High pressure ratio centrifugal compressors are applied to turbochargers and turboshaft engines because of their small dimensions, high efficiency and wide operating range. Such a high pressure ratio centrifugal compressor has a transonic inlet condition accompanied with a shock wave in the inducer portion. It is generally said that extra losses are generated by interaction of the shock wave and the boundary layers on the blade surface. To improve the performance of high pressure ratio centrifugal compressor it is necessary to understand the flow phenomena. Although some research works on transonic impeller flow have been published, some unknown flow physics are still remaining. The authors designed a transonic impeller, with an inlet Mach number is about 1.3, and conducted detailed flow measurements by using Laser Doppler Velocimetry (LDV). In the result the interaction between the shock wave and tip leakage vortex at the inducer and flow distortion at the downstream of inducer were observed. The interaction of the boundary layer and the shock wave was not observed. Also computational flow analysis were conducted and compared with experimental results.
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