(Engineering Note) Numerical Study of the Effects of Blade Angles on the Performance of Centrifugal Impellers

This paper is concerned with the influence of blade angles on centrifugal impeller performance parameters such pressure ratio, diffusion ratio and efficiency. The other basic geometric parameters are held constant. The influence of the blade angles change on the observed values was determined from numerical solution of the flow in the impeller with help of the FLUENT software. The numerical simulation focused on the air flow from compressor impeller inlet to exit, and the performance of impeller is predicted. The numerical solution was performed for original impeller geometry and for two other cases, in which blade inlet angle and backward sweep was changed.The standard k −ε turbulence model was used to obtain the eddy viscosity. Performance of the code was verified using measured data for the Eckardt impeller.