The design of a family of process compressor stages

Abstract

The design of a new family of process compressor stages is described. The paper discusses the choice of master and derived stages to cover the required flow range and provides guidelines for the design of the stage components, including the impeller, diffuser and the return channel. Details are given of the mechanical and aerodynamic design process and the computational tools used for this. The test results show that the performance objectives have been achieved. Results from testing of some of the stages are compared with CFD simulations. These show that the inclusion of real geometry features, such as the shroud and hub leakage paths and the end-wall fillets, is necessary to obtain good agreement with the measured performance.