Investigation of the mixed flow turbine performance under inlet pulsating flow conditions

Turbochargers are widely used in Diesel engines as a means of increasing the output power. Most of them are fitted with radial or mixed flow turbines. In applications where high boost pressure is required, radial turbines are replaced by mixed flow turbines which can achieve a maximum efficiency at a lower value of blade speed to isentropic expansion velocity ratio than the usual 0.7 (for radial turbines). This study, performed with the ANSYS-CFX software, presents a numerical performance prediction of a mixed flow turbine under inlet pulsating flow conditions. In addition, the influence of the pulse frequency is studied and the numerical results are compared with those of a one-dimensional model and experimental data. (C) 2012 Academie des sciences. Published by Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.