Effect of Impeller-Extended Shrouds on Centrifugal Compressor Performance as a Function of Specific Speed

1983 ◽  
Vol 105 (3) ◽  
pp. 457-465 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Sapiro

Centrifugal compressors for gas compression applications usually employ low-pressure ratio, backward-swept impellers with vaneless diffusers. To increase the compressor flow range and speed, impeller blades are occasionally trimmed, resulting in an extended shroud configuration. The effect of extended front and back impeller shrouds on the performance of centrifugal compressors with vaneless diffusers, and the variation of this effect as a function of specific speed, is thus of concern and is the subject of this paper. An investigation was carried out on two backward-swept shrouded impellers of common blade tip and inducer hub diameters, but different inducer tip diameters (corresponding to low and high specific speeds), with the front and back shrouds extending 20 percent above the blade’s outside diameter.

1982 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Sapiro

Centrifugal compressors for gas compression applications usually employ low-pressure ratio, backward-swept impellers with vaneless diffusers. To increase the compressor flow range and speed, impeller blades are occasionally trimmed, resulting in an extended shroud configuration. The effect of extended front and back impeller shrouds on the performance of centrifugal compressors with vaneless diffusers, and the variation of this effect as a function of specific speed, is thus of concern and is the subject of this paper. An investigation was carried out on two backward-swept shrouded impellers of common blade tip and inducer hub diameters, but different inducer tip diameters (corresponding to low and high specific speeds), with the front and back shrouds extending 20 percent above the blade’s outside diameter.


Author(s):  
Cheng Xu ◽  
R. S. Amano

Optimization procedures are widely used in centrifugal compressor developments to enable high efficiency and wide operating ranges of compressors. It is very important to understand how to set the parameters and which parameter needs to be optimized. This paper demonstrates a case study on the importance of mechanical and structure combination optimization and also discusses the meridional impacts of compressor performance. Recently, the high pressure ratio and the efficiency of centrifugal compressors require impeller designs to pay attention to multi-disciplinary optimization. High efficiency and a wide operation range are always the design goal. The geometry of the blades and the meridional profile are very important contributors to compressor performance and structure reliability. Therefore, it is critical to consider all aspects of compressor optimization. The goal of currently used centrifugal compressors is to design a compressor with the same back-disc diameter with the best efficiency and the highest-pressure ratio.


Author(s):  
Wangzhi Zou ◽  
Xiao He ◽  
Wenchao Zhang ◽  
Zitian Niu ◽  
Xinqian Zheng

The stability considerations of centrifugal compressors become increasingly severe with the high pressure ratios, especially in aero-engines. Diffuser is the major subcomponent of centrifugal compressor, and its performance greatly influences the stability of compressor. This paper experimentally investigates the roles of vanes in diffuser on component instability and compression system instability. High pressure ratio centrifugal compressors with and without vanes in diffuser are tested and analyzed. Rig tests are carried out to obtain the compressor performance map. Dynamic pressure measurements and relevant Fourier analysis are performed to identify complex instability phenomena in the time domain and frequency domain, including rotating instability, stall, and surge. For component instability, vanes in diffuser are capable of suppressing the emergence of rotating stall in the diffuser at full speeds, but barely affect the characteristics of rotating instability in the impeller at low and middle speeds. For compression system instability, it is shown that the use of vanes in diffuser can effectively postpone the occurrence of compression system surge at full speeds. According to the experimental results and the one-dimensional flow theory, vanes in diffuser turn the diffuser pressure rise slope more negative and thus improve the stability of compressor stage, which means lower surge mass flow rate.


Author(s):  
Xu Yu-dong ◽  
Li Cong ◽  
Lv Qiong-ying ◽  
Zhang Xin-ming ◽  
Mu Guo-zhen

In order to study the effect of the trailing edge sweep angle of the centrifugal impeller on the aerodynamic performance of the centrifugal compressor, 6 groups of centrifugal impellers with different bending angles and 5 groups of different inclination angles were designed to achieve different impeller blade trailing edge angle. The computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method was used to simulate and analyze the flow field of centrifugal compressors with different blade shapes under design conditions. The research results show that for transonic micro centrifugal compressors, changing the blade trailing edge sweep angle can improve the compressor’s isentropic efficiency and pressure ratio. The pressure ratio of the compressor shows a trend of increasing first and then decreasing with the increase of the blade bending angle. When the blade bending angle is 45°, the pressure ratio of the centrifugal compressor reaches a maximum of 1.69, and the isentropic efficiency is 67.3%. But changing the inclination angle of the blade trailing edge has little effect on the isentropic efficiency and pressure ratio. The sweep angle of blade trailing edge is an effective method to improve its isentropic efficiency and pressure ratio. This analysis method provides a reference for the rational selection of the blade trailing edge angle, and provides a reference for the design of micro centrifugal compressors under high Reynolds numbers.


Author(s):  
Ce Yang ◽  
Ben Zhao ◽  
C. C. Ma ◽  
Dazhong Lao ◽  
Mi Zhou

Two different inlet configurations, including a straight pipe and a bent pipe, were experimentally tested and numerically simulated using a high-speed, low-mass flow centrifugal compressor. The pressure ratios of the compressor with the two inlet configurations were tested and then compared to illustrate the effect of the bent inlet pipe on the compressor. Furthermore, different circumferential positions of the bent inlet pipe relative to the volute are discussed for two purposes. One purpose is to describe the changes in the compressor performance that result from altering the circumferential position of the bent inlet pipe relative to the volute. This change in performance may be the so-called clocking effect, and its mechanism is different from the one in multistage turbomachinery. The other purpose is to investigate the unsteady flow for different matching states of the bent inlet pipe and volute. Thus, the frequency spectrum of unsteady pressure fluctuation was applied to analyze the aerodynamic response. Compared with the straight inlet pipe, the experimental results show that the pressure ratio is modulated and that the choke point is shifted in the bent inlet pipe. Similarly, the pressure ratio can be influenced by altering the circumferential position of the bent inlet pipe relative to the volute, which may have an effect on the unsteady pressure in the rotor section. Therefore, the magnitude of interest spectral frequency is significantly changed by clocking the bent inlet pipe.


Author(s):  
Mohammad R. Aligoodarz ◽  
Mohammad Reza Soleimani Tehrani ◽  
Hadi Karrabi ◽  
Mohammad R. Roshani

Turbo machineries including compressors performance degrades over the period of operation and deviates from design levels due to causes including dust entrance into the compressor, blades mechanical damage, erosion and corrosion. These lead to reduction in compressor performance, efficiency and pressure ratio. Subsequently gas turbine performance is affected since their operation sate is correlated. In this study the numerical investigation of common causes that determine geometric characteristics of a 2-stage centrifugal compressor running in a gas station, including blades fouling and corrosion is performed. 3D Numerical modeling is implemented along with utilization of Shear Stress Transport (SST) turbulence model and independency from the grids is verified.


Author(s):  
C. Rodgers

This paper describes the development of a subscale single stage centrifugal compressor with a dimensionless specific speed (Ns) of 1.8, originally designed for full size appllcatioa as a high volume flow, low pressure ratio, gas booster compressor. The specific stage is noteworthy in that it provides a benchmark representing the performance potential of very high specific speed compressors of which limited information is found in open literature. Stage & component test performance characteristics are presented together with traverse results at the impeller exit. Traverse test results were compared with recent CFD computational predictions, for a exploratory analytical callbration of a very high specific speed impeller geometry. The tested subscale (0.583) compressor essentially satisfied design performance expectations with an overall stage efficiency of 74% incinding, excessive exit casing losses. It was estimated that stage efficiency could be increased to 81% with exit casing losses halved.


Author(s):  
Teemu Turunen-Saaresti ◽  
Ahti Jaatinen

In this paper the effect of the tip clearance was studied with six different centrifugal compressors and data available in literature. The changes in the overall performance of the compressor stage were examined. The aim was to study the influence of the different design parameters to the tip clearance loss. It was evident by the previous studies that the sensitivity of the centrifugal compressor to the tip clearance loss varies with different designs. However, for the designer it is important to know the effect of the tip clearance loss in order to initially evaluate the quality of different designs. Analysis of the data demonstrated that no clear correlation between the sensitivity of the tip clearance loss and the specific speed, the diffusion ratio, the blade number and the ratio of blade heights exists.


Author(s):  
Pau Cutrina Vilalta ◽  
Hui Wan ◽  
Soumya S. Patnaik

Abstract In this paper, we use various regression models and Artificial Neural Network (ANN) to predict the centrifugal compressor performance map. Particularly, we study the accuracy and efficiency of Gaussian Process Regression (GPR) and Artificial Neural Networks in modelling the pressure ratio, given the mass flow rate and rotational speed of a centrifugal compressor. Preliminary results show that both GPR and ANN can predict the compressor performance map well, for both interpolation and extrapolation. We also study the data augmentation and data minimzation effects using the GPR. Due to the inherent pressure ratio data distribution in mass-flow-rate and rotational-speed space, data augmentation in the rotational speed is more effective to improve the ANN performance than the mass flow rate data augmentation.


Author(s):  
Ziliang Li ◽  
Xingen Lu ◽  
Ge Han ◽  
Yanfeng Zhang ◽  
Shengfeng Zhao ◽  
...  

Centrifugal compressors often suffer relatively low efficiency and a terrible operating range particularly due to the complex flow structure and intense impeller/diffuser interaction. Numerous studies have focused on improving the centrifugal compressor performance using many innovative ideas, such as the tandem impeller, which has become increasingly attractive due to its ability to achieve the flow control with no additional air supply configurations and control costs in compressor. However, few studies that attempted to the investigation of tandem impeller have been published until now and the results are always contradictory. To explore the potential of the tandem impeller to enhance the compressor performance and the underlying mechanism of the flow phenomena in the tandem impellers, this paper numerically investigated a high-pressure-ratio centrifugal compressor with several tandem impellers at off-design operating speeds. The results encouragingly demonstrate that the tandem impeller can achieve a performance enhancement over a wide range of operating conditions. Approximately 1.8% maximum enhancement in isentropic efficiency and 5.0% maximum enhancement in operating range are achieved with the inducer/exducer circumferential displacement of [Formula: see text] = 25% and 50%, respectively. The observed stage performance gain of the tandem impellers decreases when the operating speed increases due to the increased inducer shock, increased wake losses, and deteriorated tandem impeller discharge flow uniformity. In addition, the tandem impeller can extend the impeller operating range particularly at low rotation speeds, which is found to be a result from the suppression of the low-momentum fluid radial movement. The results also indicate that the maximum flux capacity of the tandem impeller decreases due to the restriction of the inducer airfoil Kutta–Joukowsky condition.


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