• The KSFM Journal of Fluid Machinery
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• v.1 no.1 s.1
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• pp.24-31
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• 1998

Aerodynamic performance tests and flow measurement were carried out for several radial impellers of NACA 65-810 airfoil. The data base obtained are to be used for verifying the methods of flow analysis and CFD codes. The effects of numbers and span of blades on the performances, efficiency and impeller exit flow are investigated in the present study. The flow rate on the performance curve is proportional to the span of the blade for the same value of fan pressure rise. The magnitude of radial velocity component at the impeller exit gradually decreases from the hub to shroud side. The magnitude of tangential velocity component gradually increases from the hub to shroud side. The way of variations of velocity is the same at the diffuser exit, however, becomes more uniform. The pressure rise performance increases with blade number at the small flow coefficients, however, decreases with the number of blade at the large flow coefficients. This shows that flow guidance in important at the low flow rate and the friction becomes significant at the high flow rate.

• International Journal of Fluid Machinery and Systems
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.193-201
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• 2015

This paper deals with the influence of leakage flow existing in SHF pump model on the analysis of internal flow behaviour inside the vane diffuser of the pump model performance using both experiments and calculations. PIV measurements have been performed at different hub to shroud planes inside one diffuser channel passage for a given speed of rotation and various flow rates. For each operating condition, the PIV measurements have been trigged with different angular impeller positions. The performances and the static pressure rise of the diffuser were also measured using a three-hole probe. The numerical simulations were carried out with Star CCM+ 9.06 code (RANS frozen and unsteady calculations). Some results were already presented at the XXth IAHR Symposium for three flowrates for RANS frozen and URANS calculations. In the present paper, comparisons between URANS calculations with and without leakages and experimental results are presented and discussed for these flow rates. The performances of the diffuser obtained by numerical calculations are compared to those obtained by the three-holes probe measurements. The comparisons show the influence of fluid leakages on global performances and a real improvement concerning the efficiency of the diffuser, the pump and the velocity distributions. These results show that leakage is an important parameter that has to be taken into account in order to make improved comparisons between numerical approaches and experiments in such a specific model set up.

• International Journal of Fluid Machinery and Systems
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.274-282
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• 2015

This paper deals with the influence of leakage flow existing in SHF pump model on the analysis of internal flow behaviour inside the vane diffuser of the pump model performance using both experiments and calculations. PIV measurements have been performed at different hub to shroud planes inside one diffuser channel passage for a given speed of rotation and various flow rates. For each operating condition, the PIV measurements have been trigged with different angular impeller positions. The performances and the static pressure rise of the diffuser were also measured using a three-hole probe. The numerical simulations were carried out with Star CCM+ 9.06 code (RANS frozen and unsteady calculations). Some results were already presented at the XXth IAHR Symposium for three flowrates for RANS frozen and URANS calculations. In the present paper, comparisons between URANS calculations with and without leakages and experimental results are presented and discussed for these flow rates. The performances of the diffuser obtained by numerical calculations are compared to those obtained by the three-holes probe measurements. The comparisons show the influence of fluid leakages on global performances and a real improvement concerning the efficiency of the diffuser, the pump and the velocity distributions. These results show that leakage is an important parameter that has to be taken into account in order to make improved comparisons between numerical approaches and experiments in such a specific model set up.

• Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology
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• v.16 no.9
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• pp.1147-1155
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• 2002

Discharge flows from a centrifugal pump impeller with a specific speed of 150 [rpm, m$^3$/min, m] were experimentally investigated. A large axisymmetric collector instead of a volute casing was installed to obtain circumferentially uniform flow, i.e. without interaction of the impeller and the volute. The unsteady flow was measured at the impeller exit and vaneless diffuser using a hot film probe and a pressure transducer. The flow at impeller exit showed pronounced jet-wake flow patterns. The wake, which was on the suction/hub side at high flow rate, became enlarged pitchwisely on both the hub and the shroud side as the flow rate decreases. The pitchwise non-uniformity of the flow rapidly decreased along the downstream and the non-uniformity almost disappeared at radius ratio of 1.18 for medium flow rate. The mean vaneless diffuser flow was reasonably predicted using a one dimensional analysis when an empirical constant was used to specify the skin friction coefficient. The data can be used for a centrifugal pump impeller design and validation of CFD codes and flow modeling.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.41 no.7
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• pp.445-453
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• 2017

This paper presents the hydraulic design an impeller and radial diffuser of a high-pressure multistage pump for reverse osmosis. The flow distribution and hydraulic performance for the meridional design of the impeller were analyzed numerically. Optimization was conducted based on the response surface method by varying the hub and shroud meridional curvatures, while maintaining the impeller outlet diameter, outlet width, and eye diameter constant. The analysis results of the head and efficiency with the variation in the impeller meridional profile showed that angle of the front shroud near the impeller outlet (${\varepsilon}Ds$) had the highest effect on head increase, while the hub inlet length ($d_{1i}$) and shroud curvature (Rds) had the highest effect on efficiency. From the meridional profile variation, an approximately 0.5% increase in efficiency was observed compared with the base model (case 25).

• The KSFM Journal of Fluid Machinery
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• v.4 no.1 s.10
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• pp.30-37
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• 2001

The experimental study on the effect of axial clearance between the tip of impeller blades and stationary shroud has been performed. The investigated compressor, which is a part of a small auxiliary power unit engine, consists of a curved inlet, a centrifugal impeller, a channel diffuser and a plenum chamber. It was designed for a total pressure ratio of 4.3 and an efficiency of $77\%$ at design speed of 60,000 rpm. The experiments are carried out in an open-loop centrifugal compressor test rig driven by a turbine. For the four different clearance ratios Cr(clearance/impeller tip width) of 6.25, 10.93, 15.60 and 20.30 percent, the overall performance data are obtained at $97\%,\;90\%$ and $80\%$ of the design speed. The results show the overall pressure ratio decrease of $7.7\%$ and the efficiency loss of $8.7\%$ across the variation of clearance ratio near the design speed. It also indicates that the influence of tip clearance became weaker as the flow rate is reduced and the stable operating range is not significantly influenced by the change of clearance ratio.

• International Journal of Fluid Machinery and Systems
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.110-120
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• 2009

Generally the fluid flows within the centrifugal impeller passage as a decelerating flow with an adverse pressure gradient along the stream wise path. This flow tends to be in a state of instability with flow separation zones on the suction surface and on the front shroud. Hence several experimental attempts were earlier made to assess the efficacy of using boundary layer fences to trip the flow in the regions of separation and to make the flow align itself into stream wise direction so that the losses could be minimized and overall efficiency of the diffusion process in the fan could be increased. With the development of CFD, an extensive numerical whole field analysis of the effect of boundary layer fences in discrete regions of suspected separation points is possible. But it is found from the literature that there have been no significant attempts to use this tool to explore numerically the utility of the fences on the flow field. This paper attempts to explore the effect of boundary layer fences corresponding to various geometrical configurations on the impeller as well as on the diffuser. It is shown from the analysis that the fences located on the impellers near the trailing edge on pressure side and suction side improves the static pressure recovery across the fan. Fences provided at the radial mid-span on the pressure side of the diffuser vane and near the leading edge and trailing edge of the suction side of diffuser vanes also improve the static pressure recovery across the fan.

• Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.483-494
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• 1998

This study describes the characteristics on impeller discharge flow of a centrifugal compressor with vaneless diffuser. Distorted flow at impeller exit was investigated by measuring of unsteady velocity fluctuation using hot-wire anemometer. As a result, a wake region appears near shroud side and moves to suction side and also to hub side as flow rate decreases. Jet, wake, and their boundary region which can be defined in jet-wake flow model are clearly observed at a high flow rate for the flow coefficient of 0.64, however, as flow rate decreases to the flow coefficient of 0.19, the classification of their regions disappears. Turbulence intensity also increases as flow rate decreases. Measurement error from uncertainty analysis is estimated about 4% at the flow coefficient of 0.19

• 한국전산유체공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2004.10a
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• pp.69-72
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• 2004

The performance of the centrifugal fan in a vacuum cleaner is affected by the hydraulic loss, such as the friction loss, the recirculation loss and the impact loss etc., Those losses depend on the rotational speed of the impeller, the inlet and exit widths, the relative flow angles to the blade, the number of the blades and the geometry of the shroud and the diffuser. These parameters are complicatedly interrelated, so the experimental means in analyzing the fans are rather limited. In the present study, the flow analysis are done numerically by changing the relevant fan parameters. A commercial code, STAR-CD, is used for the calculations. It is seen from the analyses that the computational results agree well with the experimental results. The results obtained can be used for the basic design of a centrifugal fan.

• International Journal of Fluid Machinery and Systems
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.29-38
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• 2010

This paper presents a procedure for the design optimization of a centrifugal compressor. The centrifugal compressor consists of a centrifugal impeller, vaneless diffuser and volute. And, optimization techniques based on the radial basis neural network method are used to optimize the impeller of a centrifugal compressor. The Latin-hypercube sampling of design-of-experiments is used to generate the thirty design points within design spaces. Three-dimensional Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equations with the shear stress transport turbulence model are discretized by using finite volume approximations and solved on hexahedral grids to evaluate the objective function of the total-to-total pressure ratio. Four variables defining the impeller hub and shroud contours are selected as design variables in this optimization. The results of optimization show that the total-to-total pressure ratio of the optimized shape at the design flow coefficient is enhanced by 2.46% and the total-to-total pressure ratios at the off-design points are also improved significantly by the design optimization.