Improving Centrifugal Compressor Performance by Optimizing the Design of Impellers Using Genetic Algorithm and Computational Fluid Dynamics Methods

Hong-Chao Zhang,Shu-Jie Liu,Hui-Tian Lu,Mohammad Omidi,Soheil Mohtaram

doi:10.3390/su11195409

Abstract

It has always been important to study the development and improvement of the design of turbomachines, owing to the numerous uses of turbomachines and their high energy consumption. Accordingly, optimizing turbomachine performance is crucial for sustainable development. The design of impellers significantly affects the performance of centrifugal compressors. Numerous models and design methods proposed for this subject area, however, old and based on the 1D scheme. The present article developed a hybrid optimization model based on genetic algorithms (GA) and a 3D simulation of compressors to examine the certain parameters such as blade angle at leading and trailing edges and the starting point of splitter blades. New impeller design is proposed to optimize the base compressor. The contribution of this paper includes the automatic creation of generations for achieving the optimal design and designing splitter blades using a novel method. The present study concludes with presenting a new, more efficient, and stable design.

Highlights

Greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2) are the main cause of climate change
The trimming method makes small changes in the design parameters of impellers and monitors the effect of these changes on the overall performance of compressors while focusing on parameters such as Bezier points. This method is usually based on a constrained range of parameters, and is efficient in terms of computational burden, its results are user-dependent given the need for a manual search in the computational domain of optimization
A code was developed and an automatic process was designed. This process begins with the base compressor and is slightly modified by genetic algorithms (GA). The performance of this altered compressor is examined by simulating the flow using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) methods, which guides GA to find the optimization direction and create a new generation

Summary

Introduction

Greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2) are the main cause of climate change. Decreasing these emissions to prevent global warming is of crucial importance. The trimming method makes small changes in the design parameters of impellers and monitors the effect of these changes on the overall performance of compressors while focusing on parameters such as Bezier points This method is usually based on a constrained range of parameters, and is efficient in terms of computational burden, its results are user-dependent given the need for a manual search in the computational domain of optimization. The second method investigates major changes made in the blade shape and number and the beginning and end points of splitters This method usually automatically examines parameters and a wide range of designs including a higher number of parameters compared to the trimming method. Given the mathematical algorithm behind optimizations, the results are unpredictable and the computational burden is heavier than that of the first method

Optimization Procedure

Step 5

Base Compressor

Validating the Results

Results and Discussion