Compressor rotor blade tip winglet technology has been confirmed to be a passive flow control method that is effective in increasing the operating stability of compressors. As revealed by extensive research, the structural parameters of tip winglets are capable of affecting their stability expansion effect, whereas their mechanism and influence law of the compressor stage remains unclear. In this study, the effect exerted by the chordwise distribution of tip winglets on the stability of a high-load compressor stage was investigated. As indicated by the result of this study, the tip winglet exhibiting a proper widest position and an adequate chordwise length can effectively increase the stall margin. To be specific, the widest position was located at 25% chord, and the stall margin was increased by up to 25.39%. A winglet exhibiting a chordwise length of 50% achieved the stability expansion ability equivalent to winglet with a full chordwise length, which can be increased by 22.58%. The tip leakage flow turned out to be weakened as the axial momentum was increased, and the circumferential momentum of the flow that arose from the tip winglet was reduced. The result of this study also suggested that tip winglets can play a certain role in combing the inflow of the stator, such that the blockage of the stator channel can be reduced.

To investigate the influence of tip winglets on the tip leakage flow in a compressor cascade with different incidences, the experimental measurement combined with numerical simulation are used to study the conventional cascade and cascades with three different pressure surface tip winglets at five incidences of −6°, −3°, 0°, +3° and +6°. The results indicate that three different tip winglets at five incidences all restrain the occurrence of leakage flow, delay the mixing of leakage flow and the mainstream, change the formation path of leakage vortex and weaken its intensity, reduce the flow loss and improve the uniformity of flow field. The sensitivity of the flow field to variable incidences is reduced. The optimization degree of the flow field is proportional to the width of the blade tip winglet. The improvements are more obvious at positive angles. When the incidence reaches +6°, the flow loss is reduced by 12.4%.