CENTRIFUGAL COMPRESSOR BLADE TRIMMING FOR A RANGE OF FLOWS

摘要

Centrifugal impeller blade trimming has long been used in the turbocharger industry to adapt a single impeller casting to a series of flow capacities, but surprisingly little published literature exists on the effects of trimming to compressor performance. This paper is presented as partial remedy, and describes the performance characteristics of a single stage centrifugal compressor designed and tested to cover a range of flow requirements by impeller blade and diffuser vane trimming. Stage and component test performance characteristics are presented for five trimmed flowpath contours covering a flow capacity range of approximately five to one at a DeLaval number of 0.75. The impeller tip diameter was 356 mm, and the highest overall stage efficiency measured was 84.8% at an (air) pressure ratio of 1.5.