- Challenge: Design a centrifugal compressor for use in blower applications.
- Results: An efficient compact design.
- Impact: High efficiency design achieves compression at reduced power.
The manufacturer of a high speed, motor-driven compressor was seeking a new centrifugal compressor design to be used in a water aeration application. The compressor needed to be powered by a high-speed electric motor. In order to satisfy the customer’s weight requirement, the design had to be very compact.
Figure 1. High Speed Compressor Design.
The project began with a meanline design and analysis. It was determined that in order to gain a more efficient compressor design, trade-offs would need to be considered quickly and efficiently, such as speed, blade number, diffuser type, and blade back sweep. Using CFX Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) software, a three-dimensional compressor design (Figure 1) was achieved.
The manufacturer then built and tested the prototype. The testing demonstrated that the compressor achieved 82% isentropic efficiency. This increased efficiency was considerably higher in comparison with its competitors. Since the time of this design and analysis, the compressor has gone into successful full scale production.
