Effect of blade tip winglet on the performance of a highly loaded transonic compressor rotor

The tip leakage flow has an important influence on the performance of transonic compressor. Blade tip winglet has been proved to be an effective method to control the tip leakage flow in compressor, while the physical mechanisms of blade tip winglet have been poorly understood. A numerical study for a highly loaded transonic compressor rotor has been conducted to understand the effect of varying the location of blade tip winglet on the performance of the rotor. Two kinds of tip winglet were designed and investigated. The effects of blade tip winglet on the compressor overall performance, stability and tip flow structure were presented and discussed. It is found that the interaction of the tip winglet with the flow in the tip region is different when the winglet is located at suction-side or pressure-side of the blade tip. Results indicate that the suction-side winglet (SW) is ineffective to improve the performance of compressor rotor. In addition, a significant stall range extension equivalent to 33.74% with a very small penalty in efficiency can be obtained by the pressure-side winglet (PW). An attempt has been made to explain the fundamental mechanisms of blade tip winglet in detail.