Transonic two-dimensional flow analysis of compressor cascade with splitter vanes

A transonic relaxation program was utilized to analyze the inviscid flow through a cascade without splitters in order to verify the results of a previous experimental investigation. The analysis showed that viscous effects play a large part in the development of the flow field in the transonic flow regime. This was demonstrated by the following: (1) inviscid flow is guided far better by the blades than the real flow, and (2) the blade surfaces are more highly loaded in the inviscid flow than in the experimentally observed viscous real flow. Following the analysis of inviscid flow through a cascade without the splitters, the program was modified to analyze the cascade flow with splitters. The results of the analysis indicated that (1) viscous effects were more pronounced with splitters present in the flow field, and (2) flow conditions (incidence and flow split) at the splitter leading edge were different from those observed experimentally. This made optimization of the splitter location through inviscid analysis a matter of questionable utility. A simplified scheme for deriving splitter passage flow areas to avoid choking was employed to develop two modified splitter configurations that were analyzed with use of the transonic relaxation program.