Investigation of Off-Design Performance of Vaned Diffusers in Centrifugal Compressors: Part II — A Low-Solidity Cascade Diffuser

Author(s):  
Jong-Sik Oh

As the second part of the author’s study, off-design behavior of the design and performance parameters in the low-solidity cascade diffuser in a centrifugal compressor is investigated. The experimental flange-to-flange compressor map serves the validity of application of the present CFD work to the detailed investigation of the low-solidity cascade diffuser. Some meanline design and performance parameters as well as three-dimensional internal secondary flow fields are studied when the flow rate is changed from deep choke to stall.

Author(s):  
Mengying Shu ◽  
Mingyang Yang ◽  
Ricardo F. Martinez-Botas ◽  
Kangyao Deng ◽  
Lei Shi

The flow in intake manifold of a heavily downsized internal combustion engine has increased levels of unsteadiness due to the reduction of cylinder number and manifold arrangement. The turbocharger compressor is thus exposed to significant pulsating backpressure. This paper studies the response of a centrifugal compressor to this unsteadiness using an experimentally validated numerical method. A computational fluid dynamic (CFD) model with the volute and impeller is established and validated by experimental measurements. Following this, an unsteady three-dimensional (3D) simulation is conducted on a single passage imposed by the pulsating backpressure conditions, which are obtained by one-dimensional (1D) unsteady simulation. The performance of the rotor passage deviates from the steady performance and a hysteresis loop, which encapsulates the steady condition, is formed. Moreover, the unsteadiness of the impeller performance is enhanced as the mass flow rate reduces. The pulsating performance and flow structures near stall are more favorable than those seen at constant backpressure. The flow behavior at points with the same instantaneous mass flow rate is substantially different at different time locations on the pulse. The flow in the impeller is determined by not only the instantaneous boundary condition but also by the evolution history of flow field. This study provides insights in the influence of pulsating backpressure on compressor performance in actual engine situations, from which better turbo-engine matching might be benefited.


Author(s):  
Shiyao Li ◽  
Zhenlin Li ◽  
Ning Huang

Accurate performance simulation can provide operating parameters and performance parameters for the gas turbine’s optimization, maintenance, and fault diagnosis. However, the components maps necessary for performance simulation are not publically available. In addition, the same type of gas turbine has slightly different component operating characteristics due to components′ variations in status and assembly tolerance. These causes bring real difficulties to the research of performance simulation. In order to obtain accurate components characteristics and performance simulation results, the original or generic components maps should be modified by the scaling factors. In the process of calculating scaling factors, the simulation model is applied repeatedly to determine the engine’s actual performance parameters until the simulated gas path thermal parameters are compatible with the actual measureable data. This paper introduces a new adaptation method and substitutes the calculation model with the simulation model in the adaptation process. It directly calculates the mass flow rate, isentropic efficiency, and pressure ratio of compressor and turbine based on measureable parameters such as gas path temperature, pressure, fuel component and mass flow rate. Moreover, this paper introduces the virtual gas generator model that enhances the applicability of calculation model based performance adaptation method on gas generators with different structures. This method has been applied to GE PGT25+ gas generator (single-spool) and RR RB211-24G gas generator (double-spool). Compared with the simulation model used in adaptation process, performance calculation model is much simpler and less time consuming.


Author(s):  
Beat Ribi ◽  
Georg Gyarmathy

The present paper concerns the transition from mild to deep surge in a single stage centrifugal compressor using a vaned diffuser. Time-resolved measurements of the mass flow rate and the static pressures at various locations of the compressor were analyzed for different diffuser geometries and different operating points in the compressor map. When the throttle valve was gradually closed at an impeller tip Mach number (Mu) above 0.4, the compressor showed first mild and then deep surge whereas at Mu=0.4 rotating stall was the dominant instability. This single-cell rotating stall was identified to be caused by the impeller. During mild surge at higher Mach numbers the instantaneous flow and pressure traces showed that the overall flow at the stage inlet intermittently dropped below the critical value associated with the occurence of impeller rotating stall. Rotating stall appeared for a while but vanished as soon as the flow increased again. With further throttling, however, a threshold was reached at which rotating stall triggered deep surge. The results show that triggering only occurred if the flow deficiency causing rotating stall persisted long enough to permit the stall cell to make at least one or two revolutions.


Processes ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (10) ◽  
pp. 1251
Author(s):  
Qian Zhang ◽  
Liang Zhang ◽  
Qiuhong Huo ◽  
Lei Zhang

Two types of stall patterns in the centrifugal compressor with a wide vaneless diffuser were numerically studied in this paper. We carried out kinds of three-dimensional numerical simulations of the instability process in wide vaneless diffusers with different radius ratios. The results show that there are two kinds of stall patterns in wide vaneless diffusers with different radius ratios. For a short diffuser with a radius ratio of 1.5, the speed of the propagation of stalled cells is relatively high, and the propagation speed and frequency of stall cells do not change with the decrease in the flow rate. For a long diffuser with a radius ratio of 1.8, the propagation velocity of stall cells is smaller to the one in the short diffuser, and increases with the decrease in flow rate. For wide vaneless diffusers with different radius ratios, the main factor causing stall is the outlet reflux. Reducing the radius ratio of the wide vaneless diffuser has an important influence on the stability of the centrifugal compressor.


1968 ◽  
Vol 90 (3) ◽  
pp. 237-243 ◽  
Author(s):  
Y. Senoo ◽  
M. Yamaguchi ◽  
M. Nishi

In order to visualize the three-dimensional flow in the impeller and the vaneless diffuser of a centrifugal compressor, water is used as the working fluid and streak lines of colored water are photographed and examined. The test is made at an extremely low speed so that streak lines do not diffuse due to turbulent mixing. The streak lines clearly demonstrate several types of secondary flow, some of which agree with what have been speculated to exist in actual compressors. Most of observed secondary flow patterns are qualitatively understandable with existing theories.


Author(s):  
Hamid R Hazby ◽  
Liping Xu ◽  
Michael V Casey

This paper presents an experimental and numerical study of the flow in a 1:1 scale, automotive turbocharger centrifugal compressor. Particle image velocimetry measurements have been carried out in the vaneless diffuser at 50% of the design speed. The challenges involved in taking optical measurements in the current small-scale compressor rig are discussed. The overall stage performance and the measured diffuser flow are compared with the results of steady-state computational fluid dynamics calculations. A good agreement between the computational fluid dynamics and the experimental results demonstrates that the numerical methods are capable of predicting the main flow features within the compressor. The synthesis of measured and predicted data is used to explain the sources of the flow and performance variations across the compressor map, and the differences in loss production between small and large compressors are highlighted.


Author(s):  
Hideomi Harada ◽  
Masanori Goto

In order to experimentally determine the performance characteristics of low-solidity cascade diffusers, three kinds of diffusers, a vaneless diffuser, a single and a tandem low-solidity cascade diffuser were attached to a medium specific speed centrifugal compressor stage and tested on a closed-loop test stand. The three-dimensional incompressible viscous flow analysis method, which had recently been established in our laboratory, was used to calculate the internal flow conditions inside of these diffusers. Both the single and tandem low-solidity cascade diffusers performed better than the vaneless diffuser. In particular, the tandem low-solidity cascade diffuser showed an increase in static pressure recovery coefficient of greater than 15% at the design point, and an increase greater than 40% at the lower flow rate, as compared with the pressure recovery of a vaneless diffuser. The total-to-static overall compressor stage efficiency was improved by 4% to 10% from 100% to 70% flow rate by using the tandem diffuser. The measured blade to blade static pressure distribution inside the low-solidity cascade diffusers was compared with the numerical results obtained via 3D viscous incompressible flow analysis, and the authors found that the static pressure recovery was qualitatively well predicted by this flow analysis method.


Author(s):  
Kazutoyo Yamada ◽  
Masato Furukawa ◽  
Hisataka Fukushima ◽  
Seiichi Ibaraki ◽  
Isao Tomita

This paper describes the experimental and numerical investigations on unsteady three-dimensional flow fields in two types of transonic centrifugal compressor impellers with different aerodynamic characteristics. In the experimental results, the frequency spectra of the pressure fluctuations, which were measured with the high-response pressure transducers mounted on the casing wall just upstream of the impeller, turned out to be quite different between the compressor impellers at stall condition. The simulation results also showed different stall pattern for each compressor impeller. In the compressor impeller with a better performance at off-design condition, the stall cell was never formed despite decreasing flow rate and instead all the passages were covered with a reverse flow near the tip, where the vortex breakdown happened in the tip leakage vortex of full blade and led to the unsteadiness in the impeller. The vortex breakdown happened in all the passages prior to the stall and generated a blockage near the tip. This means that even with the advent of rotating stall the flow could not return to a normal undistorted condition in unstalled region, because all the passages are already occupied by the blockage due to the vortex breakdown. As a result, the rotating stall cell could not appear in the impeller. In the other compressor impeller, the rotating stall cell was formed at stall inception without the vortex breakdown in the tip leakage vortex of full blade, and developed with decreased flow rate.


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