Centrifugal Compressor of a 100 kW Microturbine: Part 1 — Experimental and Numerical Investigations on Overall Performance

This paper describes on/off design performance of a centrifugal compressor of a 100 kW turbogenerator gas turbine engine used for small scale power generation. The compressor stage is made up of a radial impeller and a two-stage diffuser (radial and deswirl). Part 1 deals with the experimental and numerical tests on overall compressor and diffuser performance: An extensive test series with steady probe measurements at impeller exit and diffuser exit is performed at different operating points and rotational speeds. This makes it possible to characterize both overall compressor and diffuser. The numerical model is based on a mixing plane at impeller-diffuser interface and therefore neglects the effect of unsteadiness due to rotor-stator interaction. Then, in part 2 the true time-dependent interaction is investigated by means of a numerical model where a sliding mesh technique is adopted. The unsteady results are then processed and compared with the steady ones regarding the flow in the diffuser. Finally, in part 3 the geometry of the compressor diffuser is optimized using an evolutionary algorithm coupled with a CFD code in order to improve compressor performance.