Design and optimization of a single stage centrifugal compressor for a solar dish-Brayton system

According to the requirements of a solar dish-Brayton system,a centrifugal compressor stage with a minimum total pressure ratio of 5,an adiabatic efficiency above 75% and a surge margin more than 12% needs to be designed.A single stage,which consists of impeller,radial vaned diffuser,90° crossover and two rows of axial stators,was chosen to satisfy this system.To achieve the stage performance,an impeller with a 6:1 total pressure ratio and an adiabatic efficiency of 90% was designed and its preliminary geometry came from an in-house one-dimensional program.Radial vaned diffuser was applied downstream of the impeller.Two rows of axial stators after 90° crossover were added to guide the flow into axial direction.Since jet-wake flow,shockwave and boundary layer separation coexisted in the impeller-diffuser region,optimization on the radius ratio of radial diffuser vane inlet to impeller exit,diffuser vane inlet blade angle and number of diffuser vanes was carried out at design point.Finally,an optimized centrifugal compressor stage fulfilled the high expectations and presented proper performance.Numerical simulation showed that at design point the stage adiabatic efficiency was 79.93% and the total pressure ratio was 5.6.The surge margin was 15%.The performance map including 80%,90% and 100% design speed was also presented.     

Centrifugal compressor tip clearance and impeller flow

Compressors consume a considerable portion of the electricity used in the industrial sector. Hence, improvements in compressor efficiency lead to energy savings and reduce environmental impacts. The efficiency of an unshrouded centrifugal compressor suffers from leakage flow over the blade tips. The effect of tip leakage flow on the passage flow differs between the full and splitter blade passages. In this study, the differences in the flow fields between the full and splitter blade passages were studied numerically in detail. An industrial high-speed compressor with a design pressure ratio of 1.78 was modelled. Numerical studies were conducted with six different tip clearances and three different diffuser widths. The results show that increasing tip clearance considerably increases the reversed flow into the impeller with an unpinched diffuser. The reversed flow then partly mixes into the flow in the same blade passage it entered the impeller and the rest migrates over the blade, mixing with the tip clearance flow. Furthermore, as the reversed and clearance flow mix into the wake, the wake is weakened. As pinch reduces both the reversed flow and clearance flow, the passage wakes are stronger with pinches. However, the pinch is beneficial as the losses at the impeller outlet decrease.