Prediction of the Characteristic Map of a Centrifugal Compressors Using Computational Fluid Dynamic

The present study has investigated the effects of the different loss mechanismsavailable in the open literature on the performance of the centrifugalcompressors. Then the performance maps of a centrifugal compressor havebeen produced using two methods. First of all, the analytical method for inwhich a system of empirical equations describing the flow in the centrifugalcompressors have been prepared and used to generate a Visual Basic code thatcan be used as a tool to predict the characteristic map of centrifugalcompressors. Secondly, the Ansys computational fluid dynamic (CFD) toolshave been used to simulate the flow of the same compressor and produce aperformance map using Ansys CFX solver that can be used to validate theresults obtained from the analytical method. The results obtained from bothmethods have been compared to experimental results available for thecompressor. The results obtained from both methods are in good agreementwith the experimental results. However, the results obtained from CFD matchmore accurately with the experimental results. The effects of each lossmechanism were calculated and results show that the skin friction loss has thehighest impact on the performance of the centrifugal compressors. Moreover,the incidence loss also has significant impact on the shape of the performancecurve of the compressor.

Keywords:

Characteristic map , Centrifugal compressors , Computational fluid dynamic , Ansys CFX solver