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Design and numerical simulation on coupled flow field of radial turbine with air-inlet volute

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Abstract

As one of the core components of turbocharger or micro-turbine, radial turbine has the features of small size and high rotation speed. In order to explore the design method and flow mechanism of the turbine with a volute, a centimeter-scale radial turbine with a vaneless air-inlet volute was designed and simulated numerically to investigate the characteristics of the coupled flow field. The results show that the wheel efficiency of single passage computation without the volute is 80.1%. After accounting for the factors of the loss caused by the volute and the interaction between each passage, the performance is more accurate according to the whole flow passage computation with the volute. High load region gathers at the mid-span and the efficiency declines to 76.6%. The performance of the volute whose structure angle of the trapezoid section is equal to 70 degree is better. Unlike uniform inlet condition in single passage, more appropriate inlet flow for the impeller is provided by the rectification effect of the volute in full passage calculation. Flow parameters are distributed more evenly along the blade span and are generally consistent between each passage at the outlet of the turbine.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Energy Science and Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, 150001, China

    Yunfei Wang  (王云飞), Huanlong Chen  (陈焕龙) & Fu Chen  (陈 浮)

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  1. Yunfei Wang  (王云飞)
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  2. Huanlong Chen  (陈焕龙)
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  3. Fu Chen  (陈 浮)
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Huanlong Chen  (陈焕龙).

Additional information

Supported by the Innovative Research Groups of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51121004) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 50976026).

Wang Yunfei, born in 1988, male, doctorate student.

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Wang, Y., Chen, H. & Chen, F. Design and numerical simulation on coupled flow field of radial turbine with air-inlet volute. Trans. Tianjin Univ. 21, 153–160 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12209-015-2403-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12209-015-2403-2

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