A new methodology for preliminary design of centrifugal impellers with prewhirl

Abstract

The overall trend of centrifugal compressor design is to strive for high aerodynamic performance and high flow capacity products. A new methodology is derived to implement a preliminary design for high flow capacity centrifugal impeller with and without prewhirl. First, several new non-dimensional equations connecting impeller geometric and aerodynamic parameters are derived for the maximum flow capacity. The effects of prewhirl on mass flow function, inlet diameter ratio and work coefficient are discussed, respectively. Then, based on these equations, a series of design diagrams are drawn to extract the universal rules in centrifugal impeller design with prewhirl. Some physical limits of design maps are also discussed. Finally, the throat area of impeller is discussed under prewhirl, and the matching principle between prewhirl impeller and vaned diffuser is derived and validated. The proposed method can be used to design a new centrifugal compressor, or to evaluate the design feasibility and the challenge of a given design specification.