Preliminary Computational Study of Centrifugal Compressor Inlet Flow Instabilities with Radial Inlet Guide Vanes

The paper presents the research of flow instabilities in the inlet part of a centrifugal compressor channel equipped with radial inlet guide vanes. A simplified model is created and for that, a dimensional analysis of the flow is carried out. Methods of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) are employed in a parametric study, which gives basic information about the influence of dimensionless parameters influence to the flow field. Reconstruction of comprehensive measurement data from an experimental single stage compressor mounted with several stages of variable flow capacity is done for the purpose of comparison to the simplified model. Further analyses will be published later.