Flow Characteristics of a Novel Centrifugal Compressor Design

Multistage axial compressor has an advantage of lower stage loading as compared to a single stage. Several stages with low pressure ratio are linked together which allows for multiplication of pressure to generate high pressure ratio in an axial compressor. Since each stage has low pressure ratio they operate at a higher efficiency and the efficiency of multi-stage axial compressor as a whole is very high. Although, single stage centrifugal compressor has higher pressure ratio compared with an axial compressor but multistage centrifugal compressors are not as efficient because the flow has to be turned from radial at outlet to axial at inlet for each stage. The present study explores the advantages of extending the axial compressor efficient flow path that consist of rotor stator stages to the centrifugal compressor stage. In this invention, two rotating rows of blades are mounted on the same impeller disk, separated by a stator blade row attached to the casing. A certain amount of turning can be achieved through a single stage centrifugal compressor before flow starts separating, thus dividing it into multiple stages would be advantageous as it would allow for more flow turning. Also the individual stage now operate with low pressure ratio and high efficiency resulting into an overall increase in pressure ratio and efficiency. The baseline is derived from the NASA low speed centrifugal compressor design which is a 55 degree backward swept impeller. Flow characteristics of the novel multistage design are compared with a single stage centrifugal compressor. The flow path of the baseline and multi-stage compressor are created using 3DBGB tool and DAKOTA is used to optimize the performance of baseline as well novel design. The optimization techniques used are Genetic algorithm followed by Numerical Gradient method. The optimization resulted into improvements in incidence and geometry which significantly improved the performance over baseline compressor design. The multistage compressor is more efficient with a higher pressure ratio compared with the base line design for the same work input and initial conditions.

Numerical Investigation of the Effect of Diffuser and Volute Design Parameters on the Performance of a Centrifugal Compressor Stage

In this effort, 3D CFD simulations are carried out for real gas flow in a refrigeration centrifugal compressor. Both commercial and the in-house CFD codes are used for steady and unsteady simulations, respectively. The impact on the compressor performance with various volute designs and diffuser modifications are investigated with steady simulations and the analysis is focused on both the diffuser and the volute loss, in addition to the flow distortion at impeller exit. The influence of the tongue, scroll diffusion ratio, diffuser length, and cross sectional area distribution is examined to determine the impact on size and performance. The comparisons of total pressure loss, static pressure recovery, through flow velocity, and the secondary flow patterns for different volute designs show that the performance of the centrifugal compressor depends upon how well the scroll portion of the volute collects the flow from the impeller and achieves the required pressure rise with minimum flow losses in the overall diffusion process. Finally, the best design is selected based on compressor stage pressure rise and peak efficiency improvement. An unsteady simulation of the full wheel compressor stage was carried out to further examine the interaction of impeller, diffuser and the volute. The unsteady flow interactions are shown to have a major impact on the performance of the centrifugal stage.

Mechanism and Flow Control on the Mismatching of Impeller and Vaned Diffuser Caused by Inlet Prewhirl for Centrifugal Compressors

Air often flows into compressors with inlet prewhirl, because it will obtain a circumferential component of velocity via inlet distortion or swirl generators such as inlet guide vanes. A lot of research has shown that inlet prewhirl does influence the characteristics of components, but the change of the matching relation between the components caused by inlet prewhirl is still unclear. This paper investigates the influence of inlet prewhirl on the matching of the impeller and the diffuser and proposes a flow control method to cure mismatching. The approach combines steady three-dimensional Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) simulations with theoretical analysis and modeling. The result shows that a compressor whose impeller and diffuser match well at zero prewhirl will go to mismatching at non-zero prewhirl. The diffuser throat gets too large to match the impeller at positive prewhirl and gets too small for matching at negative prewhirl. The choking mass flow of the impeller is more sensitive to inlet prewhirl than that of the diffuser, which is the main reason for the mismatching. To cure the mismatching via adjusting the diffuser vanes stagger angle, a one-dimensional method based on incidence matching has been proposed to yield a control schedule for adjusting the diffuser. The optimal stagger angle predicted by analytical method has good agreement with that predicted by computational fluid dynamics (CFD). The compressor is able to operate efficiently in a much broader flow range with the control schedule. The flow range, where the efficiency is above 80%, of the datum compressor and the compressor only employing inlet prewhirl and no control are just 25.3% and 31.8%, respectively. For the compressor following the control schedule, the flow range is improved up to 46.5%. This paper also provides the perspective of components matching to think about inlet distortion.

Numerical Investigation of Shock Effects on Performance and Flow Field in a Transonic Centrifugal Impeller

In transonic centrifugal compressors, the losses and blockage are increased dominantly by the shock, shock/tip leakage vortex (TLV) interaction and shock/boundary layers interaction on the blade suction side. Therefore, a detailed investigation of shock effects is seriously important to improve the aerodynamic performance and extend the stable operating range of a centrifugal compressor. This paper firstly analyzes the shock structures in the transonic impeller at the design and off-design conditions. It is found that the shock structure is three-dimensional and swept along the span, with the shock becoming normal to the shroud near the blade tip. As the mass flow rate decreases, the swept shock moves upstream, and the shock/TLV interaction becomes stronger, inducing the vortex breakdown at the near stall condition. Then a comparative study is conducted on the flow structures in the transonic centrifugal impeller without the tip clearance (OTC impeller). Compared with the impeller with a tip clearance (WTC impeller), the splitter shock strength in the passage between the main blade and splitter is enhanced and the separation caused by the splitter shock /boundary layers interaction is induced, due to the lack of the blockage in the inducer induced by the shock/TLV of main blade interaction in the WTC impeller. Thus, at a large mass flow rate, the efficiency of the OTC impeller is lower than that of the WTC impeller because the stronger splitter shock induces larger flow separation in the passages between the main blade and splitter. However, at a small mass flow rate, the WTC impeller has a lower efficiency because the losses in the inducer induced by the interaction between the shock and the TLV of main blade are dominant.

Numerical and Experimental Investigation of Return Channel Vane Aerodynamics With 2D and 3D Vanes

The present paper deals with the numerical and experimental investigation of the effect of return channel dimensions of a centrifugal compressor stage on the aerodynamic performance. Three different return channel stages were investigated, two stages comprising 3D (three-dimensional) return channel blades and one stage comprising (2D) two-dimensional RCH (Return Channel) vanes. The analysis was performed regarding both the investigation of overall performance (stage efficiency, RCH total pressure loss coefficient) and detailed flow field performance. For detailed experimental flow field investigation at the stage exit, six circumferentially traversed three-hole probes were positioned downstream the return channel exit in order to get two-dimensional flow field information. Additionally, static pressure wall measurements were taken at the hub and shroud pressure and suction side of the 2D and 3D return channel blades. The return channel system overall performance was calculated by measurements of the circumferentially averaged 1D flow field downstream the diffuser exit and downstream the stage exit. Dependent on the type of return channel blade, the numerical and experimental results show a significant effect on the flow field overall and detail performance. In general, satisfactory agreement between CFD-prediction and test-rig measurements was achieved regarding overall and flow field performance. In comparison with the measurements, the CFD calculated stage performance (efficiency and pressure rise coefficient) of all 3D-RCH stages was slightly over-predicted. Very good agreement between CFD and measurement results was found for the static pressure distribution on the RCH wall surfaces while small CFD-deviations occur in the measured flow angle at the stage exit, dependent on the turbulence model selected.

Turbine Performance Under Pulsating Inflow: A Similarity Analysis

Turbocharger turbines for diesel and gasoline engines work under pulsating inflow conditions. This paper discusses the influences of such unsteady conditions on turbine performance through a similarity analysis. First the assumptions for the analysis are described and key non-dimensional parameters are identified. Some of these parameters are further studied with the assistance from experimental and computational results in the open literature. Strouhal number, which expresses the relative importance of unsteady influences, is discussed in details regarding its definition, its application to experimental setup, and how it affects different components of the turbines. The analysis shows that Strouhal number should be scaled with the square root of turbine inlet total temperature.

Delayed Detached-Eddy Simulations of a High Pressure Turbine Vane

The flow in a generic, high-pressure turbine vane was simulated using an in-house DDES code. Two different operating conditions were simulated with one leading to a shock wave while the other does not. One case was used to validate the capability of the DDES method to capture shock waves and other flow structures using an inlet Reynolds number of 271,000 and an exit Mach number of 0.840. The test conditions for the other case were an inlet Reynolds number of 265,000 and an exit Mach number of 0.927, which is representative of a transonic, high pressure turbine vane which was used to further investigate the flow field. The DDES simulations from the first case are compared with published experimental data, RANS simulations and LES simulations. Then, DDES results for two cases with adiabatic and isothermal boundary conditions are compared. The numerical simulations with the isothermal boundary condition are further used to study the flow phenomena with wake vortices, shock waves, pressure waves, wake-shock interactions, and wake-pressure wave interactions. The effects of the pressure waves on the vane heat transfer are also analyzed.

Detailed Numerical Characterization of the Suction Side Laminar Separation Bubble for a High-Lift Low Pressure Turbine Blade by Means of RANS and LES

The scope of this work is to obtain a deep insight of the occurrence, development and evolution of the laminar separation bubble which occurs on the suction side of the high-lift T106-C low pressure turbine blade operated at correct engine Mach and Reynolds numbers. The commercial codes Numeca FINE/Turbo and FINE/Open were used for the numerical investigation of a set of three different Reynolds numbers. Two different CFD approaches, characterized by a progressively increasing level of complexity and detail in the solution, have been employed, starting from a steady state RANS analysis and ending with a Large Eddy Simulation. Particular attention was paid to the study of the open separation occurring at the lowest Reynolds number, for which a Large Eddy Simulation was performed in order to try to correctly capture the involved phenomena and their characteristic frequencies. In addition, the potentialities of the codes employed for the analysis have been assessed.

Numerical Study on the Effect of a Volute on Surge Phenomena in a Centrifugal Compressor

Numerical investigation of the effect of the volute on stall flow phenomenon is presented by solving three-dimensional Reynolds-averaged compressible Navier-Stokes equations. Two different configurations of a centrifugal compressor were used to compare their performance: One is an original centrifugal compressor which is composed of impeller, splitter, vaned diffuser and a volute and the other is the one without a volute. Steady calculations were performed to predict aerodynamic performance in terms of the pressure ratio, efficiency and mass flow rate. The results show that the operating range of the compressor with a volute is narrower than that of the compressor without a volute. This can be interpreted that flow instability is strongly influenced by the tongue of a volute which is highly asymmetric. Unsteady calculations were also performed with a time-step size of 38μs corresponding to a pitch angle of 5 degrees at the given rotational speed. The flow characteristics for two configurations are analyzed and compared at various instantaneous times showing unsteady dynamic features. Based on the unsteady flow simulation, fast Fourier transform at several discrete points in semi-vaneless space was performed at peak efficiency and near surge point in order to illustrate the unstable flow physics in both configurations. It is found that the blade passing frequency is dominant, indicating that diffuser passages have a periodicity of 40 degrees due to the rotational blades. Besides blade passing frequency, there were several noticeable frequencies which affect the instability of the whole system. Those frequencies in both configurations are compared and analyzed in various aspects.