INVESTIGATION OF CROSS-SECTIONAL VELOCITY FIELD NEAR THE INDUCER PLANE OF A TURBOCHARGER COMPRESSOR USING 2D PARTICLE IMAGE VELOCIMETRY

Understanding the velocity field at the inlet of an automotive turbocharger is critical in order to suppress the instabilities encountered by the compressor, extend its map and improve the impeller design. In the present study, two-dimensional particle image velocimetry experiments are carried out on a turbocharger compressor without any recirculating channel to investigate the planar flow structures on a cross-sectional plane right in front of the inducer at a rotational speed of 80 krpm. The objective of the study is to investigate the flow field in front of a compressor blade passage and quantify the velocity distributions along the blade span for different mass flow rates ranging from choke (77 g/s) to deep surge (13.6 g/s). It is observed that the flow field does not change substantially from choke to about 55 g/s, where flow reversal is known to start at this speed from earlier measurements. While the tangential velocity is less than 8 m/s, the radial velocity increases along the span to 17-20 m/s near the tip at high flow rates (55 - 77 g/s). As the mass flow rate is reduced below 55 g/s, the radial component starts decreasing and the tangential velocity increases rapidly. From about 5 m/s at 55 g/s, the tangential velocity at the blade tip exceeds 50 m/s at 50 g/s and reaches a maximum of about 135 m/s near surge. These time-averaged distributions are similar for different angular locations in front of the blade passage and do not exhibit any substantial azimuthal variation.