Flow Control of Rotating Stall in a Radial Vaneless Diffuser

2000 ◽  
Vol 123 (2) ◽  
pp. 281-286 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hiromu Tsurusaki ◽  
Takahiro Kinoshita

The instabilities of a backflow layer on a diffuser wall and the main flow with vorticity have already been shown theoretically to cause the occurrence of rotating stall in a vaneless diffuser. These instabilities, however, have not yet been proven to exist experimentally. This study was carried out to examine the factors contributing to the occurrence of rotating stall using a jet installed in a diffuser. Rotating stall was completely suppressed by a jet that was set in the direction opposite to the vector of the impeller peripheral velocity, and amplified by the jet set in the same direction as that vector. The effects of the jets were confirmed by the experiment using the jets installed at positions other than the neighborhood of the diffuser wall. The results suggest that the instability of the main flow contributes to the onset of rotating stall. The factors contributing to the onset of rotating stall and the effect of the jet on the performance of the impeller-diffuser combination are discussed.

Author(s):  
Zitian Niu ◽  
Zhenzhong Sun ◽  
Baotong Wang ◽  
Xinqian Zheng

Abstract Rotating stall is an important unstable flow phenomenon that leads to performance degradation and limits the stability boundary in centrifugal compressors. The volute is one of the sources to induce the non-axisymmetric flow in a centrifugal compressor, which has an important effect on the performance of compressors. However, the influence of volute on rotating stall is not clear. Therefore, the effects of volute on rotating stall by experimental and numerical simulation have been explored in this paper. It’s shown that one rotating stall cell generates in a specific location and disappears in another specific location of the vaneless diffuser as a result of the distorted flow field caused by the volute. Also, the cells cannot stably rotate in a whole circle. The frequency related to rotating stall captured in the experiment is 43.9% of the impeller passing frequency (IPF), while it is 44.7% of IPF captured by three-dimensional unsteady numerical simulation, which proves the accuracy of the numerical method in this study. The numerical simulation further reveals that the stall cell initialized in a specific location can be split into several cells during the evolution process. The reason for this is that the blockage in the vaneless diffuser induced by rotating stall is weakened by the mainstream from the impeller exit to make one initialized cell disperse into several ones. The volute has an important influence on the generation and evolution process of the rotating stall cells of compressors. By optimizing volute geometry to reduce the distortion of the flow field, it is expected that rotating stall can be weakened or suppressed, which is helpful to widen the operating range of centrifugal compressors.


Author(s):  
Chuang Gao ◽  
Weiguang Huang ◽  
Haiqing Liu ◽  
Hongwu Zhang ◽  
Jundang Shi

This paper concerns with the numerical and experimental aspects of both steady and unsteady flow behavior in a centrifugal compressor with vaneless diffuser and downstream collector. Specifically, the appearance of flow instabilities i.e., rotating stall and surge is investigated in great detail. As the first step, the static performance of both stage and component was analyzed and possible root cause of system surge was put forward based on the classic stability theory. Then the unsteady pressure data was utilized to find rotating stall and surge in frequency domain which could be classified as mild surge and deep surge. With the circumferentially installed transducers at impeller inlet, backward travelling waves during stall ramp could be observed. The modes of stall waves could be clearly identified which is caused by impeller leading edge flow recirculation at Mu = 0.96. However, for the unstable flow at Mu = 1.08, the system instability seems to be caused by reversal flow in vaneless diffuser where the pressure oscillation was strongest. Thus steady numerical simulation were performed and validated with the experimental performance data. With the help of numerical analysis, the conjectures are proved.


Author(s):  
E. A. Carnevale ◽  
G. Ferrara ◽  
L. Ferrari ◽  
L. Baldassarre

Vaneless diffuser rotating stall is a major problem for centrifugal compressors since it is a limit to their working range. In the literature some good correlations for predicting stall inception can be found but they do not adequately cover the case of the last stage configuration, especially for very low blade-outlet-width-to-impeller-radius-ratio impellers typically used in high-pressure applications. Extensive research has been performed to define diffuser stall limits for this family of stages: three impellers characterized by different blade-outlet-width-to-impeller-radius-ratios have been tested with different diffuser configurations (different pinch shapes, diffuser widths and diffusion ratios). The basic configuration comprises a 1:1 geometrical scale stage with a return channel upstream, a 2D impeller with a vaneless diffuser and a volute with a constant cross sectional area downstream. Several diffuser types with different widths and diffusion ratios were tested. Detailed experimental results have been reported in previous works [1, 2, 3 and 4]. In this paper experimental data are reviewed in order to analyze impeller influence on diffuser stability and to develop some summarizing consideration on stall behavior of vaneless diffuser for impeller with low blade-outlet-width-to-impeller-radius-ratio.


1996 ◽  
Vol 118 (1) ◽  
pp. 123-127 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yoshinobu Tsujimoto ◽  
Yoshiki Yoshida ◽  
Yasumasa Mori

Rotating stalls in vaneless diffusers are studied from the viewpoint that they are basically two-dimensional inviscid flow instability under the boundary conditions of vanishing velocity disturbance at the diffuser inlet and of vanishing pressure disturbance at the diffuser outlet. The linear analysis in the present report shows that the critical flow angle and the propagation velocity are functions of only the diffuser radius ratio. It is shown that the present analysis can reproduce most of the general characteristics observed in experiments: critical flow angle, propagation velocity, velocity, and pressure disturbance fields. It is shown that the vanishing velocity disturbance at the diffuser inlet is caused by the nature of impellers as a “resistance” and an “inertial resistance,” which is generally strong enough to suppress the velocity disturbance at the diffuser inlet. This explains the general experimental observations that vaneless diffuser rotating stalls are not largely affected by the impeller.


2004 ◽  
Vol 10 (6) ◽  
pp. 433-442 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giovanni Ferrara ◽  
Lorenzo Ferrari ◽  
Leonardo Baldassarre

The rotating stall is a key problem for achieving a good working range of a centrifugal compressor and a detailed understanding of the phenomenon is very important to anticipate and avoid it. Many experimental tests have been planned by the authors to investigate the influence on stall behavior of different geometrical configurations. A stage with a backward channel upstream, a 2-D impeller with a vaneless diffuser and a constant cross-section volute downstream, constitute the basic configuration. Several diffuser types with different widths, pinch shapes, and diffusion ratios were tested. The stage was instrumented with many fast response dynamic pressure sensors so as to characterize inception and evolution of the rotating stall. This kind of analysis was carried out both in time and in frequency domains. The methodology used and the results on phenomenon evolution will be presented and discussed in this article.


2016 ◽  
Vol 101 ◽  
pp. 734-741 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michele Marconcini ◽  
Alessandro Bianchini ◽  
Matteo Checcucci ◽  
Davide Biliotti ◽  
Marco Giachi ◽  
...  

Author(s):  
Masaki Fuchiwaki ◽  
Surya Raghu

Various methods of controlling flow separation have been proposed and many studies have been performed on active separation control in correspondence with the flow state. However, their efficiency has been hampered by the requirement of electric power for the added stream. Recently, an active flow separation control device based on a fluidic oscillator that does not require electric power has been reported. This device is able to generate a sweeping jet over a wide spatial range as well as fluid oscillations, and its internal structure eliminates the need for a drive unit. The studies of the flow separation control techniques using the fluidic oscillator have been reported. However, most of these results are mainly contribution of the dynamic forces from the viewpoint of the flow control and the study on the flow mechanism for the separation flow control using the fluidic oscillator have not been understood. Especially, it is not known the interaction between the sweeping jet from the fluidic oscillator and the main flow and the flow structure due to the interaction. In order to make a flow separation control devise with high efficiency using the fluidic oscillator, it is require to be understood the complex flow structure by the interaction between the sweeping jet from the fluidic oscillator and the main flow. The purpose of the present study is to investigate the flow structure by the interaction between the sweeping jet from the fluidic oscillator and the main flow quantitatively by the stereo PIV measurement. The sweeping jet ejected from a fluidic oscillator evidently disrupts the main flow at high velocity ratios, leading to a significant change in flow structure. A high-speed jet appears at the center part of the structure, accompanied by low-speed flow at the outside, producing a 3D distribution. The sweeping jet ejected from the fluidic oscillator maintains the spreading angleas a result of the interaction between the two flows at high velocity ratios.


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