Multi-objective optimization for impeller shroud contour, the width of vane diffuser and the number of blades of the centrifugal compressor stage based on the CFD calculation
Abstract. The study presents the results of multi-objective optimization for a high flow centrifugal compressor stage with impeller pressure ratio П=1.3 and conditional flow rate coefficient Φ=0.108. The compressor stage includes an impeller with 3D backswept blades, a vane diffuser and an axial inlet. The goal of optimization is to increase polytropic efficiency and polytropic head ratio of the basic design. The CFD method is used to estimate compressor efficiency at rated duty. CAE optimization is applied based on the parametric optimization of impeller shroud contour and number of blades of the impeller and diffuser versus the original design. Parameterization of geometrics is also used to the width-ratio of vane diffuser in the range of b3/D2= 0.08-0.097. The study considers 52 cases of the optimization of impeller shroud contour and the number of blades in the search for the improved design. The optimization procedure uses the automatic generated computation grid and supplementary activation of solution to each design case. The numerical calculation for each case has been performed automatically by ANSYS CFX 14.5 soft application. The optimization allowed to obtain the improved design with total polytropic efficiency increase by 1.58% for the impeller and polytropic head coefficient increase by 0.58%. The polytropic efficiency and the polytropic head coefficient are calculated on the total parameters. The performance of the basic impeller has been exhaustibly validated by test records provided JSC “REPH ZAO”. The resulted error range does not exceed 5% over the performance map, except near surge point..