On the nature of tip clearance flow in subsonic centrifugal impellers

Increasing demand for downsizing of engines to improve CO2 emissions has resulted in renewed efforts to improve the efficiency and expend the stable operating range of the centrifugal compressors used in petro-chemical equipment and turbochargers. The losses in these compressors are dominated by tip clearance flow. In this paper, the tip clearance flow in the subsonic impeller is numerically investigated. The nature of the tip clearance in inducer, axial to radial bend and exducer are studied in detail at design and off-design conditions by examining the detailed flow field through the clearance and the interaction of the clearance flow with the shear effect with the endwalls. The correlation between blade loading and span wise geometry and clearance flow at different locations are presented.