AXIAL COMPRESSOR

In an axial compressor (10), in particular for a gas turbine, with a plurality of stages (ST1,..,ST5) which are arranged one behind the other between a compressor inlet (14) and a compressor outlet (15) and comprise in each case at least one ring of rotor blades (R) and one ring of stator blades (S), a substantial improvement is achieved in that, to minimize the losses in the individual stages (ST1,..,ST5), during operation of the axial compressor (10) in which water is injected into the compressor inlet (15) and evaporates on its way through the compressor (l0) (what is known as "wet compression"), the variations, caused by the injected water, in the flow velocities (c1, cm1, w1) of the medium flowing through the compressor (10) are largely compensated by means of a controlled change in the geometry of the blades (R, S).