Design experience and considerations for centrifugal compressor development

The energy products were challenged to develop new machines in a better, faster, and cheaper way. Although computational fluid dynamics tools are widely used in centrifugal compressor design and optimization process; three-dimensional viscous turbulent simulations for centrifugal compressor systems are still a challenge and very time consuming. The experience based design process still plays an important role for new compressor developments. Basic centrifugal compressor design theories can be found in textbooks and literatures; however, there is very limited quantity information, which can be used for guiding industry centrifugal compressor designs. In this paper, author presented his view of important aspects of centrifugal compressor designs. The purpose of this paper is to provide an opportunity to accelerate industrial compressor design processes by using experience database.