CENTRIFUGAL STAGE PERFORMANCE PREDICTION AND VALIDATION FOR HIGH MACH NUMBER APPLICATIONS
Steve Kowalski is an Aero-Thermo Engineer in the Research and Development Department of DresserRand. His responsibilities include the design, development and analysis of aerodynamic components of centrifugal compressors. He has been employed at Dresser-Rand since 2007. He holds a B.S. degree from Michigan State University (Mechanical Engineering, 2002) and an M.S. degree from Michigan State University (Mechanical Engineering, 2005). Prior to joining Dresser-Rand, he worked as a teaching/research assistant at Michigan State University.
Vaneless diffuser for low flow rate centrifugal compressor stage
Experiments and CFD-analysis of vaneless diffusers demonstrate that in wide range of relative width there is a risk of flow separation at design flow rate as a flow angle after an impeller is too small. To avoid it the inlet part of a diffuser is made with decreasing width along radius. By the elementwise calculation the diffuser with relative width about 2%, narrowed initial part and conical surfaces with the divergence angle 30 between them is turned out to be the best variant of the considered.The diffuser within the stage with narrowed initial part and zero divergence angle has the highest efficiency when relative flow rates are less than design regime flow rate. The stage with diffuser with walls divergence angle 0045’ after narrowed part is less effective on 0.5% when relative flow rates are less than design regime. The maximum efficiency of this stage is 1.5% higher and efficiency is sufficiently higher at big flow rates.
A Direct Design Method for High Pressure Ratio Centrifugal Compressor Impeller
Methode directe de calcul du rotor d'un compresseur centrifuge a rapport de compression eleve