Turbulent air flow investigation through the vaned diffuser turbocharger using CFD

Abstract

In this work, a steady three-dimensional RANS numerical simulation has been carried out to investigate the air flow field of a centrifugal compressor used for the turbocharger applications; such a compressor consists of a simple-splitter impeller followed by a vaned diffuser. Particular attention is focused on the diffuser solidity effect on the performance of the turbocharger centrifugal compressor by varying the number of diffuser vanes without changing the number of impeller blades. It is found from the computational fluid dynamics analysis that the diffuser solidity presents a considerable effect on the fluid flow field and turbulence characteristics and then on the performances and operating range of the turbocharger compressor.