Extension of the Stator Vane Upstream Across the 180° Bend for a Multistage Radial Compressor Stage

The design, analysis and optimization of a new stator concept for multistage centrifugal compressors using numerical methods is presented. The first objective was to further improve the performance of a well-optimized stage with a short vaneless diffuser, see Aalburg et al [1]. The second objective was to achieve a significant increase in the flow turning in the stator part. In order to achieve these goals an extension of the return channel vane upstream, over the U-turn bend, was considered. This design poses challenges that are quite different from those encountered for a conventional design. For example, a conventional vane angle distribution leads to lean angles across the bend that are not feasible from a manufacturing and aerodynamic perspective. In addition, conventional design tools for geometry generation were found to have limited applicability for this concept. To address these issues a geometry generator was developed that facilitated the design of three-dimensional across-the-bend type vanes with unconventional vane angle distributions. The geometry generator was based on an analytical design procedure similar to that outlined by Veress and Braembussche [2]. This procedure allows a desired loading distribution to be specified. In this paper the vane concept will be introduced, the development of the geometry generator will be outlined and the effect of varying design parameters will be considered. An optimized design will then be presented that outperformed the reference conventional design in terms of efficiency by up to one point across the operating range. This improvement was achieved despite a significantly higher vane loading.