The Development of High Performance Centrifugal Compressor Using CFD and Other Considerations

Air compression is one of the most important processes of air separation. Reliable design, higher performance, low noise, no resonant frequencies in the operating range and economic to manufacture are the goals of compressor design. Although CFD has been widely used in the compressor designs, there are many design considerations need to be addressed during the design. In this paper, the detailed design considerations for compressor configuration, power distribution for each stage, and possible field application issues are discussed in detail. The aerodynamic and structural optimization using CFD and FEA are performed to obtain a high efficiency and wide operating range compressor stage with for robust operation. The new compressor development process addressed in this paper provides the basic design guidance for future new compressor development.