Numerical analysis of flow in a centrifugal compressor with circumferential grooves: influence of groove location and number on flow instability

Abstract

As an effective and economic method for flow range enhancement, circumferential groove casing treatment (CGCT) is widely used to increase the stall margin of compressors. Different from traditional grooved casing treatments, in which the grooves are always located over the rotor in both axial and radial compressors, one or several circumferential grooves are located along the shroud side of the diffuser passage in this paper. Numerical investigations were conducted to predict the performance of a low flow rate centrifugal compressor with CGCT in diffuser. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis is performed under stage environment in order to find the optimum location of the circumferential casing groove in consideration of stall margin enhancement and efficiency gain at design point, and the impact of groove number to the effect of this grooved casing treatment configuration in enhancing the stall margin of the compressor stage is studied. The results indicate that the centrifugal compressor with circumferential groove in vaned diffuser can obtain obvious improvement in the stall margin with sacrificing design efficiency a little. Efforts were made to study blade level flow mechanisms to determine how the CGCT impacts the compressor’s stall margin (SM) and performance. The flow structures in the passage, the tip gap, and the grooves as well as their mutual interactions were plotted and analysed.