream
blade rows and another being the radial components
of deterministic secondary flows in the blade rows.
Both mechanisms have a role, with the relative magni-
tudes depending on the particular compressor and the
operating point. What is clear, however, is that including
some sort of spanwise mixing in the throughflow model
is important if accurate predictions of radial total press-
ure and temperature distributions are to be achieved. An
example of the improvements that can be gained by
taking into account these real effects is shown in Fig. 5,
taken from reference [16 ], which shows a comparison of
the axial velocity profiles and relative flow angles
measured downstream of a rotor in a low-speed com-
pressor with the results from several calculations of the
flow field. The line labelled as design in both plots is
that produced by a conventional throughflow calcu-
lation, typical of those used in the past. The addition of
Fig. 5 Measured and predicted rotor exit axial velocity and flow angle. (From Gallimore [16 ])
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S J GALLIMORE
the real effects of endwall shear, tip clearance flow and
spanwise mixing gives the much more realistic radial pro-
files of the viscous throughflow calculation. Indeed, this
calculation gives results of similar accuracy to those from
the Denton three-dimensional multistage CFD method
[21].
The throughflow will give more details of the endwall
conditions. This will lead to predictions of endwall load-
ings, axial velocity profiles, etc. due to the effects of
radial equilibrium and streamline curvature effects. By
changing the radial variation in stator exit angles and
indeed the radial distribution of the stage pressure ratio,
the endwall loadings can be controlled to give acceptable
levels. A relatively common design feature is to change
these radial distributions to promote increased through-
flow velocities in the hub region, which tend to offload
the blade rows there. Again, at this point the parameters
used to judge the loadings, etc. are similar to those used
in the preliminary design phase, such as the diffusion
factor, Dp/D, etc., except that radial distributions of
these quantities are now available.
Similar correlations to those in the preliminary design
process can now be used to refine the performance pre-
diction of the compressor, but now taking into account
the endwall effects in more detail.
5 BLADING DESIGN ( TWO-DIMENSIONAL)
Once the throughflow design has been completed, the
blading that is intended to achieve that air angle design
can now be defined. In the past this was achieved by
using correlations to define the blades from a series of
standard profiles, but it is now more usual to use blade-
to-blade calculation programs to define the blade shapes.
The data from the throughflow calculations is split into
sections along a streamline for each blade. The through-
flow effects are fed into the blade-to-blade design via the
height of the stream tube associated with each stream-
line. These individual sections are then designed before
being put together to define the whole blade. Using a
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 AXIAL FLOW COMPRESSOR DESIGN
blade-to-blade program is essentially a two-dimensional
approach to blade design and suffers from similar prob-
lems to those described earlier near the endwall regions
where the flow field is certainly not two-dimensional.
Towards the rear of multistage compressors, where the
aspect ratios can be of an order of unity or even less, it
is doubtful that any of the blade aerodynamics is really
two-dimensional. In the front stages, where the annulus
wall boundary layers are relatively thin and the aspect
ratios are higher, it is reasonable to say that the majority
of the blade is essentially two-dimensional with the three-
dimensional endwall effects being restricted to close to
the annulus walls. Additional modifications to the blades
may be made in these endwall regions using the three-
dimensional techniques described in the next section.
The essential parameters that need to be calculated in
order to complete the two-dimensional design of the
blading are the section incidence, deviation and the
boundary layer parameters. Generally speaking the inci-
dence setting will be decided upon by experience of how
the compressor needs to be matched in order to meet a
range of operating points. Choke margin is another par-
ameter that is influenced by incidence setting. This par-
ameter is the difference between the flow passing through
the blade section and the theoretical choke flow for that
section, expressed as a percentage of the choke flow. This
is important for the front stages of machines because if
the blade throats are designed too small the high-speed
flow capacity and efficiency of the compressor will be
reduced. Typically, the first rotor could be designed to
have about 3 per cent of choke margin.
The blade section deviation is now generally accepted
to be that calculated by the blade-to-blade prediction
programs (of course the real deviations may well be
different from the section deviations discussed in this
part of the paper because of secondary flow effects, par-
ticularly in the endwall regions). These programs calcu-
late the flow through the blade passage and include the
effect of the blade surface boundary layers either by inte-
gral methods or through full two-dimensional Navier–
Stokes calculations. For the integral methods the basic
flow solver is inviscid and the effects of the blade surface
boundary layers are incorporated through the displace-
ment thickness of the boundary layer which is imposed
on the blade shape either by moving the blade surface
or by using a transpiration model. The boundary layer
parameters are calculated using the integral boundary
layer equations and the blade surface pressure distri-
bution calculated by the Euler solver. It is recognized
that the blade surface boundary layers are not two-
dimensional in reality, with significant radial flows
being present owing to centrifugal effects on rotors for
example. However, it has been found that the predictions
given are sufficiently accurate to give good compressor
performance. It is also common for relatively simple
boundary layer transition criteria to be used in these
calculations, such as steady point or length transition,
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445
although more complex unsteady criteria based on the
real transition phenomena described earlier are now
becoming available. Generally these methods are used
in the design by analysis mode, although some methods
are available that allow true inverse design to be used.
In these cases the designer specifies the blade surface
pressure distribution or desired boundary layer param-
eters along the blade chord and the methods calculate
the blade profile that will achieve the desired result.
A prime use of these calculations has been to allow
the use of non-standard blade sections where the pre-
dicted boundary layer parameters can be controlled to
give reduced losses by allowing the designer freedom to
change the blade camber and thickness distributions. An
early example of this new type of profile was the
‘supercritical’ airfoil designs borrowed from aeroplane
wing development (e.g. reference [22]). It was the inten-
tion of these designs to minimize the blade profile loss
by controlling the blade boundary layer growth along
the blade chord. This type of design also had significantly
lower deviations than the standard sections, so it was
essential to be able to calculate these accurately, requir-
ing a blade-to-blade calculation with the boundary layer
modelled. Clearly it is essential to calculate the boundary
layer in some way in order to calculate the change in
loss as the blade profile is designed. As time has passed
these initial attempts at designing the blade profiles
in detail have developed into proprietary rules and
approaches with the same philosophy of minimizing
blade losses but with adequate off-design operating
range. An example of the improvements that can be
made with these methods is given by Ginder [23] and
reproduced in Fig. 6. In this case a double circular arc
(DCA) blade has been modified to have a parabolic arc
camber line. The calculated boundary layer displacement
thickness and shape factor have been considerably
reduced at the trailing edge for the parabolic blade, indi-
cating a more firmly attached boundary layer with
reduced profile loss. For reasonably loaded compressors
it can be anticipated that reblading from conventional
standard blade profiles to modern ones will give some
1 per cent improvement in efficiency without any change
in the operating range of the machine.
Further refinements can be made to the basic method-
ology just described. For instance, the predicted blade
losses and air exit angles can be fed back into the
throughflow calculation to give updated aerodynamics
for a further refinement of the blade profiles [23]. This
gives a quasi-three-dimensional design system for the
compressor with an iterative link established between the
throughflow and blade-to-blade calculation. The design
of the blade profiles themselves can be automated so
that, with a series of specified design rules, the whole
operation can proceed with only the minimum amount
of input from the designer, so freeing time for other
tasks.
The designer does not have complete freedom in the
Proc Instn Mech Engrs Vol 213 Part C
446
Fig. 6 Example of improved blade section performance using a blade-to-blade prediction program. (After
Ginder [23])
blade profile design. The blades must be mechanically
sound and this leads to restrictions on minimum blade
thicknesses as well as blade leading and trailing edge
thickness. The leading edge thickness and shape can have
an important effect on the profile losses and off-design
performance and this should be controlled as accurately
as the manufacturing process allows. If there are dis-
continuities in the blade surface they can alter the trans-
ition behaviour of the boundary layer, particularly on
the suction surface, and hence the total amount of
boundary layer growth and loss for the blade profile.
6 BLADING DESIGN ( THREE-DIMENSIONAL)
With ever-increasing computing power it is possible
to use fully three-dimensional Navier–Stokes CFD
methods in multistage axial flow compressor design.
Single blade row calculations have been available for
some time, but recently the use of multistage calculations
has become a practical proposition in the design pro-
cess [24].
There are many details associated with the multistage
CFD methods that are outside the scope of this paper.
Among the issues that need to be addressed are the use
of an appropriate turbulence model and the modelling
of the mixing plane. This latter is still the subject of con-
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S J GALLIMORE
siderable debate. The approach adopted by LeJambre
et al. [24] was to model the upstream and downstream
blade rows using an overlapping grid technique. Other
methods such as that of Denton [21] rely on the more
simple mixing plane approach, illustrated in Fig. 7,
which shows a computational mesh for the six-stage
high-pressure compressor used in the Rolls-Royce Trent
engine. In both cases there is the issue of including the
effect of the circumferential non-uniform flow field of
the upstream and downstream blade rows on the blade
row under consideration. This may be achieved by using
the approach of Adamczyk [25] whose analysis results
in the inclusion of these effects as deterministic stresses
(analogous to the Reynolds stresses derived in turbulence
modelling) in the flow equations. The relative impor-
tance of these effects is still the subject of some debate
in this new topic and it is perhaps still too early to state
which approach gives the best balance between accuracy
and computational cost.
The use of three-dimensional CFD allows two major
advances in the design process. Firstly, it is possible to
design the blades in the three-dimensional flow field and
therefore reduce the secondary losses. Previous attempts
at this had relied upon the experimental approach being
based on observations from low-speed compressor rigs
(e.g. reference [26 ]) or on semi-empirical methods based
on annulus wall boundary layer theory (e.g. endbend
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 AXIAL FLOW COMPRESSOR DESIGN
Fig. 7 Example of a computational mesh for a six-stage compressor
designs). In these techniques the blades are modified in
the endwall regions by recognizing the effects of the
endwall boundary layers, for example by increasing the
blade inlet angles in these regions where the reduced
axial velocities cause the air inlet angles to be greater
than they are towards mid-height and by adjusting the
blade exit angles to take into account the inevitable over-
and underturning of the endwall flow as it passes
through the blade row. These approaches suffered by
not having the physical modelling included in the design
process, so it was quite possible to design one com-
pressor successfully and the next one unsuccessfully. For
example, it is now recognized that the three-dimensional
nature of the flow field is important in achieving success-
ful three-dimensional designs and it is not sufficient to
consider sections of the blades at different radial heights
independently from each other. This fact was first recog-
nized by Wadia and Beacher [27] who introduced the
concept of radial relief. The authors noticed that the
effective incidence on the endwall sections of a blade was
reduced in a three-dimensional calculation of the flow
through a blade row compared with that which would
have been deduced from a purely two-dimensional
analysis along each streamline separately. While it is still
not possible to rely on the CFD exclusively, because its
accuracy still leaves something to be desired, it is now
reliable enough to predict the direction of any changes
correctly while not predicting the magnitude correctly.
This still means that the designer needs to exercise the
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447
same type of skill and judgement as has been required
throughout the rest of the design process.
The other main advantage of these CFD methods is
that they allow the effect of real geometries on the flow
field now to be included in the design. Examples of these
are the effects of tip clearance, fillet radii, bleeds, shroud
leakages and any other leaks and axial gaps that may
be a consequence of the mechanical design of the com-
pressor. It has recently been realized that these can have
a significant influence on the flow field in a compressor
and hence its performance. Indeed, it is likely that some
of the discrepancies between prediction and experiment
are not due fundamentally to the CFD modelling but
rather to the lack of realism in the mechanical arrange-
ment used in the CFD model (e.g. references [3] and
[28]). For example, a recent re-analysis of an isolated
rotor has shown that only a small axial gap with zero
net flow just upstream of the hub leading edge can alter
the pressure rise across the rotor over the bottom half
of the blade span [28]. It is clear that including these
real effects will be essential in future designs as well
as focusing attention on the detrimental effects of such
features on the flow field.
The use of CFD allows the design of three-dimen-
sional blading that reduces endwall losses. Bowed stators
have been used by Pratt and Whitney [24]. For these
designs the endwall sections of the stator blades were
shifted tangentially relative to the mid-height sections.
This has the effect of reducing the loading on the endwall
Proc Instn Mech Engrs Vol 213 Part C
448
sections and reducing the separations there, thus reduc-
ing losses. This effect is a three-dimensional one but also
has some detrimental effects, one of which occurs
towards mid-height where the loadings are increased
somewhat. To obtain a successful design these two
opposing changes have to be balanced to give a net
improvement and the only methods that allow this judge-
ment to be made on a scientific basis are three-dimen-
sional ones. An example of such a design is shown in
Fig. 8, where the results of multistage CFD are presented
for a conventional stator blade and a three-dimensional
redesigned one. The predicted axial velocities just off the
stator suction surface show that the amount of separa-
tion on the redesigned blade has been considerably
reduced, particularly at the casing, leading to reduced
losses. This type of work is the latest advance in com-
pressor design and there is little doubt that fully three-
dimensional designs using multistage CFD are now the
standard, with the rest of the design process described
earlier becoming just part of the preliminary design
system and used before the three-dimensional modifi-
cations to the designs are incorporated.
Because the CFD incorporates more of the real phys-
ics of the flow it should also give better predictions of
the compressor performance, although efficiency predic-
tions accurate to within a couple of percentage points
are still some way away.
7 CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE TRENDS
This paper has been, by necessity, a brief survey of axial
flow compressor design. None of the issues have been
explored very deeply and even now significant areas, such
as casing or tip treatments, have not been discussed. It is
hoped, however, that many of the areas that need to
be considered during the design process have been
Fig. 8 Axial velocity contours (m/s) close to the stator suction surface, predicted by multistage CFD
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S J GALLIMORE
highlighted and that the interested reader will be able to
explore specific topics in more depth. As computa-
tional power grows the certainty of compressor design
increases, but this will be countered by the increased
sophistication required to produce a competitive product.
For example, advances in CFD have produced efficiency
gains of at least 2 per cent in the last decade owing to
improved blade profile and three-dimensional design.
Future developments would include improved under-
standing of the unsteady nature of the flow field and its
impact on boundary layer transition and secondary
flows. This may lead to further loss reductions in blade
designs by optimization of the blade and endwall bound-
ary layer behaviour.
Crucial will be the development of a method that accu-
rately predicts the stalling of a compressor. This is still
some way off because of the complex flow phenomena
involved. It will require time-accurate, unsteady, three-
dimensional calculations. While such calculations are
available now and are being used, it will be some time
before sufficient experience and understanding have been
gained for them to be regarded as mainstream design
tools. A better understanding of stall will allow higher
blade loadings to be used, with a consequent reduction
in parts count and hence cost as well as perhaps greater
efficiencies. However, it must be questionable as to
how much effort is worth expending on improving the
efficiency of a compressor that has a polytropic efficiency
of 92 per cent, so it is likely that future improvements
in compressor design practice will be used to reduce cost
and lead times and improve reliability. This reflects the
current drivers in the commercial world of engine manu-
facture of cost and reliability but, of course, with the
proviso that the product must retain a competitive
performance.
Further improvements in computational power will
allow more automation and optimization in the design
C02198 © IMechE 1999
 AXIAL FLOW COMPRESSOR DESIGN
process with a consequent reduction in costs and lead
times as well as better designs.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The author would like to thank Rolls-Royce plc for
permission to publish this paper. However, the views
expressed herein are those of the author and are not
necessarily those of Rolls-Royce plc.
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