# Toward the Utilization of 3D Blading in the Cantilevered Stator from Highly Loaded Compressors
## 4 Application of 3D Blading in a Cantilevered Stator  
### The Redesign of the Cantilevered Stator  
The design parameters of the datum stator are shown in Table 3, with the diffusion factor varying from 0.58 to 0.35 from hub to tip. Moreover, the stator hub clearance occupies 1% of the blade height, which proved beneficial for the stator aerodynamic performance in a previous study [37]. Since the datum stator was comparable to the orthogonal cantilevered stator in the former study, the 3D blading strategy in Figure 25 is adopted for the redesign scheme.  
Figure 26: Pressure rise and loss characteristics for the 3D cantilevered stator. (**a**) Pressure rise; (**b**) loss.  
Figure 25: Radial distribution of sweep and dihedral for the 3D cantilevered stator.  
Figure 27 presents the comparison of the aerodynamic performances of the datum and redesigned cantilevered stators. To improve the simulation accuracy, the numerical simulation considers the stator blade row separately and imposes the experimentally measured flow fields at the stator inlet according to the specific operating conditions. In the datum case, the pressure rise capability of the cantilevered stator will drop significantly once the mass flow coefficient is below 0.53, due to the deterioration of flow conditions at the hub corner (Figure 28). On the other hand, the stator with 3D blading can overcome the above problem efficiently, as the _Cps_ is increased by 71.8% at the mass flow coefficient of 0.45 (P1). The total pressure loss coefficient for the redesigned case is reduced remarkably as well, implying the effectiveness of the 3D blading scheme.  
As shown in Figure 28, the comparison of the flow field under different operating conditions (P1-P4, see Figure 27) indicates that the datum stator suffers from severe corner flow separation at the near-stall condition, leading to the sudden drop of the pressure rise capacity. Meanwhile, the utilization of compound sweep and dihedral reorganizes the flow field; hence, the accumulation of low-energy fluid at the hub corner is relieved significantly, corresponding to the performance improvement in Figure 27. Note that the flow separation in the upper span areas is intensified in comparison with the datum scheme, which is due to the radial migration of the low-energy fluid from the positive dihedral.  
The radial distribution of the aerodynamic parameters is given in Figure 29 to illustrate the effect of 3D blading quantitively. Results show that the 3D blading can enhance the through flow capacity at the hub region over a wide operating range, as the mass flow distribution is more uniform along the radial direction. The beneficial effect extends from 15% to 50% span as the operating point moves from P1 to P4, which is consistent with the former analysis. Moreover, the total pressure loss demonstrates the advantage of 3D blading in reducing the near-stall loss, yet the effect is less remarkable under larger mass flow coefficients when the flow field is naturally healthy. The following section will outline the experimental methods used for further validation.