Analysis of erosion behaviour in a turbocharger radial turbine

Abstract

AbstractAn analysis of the erosion behaviour of a turbocharger radial turbine is presented. The solution domain includes both sides of the radial turbine scroll with double intake and the rotor channel. In the analysis a dilute gas‐particle flow assumption is employed. The gas turbulence is defined by the k‐ε model. In solving the gas phase equation, the computer code Harwell‐FLOW3D is employed, which is based on a finite volume formulation using non‐orthogonal body‐fitted structured gridding and a pressure correction method. The particle phase is described by a Lagrangian approach, while particle paths are computed deterministically, neglecting the turbulent dispersion. For the computation of particle trajectories the code PTRACK is employed, which has been developed at ABB. Computations are carried out for several particle size classes. The results show that particles are thrown back into the scroll by the rotor at high rates. This seems to be the main source of erosion effects in the scroll. It has been observed that particles are unequally distributed between the scroll sides on their re‐entry, resulting in greater erosion on one of the scroll sides. The maximum erosion along the scroll is found to be likely to occur near the scroll end.