MIT School of Engineering, Pune.

Department of Aerospace Engineering

Course Code: 21BTAE503
Name of the Subject: Aircraft Propulsion
Name of the Subject Teacher: Prof. Pandi Siddharth
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UNIT – III COMPRESSORS

Principle of operation of centrifugal compressor,

Work done and pressure rise,
Velocity diagrams, Diffuser vane design considerations,
Concept of pre-whirl, Elementary theory of axial flow compressor,
Velocity triangles, degree of reaction,
Three dimensional, Air angle distributions for free vortex and constant reaction designs,
Rotation stall, Compressor blade design,
Centrifugal and Axial compressor performance characteristics.

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Introduction:
Rotating machines are usually called turbomachines. These machines work on the principle
of work addition or extraction.
When a fluid passes through a rotating machine two things happen, viz., energy transfer
and energy transformation.
The energy transfer means transfer of available energy from one part (rotor) to the medium
(fluid) or vice versa.
Energy transformation means change of one form of energy into another form, for example,
change of kinetic energy to pressure energy in a compressor.
The energy transfer can occur only in its moving or rotating elements whereas the energy
transformation can occur in both stationary and rotating elements.

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As both the compressors and turbines are concerned with energy transfer, we will consider
their basic performance together.
In compressors the energy is transferred from the rotor to the fluid while in turbines it is
from fluid to the rotor.
The effectiveness of this transfer of energy in a fluid machine is governed mainly by the
fluid dynamics of the system.

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Principle of operation of centrifugal compressor:
The centrifugal compressor consists essentially of a stationary casing containing a rotating
impeller which imparts a high velocity to the air, and a number of fixed diverging passages
in which the air is decelerated with a consequent rise in static pressure.
The latter process is one of diffusion, and consequently the part of the compressor
containing the diverging passages is known as the diffuser. Figure (a) is a diagrammatic
sketch of a centrifugal compressor. The impeller may be single- or double-sided as in l(b)
or l(c), but the fundamental theory is the same for both. The double-sided impeller was
required in early aero-engines because of the relatively small flow capacity of the
centrifugal compressor for a given overall diameter.
Air is sucked into the impeller eye and whirled round at high speed by the vanes on the

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impeller disc. At any point in the flow of air through the impeller, the centripetal acceleration
is obtained by a pressure head, so that the static pressure of the air increases from the eye to
the tip of the impeller.
The remainder of the static pressure rise is obtained in the diffuser, where the very high
velocity of the air leaving the impeller tip is reduced to somewhere in the region of the
velocity with which the air enters the impeller eye; it should be appreciated that friction in
the diffuser will cause some loss in stagnation pressure.
The normal practice is to design the compressor so that about half the pressure rise occurs
in the impeller and half in the diffuser. It will be appreciated that owing to the action of the
vanes in carrying the air around with the impeller, there will be a slightly higher static
pressure on the forward face of a vane than on the trailing face.
The air will thus tend to flow round the edges of the vanes in the clearance space between
the impeller and the casing. This naturally results in a loss of efficiency, and the clearance
must be kept as small as possible.

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A shroud attached to the vanes, Fig. (d), would eliminate such a loss, but the manufacturing
difficulties are vastly increased and there would be a disc friction or 'windage' loss
associated with the shroud.
Although shrouds have been used on superchargers and process compressors, they are not
used on impellers for gas turbines. The impellers of modern centrifugal compressors
operate with very high tip speeds resulting in very high stress levels. It will be shown in the
next section that backswept curved vanes are desirable for compressors of high pressure
ratio, but for many years designers were forced to use radial vanes because of the tendency
for curved vanes to straighten out under the action of the considerable centrifugal force
involved, setting up undesirable bending stresses in the vanes.
Modern methods of stress analysis combined with stronger materials, however, now permit
backswept vanes to be used in high-performance compressors.
Work done and pressure rise:
Since no work is done on the air in the diffuser, the energy absorbed by the compressor will
be determined by the conditions of the air at the inlet and outlet of the impeller.
Figure shows the nomenclature employed, in the first instance it will be assumed that the
air enters the impeller eye in the axial direction, so that the initial angular momentum of the
air is zero. The axial portion of the vanes must be curved so that the air can pass smoothly
into the eye.
The angle which the leading edge of a vane makes with the tangential direction a will be
given the direction of the relative velocity of the air at inlet, V1, as shown in Fig. If the
air leaves the impeller tip with an absolute velocity C2, it will have a tangential or whirl
component Cw2, and a comparatively small radial component Cr2• Under ideal conditions

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C2 would be such that the whirl component is equal to the impeller tip speed U, as shown
by the velocity triangle at the top of Fig. Due to its inertia, the air trapped between the
impeller vanes is reluctant to move round with the impeller, and we have already noted that
this results in a higher static pressure on the leading face of a vane than on the trailing face.
Centrifugal Compressor:
A centrifugal compressor is one of its class of machines in producing pressure rise and is
known as turbo-compressors. In this type, energy is transferred by dynamic means from a
rotating member (or impeller) to the continuously flowing working fluid.
The main feature of the centrifugal compressor is that, the angular momentum of the fluid
flowing through the impeller is increased partly by virtue of the impeller’s outlet diameter
being significantly larger than its inlet diameter.
The centrifugal compressor may be known as a fan, blower, supercharger, booster,
exhauster or compressor; the distinction between these types being very vague. Broadly
speaking, fans are classified as low-pressure compressors and blowers as medium pressure
compressors. Boosters, exhausters and superchargers are named from their point of view of
applications.
 Although the centrifugal compressor is unlikely to be used in gas turbine power plants
where specific fuel consumption is the main criterion, it still has certain advantages for
some applications.
1) It occupies a smaller length than the equivalent axial flow compressor.
2) It is not so liable to loss of performance by build up of deposits on the surfaces of the air
channels.
3) It can work reasonably well in a contaminated atmosphere compared to axial flow
machine.
4) It is able to operate efficiently over a wider range of mass flow rate at any particular
rotational speed.

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Essential Parts of a Centrifugal Compressor:
The compression process is carried out in a centrifugal compressor, which comprises mainly
of four elements:
1) The inlet casing with converging nozzle, whose function is to accelerate the fluid to the
impeller inlet. The outlet of the inlet casing is known as the eye.
2) The impeller, in which the energy transfer takes place, resulting in a rise of fluid kinetic
energy and static pressure.
3) The diffuser, whose function is to transform the high kinetic energy of the fluid at the
impeller outlet into static pressure.
4) The outlet casing, which comprises a fluid collector known as a volute or scroll.
Impeller:
1) The impeller vanes, help to transfer the energy from the impeller to the fluid.
2) The hub, which is surface AB.
3) The shroud, which is surface CD. Impellers enclosed on the surface CD are known as
shrouded impellers, but the surface CD is referred to as the shroud in descriptions of
impeller geometry whether the impeller is enclosed or not.
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4) The inducer, the section EF in impellers of the form shown in Fig. whose function is to
increase the angular momentum of the fluid without increasing its radius of rotation.
 The diffuser may consist of any annular
space known as a vaneless diffuser or may
be in the form of a set of guide vanes, when
it is known as a vaned diffuser.
The main aim of providing diffusers is to
increase the static pressure by reducing the
kinetic energy.
A centrifugal compressor has essential two 3D Model of an Impeller
parts of energy transformation:
a) Rotating impeller which imparts a high
velocity to the fluid and at the same time
increases the static pressure.
b) Impellers are housed inside a stationary
casing.
c) A number of fixed diverging passages in
which the air is decelerated increasing the
static pressure.
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