EXPERIMENTAL AND THEORETICAL INVESTIGATION OF CENTRIFUGAL COMPRESSOR PERFORMANCE CHARACTERISTICS

Prediction of compressor performance is a basic step in design of this turbomachine, while designer can optimize plan by considering various conditions and calculating machine performance. Flow field in centrifugal compressor is three-dimensional and intricate. Since 2-D and 3-D methods are very costly, consequently the mean line method usually is used for predicting compressor performance. The energy loss coefficients are used for this method. Because of the intricacy in flow and analysis of losses, most energy loss coefficients are attained by experimental procedures, however just some of them are determined according to theory and nature of the flow field. The purpose of this work is experimental and theoretical investigation on performance of the centrifugal compressor. The computer code based on 1-D modeling with energy loss coefficients is provided and it is modified according to the effects of splitters. In this model most of the various relations in the literature are examined. Finally experimental results are used for investigation of correctness of the model. Experimental studies are carried out on compressor of a S2B model of Shwitzer turbocharger at Sharif University of Technology turbocharger lab. Experimental and model results comparison demonstrates close correspondence between modified model results and compressor performance.