The Role of Impeller Outflow Conditions on the Performance of Vaned Diffusers
Highly loaded impellers, typically used in turbocharger and gas turbine applications, exhaust an unsteady, transonic flow that is nonuniform across the span and pitch and swirling at angles approaching tangential. With the exception of the flow angle, conflicting data exist regarding whether these attributes have substantial influence on the performance of the downstream diffuser. This paper quantifies the relative importance of the flow angle, Mach number, nonuniformity, and unsteadiness on diffuser performance, through diffuser experiments in a compressor stage and in a rotating swirling flow test rig. This is combined with steady and unsteady Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) computations. The test article is a pressure ratio 5 turbocharger compressor with an airfoil vaned diffuser. The swirling flow rig is able to generate rotor outflow conditions representative of the compressor except for the periodic pitchwise unsteadiness and fits a 0.86 scale diffuser and volute. In both rigs, the time-mean impeller outflow is mapped across a diffuser pitch using miniaturized traversing probes developed for the purpose. Across approximately two-thirds of the stage operating range, diffuser performance is well correlated to the average impeller outflow angle when the metric used is effectiveness, which describes the pressure recovery obtained relative to the maximum possible given the average inflow angle and Mach number and the vane exit metal angle. Utilizing effectiveness captures density changes through the diffuser at higher Mach numbers; a 10% increase in pressure recovery is observed as the inlet Mach number is increased from 0.5 to 1. Further, effectiveness is shown to be largely independent of the time-averaged spanwise and unsteady pitchwise nonuniformity from the rotor; this independence is reflective of the strong mixing processes that occur in the diffuser inlet region. The observed exception is for operating points with high time-averaged vane incidence. Here, it is hypothesized that temporary excursions into high-loss flow regimes cause a nonlinear increase in loss as large unsteady angle variations pass by from the rotor. Given that straight-channel diffuser design charts typically used in preliminary radial vaned diffuser design capture neither streamtube area changes from impeller exit to the diffuser throat nor vane incidence effects, their utility is limited. An alternative approach, utilizing effectiveness and vane leading edge incidence, is proposed.
Experimental and Numerical Investigation of Tip Clearance Effects in a High-Speed Centrifugal Compressor
The objective of this research is to investigate the effects of tip clearance on the stage and component performance in a high-speed centrifugal compressor. The experimental data were compared against results from a numerical model to assess the ability of the numerical simulation to predict the effects of tip clearance. Experimental data were collected at Purdue University on the Single Stage Centrifugal Compressor (SSCC), a high-speed, high-pressure ratio test compressor sponsored by Honeywell Aerospace. Numerical simulations were completed using the ANSYS CFX software suite and part of the research computing clusters located at Purdue University.Two tip clearances were tested, the nominal tip clearance and a tip clearance that is 66% larger than the nominal clearance, at speeds from 60% to 100% corrected speed. To compare data points with different tip clearances, various parameters were evaluated, and one was chosen. The value of TPR/inlet corrected mass flow rate best represented similar loading conditions, and thus similar incidences, for each tip clearance and was chosen as the best method for comparing similar data points taken with different clearances. Stage and component performance were focused on the sensitivity of each performance parameter to the changing of the tip clearance. The stage total pressure ratio and stage efficiency showed moderate sensitivity while the stage work factor showed much lower sensitivity. The impeller is more sensitive to changing tip clearances than the stage is, showing greater changes when comparing data from each tip clearance. The diffuser was on the same order of sensitivity as the impeller, with marginally higher sensitivities for some parameters. It was found that by the typical performance metrics, the diffuser performs worse at the nominal clearance than at the larger clearance. Upon further investigation though, the impeller is providing a higher static pressure and therefore, more diffusion, at the nominal clearance so the diffuser must perform less diffusion during nominal clearance operation.To assess the validity of a prediction of the performance and sensitivity of the stage and components to the tip clearance, a numerical model was developed and validated. The numerical model was able to reasonably predict the stage performance with better comparisons of performance in the impeller and worse in the diffuser. The instrumentation in the experiment was replicated in the software to calculate performance the same way it is calculated experimentally so that the results would be comparable. While the performance of the stage and components was lacking in some areas, the trends predicted were similar to those calculated from the experimental data. As with the performance, the trends in the impeller matched very well between the experiment and the numerical simulation. The trends in stage and diffuser performance were predicted more accurately than the stage and diffuser performance maps and were able to capture the magnitude of the change in performance caused by changing the tip clearance.
Investigation of Unsteady Impeller-Diffuser Interaction in a Transonic Centrifugal Compressor Stage
In this paper, unsteady impeller-diffuser interaction in a transonic centrifugal compressor stage, which is composed of an impeller with splitter blade and a vaned diffuser, was studied numerically. The unsteady interaction has a significant impact on the time-averaged flow, which are presented by the so-called deterministic correlations in the average-passage equation system (APES) proposed by Adamczyk. Both steady and unsteady simulations were carried out at the design and off-design conditions. Results from the steady and unsteady simulations were compared to highlight the importance of the unsteady interactions and to help assess the shortcomings of simple mixing-plane methods. The comparisons indicate that the unsteady interactions should be considered in the simulations since the differences between the time averaged unsteady results and steady simulation results are significant especially at off-design conditions. Then the interactions between impeller and diffuser were studied in detail to advance the understanding of the flow physics involved. The results show that the impeller/diffuser interaction can affect a range of 30% impeller chord from impeller trailing edge on impeller performance, while whole chord length on diffuser performance. The potential effects of the diffuser cause an unsteady pressure disturbance at the impeller exit, leading to the unsteadiness of impeller load, tip leakage flow and losses. While the unsteadiness of impeller exit flow cause period varieties of inlet flow conditions for the diffuser and have large impacts on diffuser performance. Based on the unsteady results, deterministic correlations in the APES framework were computed and analyzed in order to reveal some shortcomings of present deterministic correlations models and to make some contributions to the modeling development. The distribution characteristics of deterministic correlations were studied. The study indicates that the deterministic correlations in the impeller and diffuser have the similar magnitudes, and that the correlations in the passages have large gradients in circumferential direction and decrease rapidly in flow direction especially in the vaneless space. The deterministic correlations at the impeller/diffuser interface were compared with their spatial correlations using the framework of the deterministic decomposition. The comparisons show that the spatial correlations have some discrepancies with the total deterministic correlations at the impeller/diffuser interface.Copyright © 2010 by ASME