An experimental investigation has been carried out on the influence of grooved casing treatment on the stall margin of a compressor rotor. Tests were conducted with two rotor builds having different solidities (but all other parameters identical) so that one of the rotors exhibited a wall, or casing, type of stall, while the other showed a blade stall. It was found that the casing treatment, when compared to the solid casing, was very effective in increasing the stall margin of the wall stall configuration, whereas there was little or no change in the stall point of the blade stall configuration. Detailed relative frame measurements of the rotor exit flow field were also taken as part of the program. These showed that in a wall stall situation, the use of casing treatment produced a substantial decrease in the relative total pressure defect, compared with the solid casing, while this was not true for the blade stall type of blading. The results of the experiments, both in overall measurements and in the detailed relative frame traverses, support the hypothesis that casing treatment is effective only in a situation in which a wall stall exists.

The performance of axial flow compressors can be improved when it becomes possible to achieve higher loading per stage than currently attainable. The major obstacles to attaining this objective are the limitations on loading in the end wall region and the limited range of operating incidence of compressor blades. A possible method of achieving a wide range of operating incidence is the use of slotted or multibody airfoils. An incompressible, two-dimensional, potential flow analysis for thick, highly cambered multibodies in cascade is presented. The analysis is extended to include compressibility. A boundary-layer calculation, including a wake model, is described and used to predict cascade losses. Theoretical predictions are compared against slotted and unslotted cascade and compressor stator experimental results and adequate agreement obtained. The slotted blade concept is shown to offer performance benefits, provided that end-wall loading limitations can be overcome.