Exhaust System for Radial and Axial-Centrifugal Compressor with Pipe Diffuser

Abstract

Abstract The application of radial and axial-centrifugal compressors in turboprop, turboshaft and turbofan engines may require the construction of small diameters diffuser in order to obtain lower weight and smaller frontal area. Conventional exhaust diffusers typically have large outlet diameters for exit Mach numbers lower than 0,2 and low swirl flow to the combustor, hence the design of channel of the low-diameter diffusers called controlled-contour, fishtail-shaped diffuser or diffusing trumpet is complex. The cross-sectional shape of these channels is varied from circular to oval to elliptic and to rectangular. The paper presents an original method for determining the flow parameters in the channel and at the outlet section of the downstream diffusing trumpet for a pipe diffuser, which constitutes the downstream duct of the radial or axial-centrifugal compressor with the pipe diffuser. It also illustrates a new method for determining the geometrical parameters of the diffuser. Mentioned methods (for conceptual design of a compressor with pipe diffuser) are based on Pythagorean theorem, properties of ellipse, equation of continuity, energy equation, first law of thermodynamics, Euler’s moment of momentum equation, gasdynamics functions and definitions used in theory of turbo-machines.