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A novel experimental method to evaluate the impact of volute’s asymmetry on the performance of a high pressure ratio turbocharger compressor

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Abstract

All components of a turbocharger compressor are axisymmetric except for the spiral-shaped, gas-collecting overhung volute. In this paper, a novel experimental method to evaluate the impact of the volute’s asymmetry on centrifugal compressor performance is proposed and applied to a high pressure-ratio turbocharger compressor. This method can isolate the impact of the volute’s asymmetry on the compressor performance for the first time. Experiments prove the considerable impact of the volute’s asymmetry on the compressor performance, especially the stability and efficiency. The impact of the volute’s asymmetry on compressor stability correlates with rotational speed and thus with the pressure ratio, constricting the stable flow range by up to 47 percent and decreasing the maximum efficiency by 4.8 percent at the design speed. The results provide evidence to exploit the potential of intrinsic non-axisymmetric flow induced by asymmetric volute to improve the performance of turbocharger compressor with a high pressure ratio.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Automotive Safety and Energy, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China

    Yun Lin, XinQian Zheng & Lei Jin

  2. IHI Corporation, Tokyo, Japan

    Hideaki Tamaki & Tomoki Kawakubo

Authors
  1. Yun Lin
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  2. XinQian Zheng
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  3. Lei Jin
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  4. Hideaki Tamaki
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  5. Tomoki Kawakubo
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Correspondence to XinQian Zheng.

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Lin, Y., Zheng, X., Jin, L. et al. A novel experimental method to evaluate the impact of volute’s asymmetry on the performance of a high pressure ratio turbocharger compressor. Sci. China Technol. Sci. 55, 1695–1700 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11431-012-4822-9

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