Experimental Study of Vaneless Diffuser Rotating Stall Development and Cell Merging Phenomena

Author(s):  
Filip Grapow ◽  
Krzysztof Olasek ◽  
Grzegorz Liśkiewicz ◽  
Radomir Magiera ◽  
Władysław Kryłłowicz

Abstract This paper describes the vaneless diffuser rotating stall (VDRS) development and cell merging phenomena. A centrifugal compressor’s lifespan may be limited by flow instabilities occurring in off-design operation. One such instability is the VDRS, which generates oscillating, asymmetrical flow fields in the diffuser and, thus, undesired forces acting on the rotor. Understanding and prevention of VDRS behavior is crucial for achieving safe and undisturbed compressor operation. Experimental measurements of centrifugal compressors operating under the influence of VDRS have been presented. Two different approaches were used for the identification of VDRS: pressure measurements and 2D PIV. Frequency analysis based on spectral maps and cell development processes were investigated. The presented results showed that mass flow rate has an impact on the rotating frequency of both the entire structure and single cells. Additionally, it affects radial cell size, which grows with compressor throttling and ultimately reaches the length of the diffuser. During the experiments, the cell merging phenomenon was observed which has not been widely described in the literature. The results presented in this paper allow better understanding of vaneless diffuser rotating stall behavior. The phenomenon of the change of cell size and frequency could be very important for machine fatigue. Cell merging could also have an impact on the machine’s vibrations and flow stability. Since it is believed that VDRS is one of the factors inducing surge, its understanding and prevention may have positive influence on surge margins.

2021 ◽  
Vol 143 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Filip Grapow ◽  
Krzysztof Olasek ◽  
Grzegorz Liśkiewicz ◽  
Radomir Magiera ◽  
Władysław Kryłłowicz

Abstract This paper describes the vaneless diffuser rotating stall (VDRS) development and cell-merging phenomena. A centrifugal compressor’s lifespan may be limited by flow instabilities occurring in off-design operation. One such instability is the VDRS, which generates oscillating, asymmetrical flow fields in the diffuser and, thus, undesired forces acting on the rotor. Understanding and prevention of VDRS behavior are crucial for achieving safe and undisturbed compressor operation. Experimental measurements of centrifugal compressors operating under the influence of VDRS have been presented. Two different approaches were used for the identification of VDRS: pressure measurements and two-dimensional (2D) particle image velocimetry (PIV). Frequency analysis based on spectral maps and cell development processes were investigated. The presented results showed that mass flowrate has an impact on the rotating frequency of both the entire structure and single cells. Additionally, it affects radial cell size, which grows with compressor throttling and ultimately reaches the length of the diffuser. During the experiments, the cell-merging phenomenon was observed which has not been widely described in the literature. The results presented in this paper allow a better understanding of vaneless diffuser rotating stall behavior. The phenomenon of the change of cell size and frequency could be very important for machine fatigue. Cell-merging could also have an impact on the machine’s vibrations and flow stability. Since it is believed that VDRS is one of the factors inducing surge, its understanding and prevention may have a positive influence on surge margins.


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.


1996 ◽  
Vol 109 (4) ◽  
pp. 763-772 ◽  
Author(s):  
Y. Kishimoto ◽  
M. Murate ◽  
T. Sugiyama

Cell-cell interaction and cell rearrangement were examined in the process of epithelial sheet formation during regeneration from hydra cell aggregates. The ectodermal and endodermal epithelial cell layers of Hydra magnipapillata were separated by procaine treatment. Each of the separated layers was then dissociated into single cells and reaggregated to produce ectodermal or endodermal cell aggregates. When the two aggregate types were recombined, a firm adhesion was quickly established between them. This was followed by a vigorous spreading of the ectodermal epithelial cells as a thin layer over the endoderm in a manner similar to the ‘epiboly’ in some developing embryos. Cell movement in this spreading process was examined using fluorescent dyestaining. It revealed that cells initially located in the inside of the aggregate migrated to intercalate themselves among the cells originally present in the contact surface. This radial cell intercalation took place continuously in the contact surface of both the ectodermal and endodermal aggregates, and produced a rapid growth of the contact surface, eventually leading to complete envelopment of the entire endoderm by the ectoderm. The resulting structure was a small sphere having a two-layered epithelial organization as in normal hydra. This sphere regenerated into a complete hydra a few days later. A tryptic extract of hydra membrane fraction specifically inhibited the ectodermal spreading over the endoderm, but not the initial adhesion or the later regeneration processes. These observations suggest that radial cell intercalation at the contact surface plays a crucial role in producing ectodermal spreading and establishing epithelial sheet organization in the recombined aggregates. The intercalation is presumably activated by a signal exchange through the contact surface. The inhibitory effect of the membrane extract suggests that it contains a factor that is involved in some way in this signaling mechanism.


1985 ◽  
Vol 75 (1) ◽  
pp. 357-376 ◽  
Author(s):  
J.M. Mitchison ◽  
P. Nurse

The cylindrical cells of Schizosaccharomyces pombe grow in length by extension at the ends and not the middle. At the beginning of the cell cycle, growth is restricted to the ‘old end’, which existed in the previous cycle. Later on, the ‘new end’, formed from the septum, starts to grow at a point in the cycle that we have called NETO (‘new end take-off’). Fluorescence microscopy on cells stained with Calcofluor has been used to study NETO in size mutants, in blocked cdc mutants and with different growth temperatures and media. In wild-type cells (strain 972) NETO happens at 0.34 of the cycle with a cell length of 9.5 microns. With size mutants that are smaller at division, NETO takes place at the same size (9.0-9.5 microns) but this is not achieved until later in the cycle. Another control operates in larger size mutants since NETO occurs at the same stage of the cycle (about 0.32) as in wild type but at a larger cell size. This control is probably a requirement to have completed an event in early G2, since most cdc mutant cells blocked before this point in the cycle do not show NETO whereas most of those blocked in late G2 do show it. We conclude that NETO only happens if: (1) the cell length is greater than a critical value of 9.0-9.5 microns; and (2) the cell has traversed the first 0.3-0.35 of the cycle and passed early G2. NETO is delayed in poor media, in which cell size is also reduced. Temperature has little effect on NETO under steady-state conditions, but there is a transient delay for some hours after a temperature shift. NETO is later in another wild-type strain, 132. Time-lapse photomicrography was used to follow the rates of length growth in single cells. Wild-type cells showed two linear segments during the first 75% of the cycle. There was a rate-change point (RCP), coincident with NETO, where the rate of total length extension increased by 35%. This increase was not due simply to the start of new-end growth, since old-end growth slowed down in some cells at the RCP. cdc 11.123 is a mutant in which septation and division is blocked at 35 degrees C but nuclear division continues.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document