When developing high-performance, reliable gas turbine compressors, repeated cycles of
experimentation, verification, and analysis are used to eventually determine the optimum design.
Currently, thanks to advances in computational fluid dynamics (CFD) technology, full-stage
analysis results can be obtained within a practical amount of time. This allows for the loading
distribution and internal flow phenomena for all stages to be computed accurately and understood
in a quantitative fashion during the design phase. This is not only for the rated load condition, but
also for the partial load condition meaning that using these results as part of the design
improvement process can reduce the required experimental verification cases. Given that the role
of CFD analysis is expanding, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. (MHI) has made efforts to
improve the analysis accuracy. This paper discusses recent improvements in CFD methods and
illustrates some applications for the improved technology.
