The influence of the trailing edge angle of the micro centrifugal impeller on the performance of the centrifugal compressor

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):  
C. Rodgers

Centrifugal impeller blade trimming has long been used in the turbocharger industry to adapt a single impeller casting to a series of flow capacities, but surprisingly little published literature exists on the effects of trimming to compressor performance. This paper is presented as partial remedy, and describes the performance characteristics of a single stage centrifugal compressor designed and tested to cover a range of flow requirements by impeller blade and diffuser vane trimming. Stage and component test performance characteristics are presented for five trimmed flowpath contours covering a flow capacity range of approximately five to one at a DeLaval number of 0.75. The impeller tip diameter was 356mm, and the highest overall stage efficiency measured was 84.8% at an (air) pressure ratio of 1.5.


Author(s):  
Jie Chen ◽  
Yang Yue ◽  
Guoping Huang

A small transonic centrifugal compressor with 3D vaned diffuser has been developed for a turbine engine by Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics. The centrifugal impeller’s diameter is approximately 80 mm. The impeller was improved by reducing the static pressure gradient in spanwise direction. But the improvement is reduced by the interaction between the impeller and the diffuser, when it works with the diffuser. So, the effect of the vaned diffuser on the performance and flow structure of the impeller was studied by steady and unsteady numerical simulations. The total pressure ratio and efficiency of the impeller with a vaned diffuser are lower than those with a vaneless diffuser. Further, the difference decreases as the operation point moves from the surge to the choke. Analysis of steady flow proves that the meridional bend and the vanes in the 3D vaned diffuser are the main causes. When the impeller operates with the vaned diffuser, the vortex at the shroud of the impeller exit is pushed toward the trailing edge of the impeller blade, which leads to an altered flow structure in the impeller passages. As a result, the loss of the impeller increases, and consequently the efficiency as well as the pressure ratio drops. On the other hand, the unsteady analysis shows that the flow pattern at the impeller exit is circularly affected by features of the stagnation, the local acceleration, and the shock wave in the semi-vaneless space of the diffuser. The flow at the different spanwise location in the trailing edge of the impeller blade can be influenced by the different flow feature, therefore, the spanwise distributions of the flow parameters is disturbed.


Author(s):  
Justin (Jongsik) Oh

Growing demands for higher specific output power in turbomachinery applications have drawn attention to aerodynamic design philosophy for a single-stage transonic centrifugal compressor with higher pressure ratios. As Part 1 of numerical efforts, some fundamental approaches in aerodynamic design were carried out in a classical 6:1 pressure-ratio compressor design of 1970’s which was selected as a baseline. The effects of the impeller blade angle distribution, the addition of the splitter blade, the changes of the tangential divergence angle of the channel-wedge diffuser and some tweaks in diffuser vane shapes near the trailing-edge were investigated in steady-state RANS CFD solutions with the conventional mixing plane interface. New blade angle distributions together with the introduction of splitter blades in the impeller brought significant improvements in the compressor pressure ratio, efficiency and operability, thanks to reduced shock strengths and enhanced blade loadings in the spanwise direction. Helicity contours on the cross sectional planes in the impeller support the benefits observing a power balance among the shroud passage vortex, the blade vortices and the tip leakage vortex. With a reduced tangential divergence in the channel-wedge diffuser passage from the original design, an impressively extended surge margin was obtained. It was confirmed from the helicity contours that a streamwise vortex structure at the entrance region of the diffuser vane plays a key role in the range of operation. A diffuser vane shape with the curved pressure surface near the trailing-edge provided a slightly higher pressure ratio and efficiency around design flow than that with the original cut-off trailing-edge. An elliptical trailing-edge diffuser vane showed rather performance drops because of the counter-clockwise hub vortex breakdown near the suction surface, resulting in less flow diffusion. Through investigations of a set of design cases, two final compressor designs, differing in the diffuser vane shape near the trailing-edge, were obtained within the work scope of the present study. However, selecting one of the two will depend on design duties for the following component because of the level of exit swirls and their rate of changes over the flow rates.


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.


1990 ◽  
Vol 112 (1) ◽  
pp. 44-49 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhao Xiaolu ◽  
Qin Lisen

An aerodynamic design method, which is based on the Mean Stream Surface Method (MSSM), has been developed for designing centrifugal compressor impeller blades. As a component of a CAD system for centrifugal compressor, it is convenient to use the presented method for generating impeller blade geometry, taking care of manufacturing as well as aerodynamic aspects. The design procedure starts with an S2m indirect solution. Afterward from the specified S2m surface, by the use of Taylor series expansion, the blade geometry is generated by straight-line elements to meet the manufacturing requirements. Simultaneously, the fluid dynamic quantities across the blade passage can be determined directly. In terms of these results, the designer can revise the distribution of angular momentum along the shroud and hub, which are associated with blade loading, to get satisfactory velocities along the blade surfaces in order to avoid or delay flow separation.


Author(s):  
A. Whitfield ◽  
F. J. Wallace ◽  
R. C. Atkey

Two variable geometry techniques have been applied to a small turbocharger compressor, with the objective of trying to move the peak pressure ratio operating point to lower flow rates, thereby yielding a broad flow range map. Variable prewhirl guide vanes and variable vaneless diffuser passage height have been studied separately. The results obtained with both techniques are compared and the relative merits and demerits with respect to improved flow range and isentropic efficiency penalties are considered.


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (16) ◽  
pp. 3416 ◽  
Author(s):  
T R Jebieshia ◽  
Senthil Kumar Raman ◽  
Heuy Dong Kim

The present study focuses on the aerodynamic performance and structural analysis of the centrifugal compressor impeller. The performance characteristics of the impeller are analyzed with and without splitter blades by varying the total number of main and splitter blades. The operating conditions of the compressor under centrifugal force and pressure load from the aerodynamic analysis are applied to the impeller blade and hub to perform the one-way Fluid–Structure Interaction (FSI). For the stress assessment, maximum equivalent von Mises stresses in the impeller blades are compared with the maximum allowable stress of the impeller material. The effects of varying the pressure field on the deformation and stress of the impeller are also calculated. The aerodynamic and structural performance of the centrifugal compressor at 73,000 rpm are investigated in terms of the efficiency, pressure ratio, equivalent von Mises stress, and total deformation of the impeller.


Author(s):  
R. S. Benson ◽  
A. Whitfield

This paper deals with a theoretical approach to study the non-steady flow and wave action in a centrifugal impeller and vaneless diffuser, and also to predict the non-steady flow performance of a centrifugal compressor. This was carried out by replacing the compressor unit by a model which consisted of a simplified rotating duct, a vaneless diffuser, and a cone-shaped pipe which replaced the scroll. A theoretical technique using the method of characteristics and the development of the non-steady flow equations to a rotating duct and radial diffuser is given. The development of the theory and the difficulties encountered are described. In particular, the techniques developed for starting a computer calculation are described. In order to maintain homentropic flow in the impeller and diffuser all losses were assumed to occur at the impeller inlet. A pressure loss boundary condition was developed to enable the steady pressure ratio-mass flow characteristics to be computed. When these values agreed with the experimentally determined characteristics, the boundary condition at the rotor inlet was such that the pressure loss terms allowed for the impeller and diffuser losses. The theoretical results obtained are compared with corresponding experimental results, and the possibility of using this theoretical technique as a design tool is discussed.


2012 ◽  
Vol 134 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon K. Richards ◽  
Kishore Ramakrishnan ◽  
Chingwei M. Shieh ◽  
François Moyroud ◽  
Alain Picavet ◽  
...  

This article contains an investigation of the unsteady acoustic forcing on a centrifugal impeller due to coupled blade row interactions. Selected results from an aeromechanical test campaign on a GE Oil and Gas centrifugal compressor stage with a vaneless diffuser are presented. The most commonly encountered sources of impeller excitation due to upstream wake interaction were identified and observed in the testing campaign. A 30/rev excitation corresponding to the sum of upstream and downstream vane counts caused significant trailing edge vibratory stress amplitudes. Due to the large spacing between the impeller and the return channel vanes, this 30/rev excitation was suspected to be caused by an aero-acoustic excitation rather than a potential disturbance. The origin of this aero-acoustic excitation was deduced from an acoustic analysis of the unsteady compressor flow derived from CFD. The analysis revealed a complex excitation mechanism caused by impeller interaction with the upstream vane row wakes and subsequent acoustic wave reflection from the downstream return channel vanes. The findings show it is important to account for aero-acoustic forcing in the aeromechanical design of low pressure ratio centrifugal compressor stages.


2012 ◽  
Vol 2012 ◽  
pp. 1-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Soo-Yong Cho ◽  
Kook-Young Ahn ◽  
Young-Duk Lee ◽  
Young-Cheol Kim

An optimization study was conducted on a centrifugal compressor. Eight design variables were chosen from the control points for the Bezier curves which widely influenced the geometric variation; four design variables were selected to optimize the flow passage between the hub and the shroud, and other four design variables were used to improve the performance of the impeller blade. As an optimization algorithm, an artificial neural network (ANN) was adopted. Initially, the design of experiments was applied to set up the initial data space of the ANN, which was improved during the optimization process using a genetic algorithm. If a result of the ANN reached a higher level, that result was re-calculated by computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and was applied to develop a new ANN. The prediction difference between the ANN and CFD was consequently less than 1% after the 6th generation. Using this optimization technique, the computational time for the optimization was greatly reduced and the accuracy of the optimization algorithm was increased. The efficiency was improved by 1.4% without losing the pressure ratio, and Pareto-optimal solutions of the efficiency versus the pressure ratio were obtained through the 21st generation.


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