• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.38 no.2
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• pp.115-120
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• 2014

To enhance the performance of an automobile turbocharger compressor, the circumferential inlet heights of the volute were modified and the flow field for the combined region of the diffuser and volute was numerically investigated using commercial software. Basically, a well-designed volute should have a high pressure recovery coefficient and a low loss coefficient for the total pressure. In this study, two circular volutes with the same cross sectional shape and tongue angle, but circumferentially different volute inlet heights, were selected. One volute had the middle inlet in the cross-section at the circumferential angle of $90^{\circ}$ but gradually lower inlet heights for the angles between $90^{\circ}$ to $360^{\circ}$ with respect to the cross sectional center of the volute, while maintaining the same height between the tangential line connecting the lowest positions of the cross section and the line connecting the volute inlets in the circumferential direction (case 1 volute). The other volute has an inlet height that is 2 mm lower than in case 1 volute such that the tongue section has a tangential inlet (case 2 volute). The results showed that the case 2 volute had a higher total pressure ratio because of its higher pressure recovery coefficient and higher isentropic efficiency, resulting from the lower loss coefficient along the circumferential position than the case 1 volute.