A study on the flow characteristics in a 4-stage axial compressor and the behavior of rotating stall was experimentally performed at the third-stage rotor and stator rows in order to investigate its performance and instability of the compression system. The pressure losses generated due to the leakage flow at a tip clearance and a shroud seal clearance and the wake flow near the trailing edge of a blade were taken into consideration to estimate the causes of performance drop of the low speed research compressor(LSRC) in Seoul national university. In addition, the measurement of rotating stall was conducted with hot-wire probes and the existence and propagation of stall cell could be confirmed through fast Fourier transform and cross-correlation analysis.