An Analysis of Unsteady Torque on a Two-Dimensional Radial Impeller

Abstract

Unsteady flows around radial impellers are analyzed by the use of singularity methods. Unsteady torque is given for transient and/or sinusoidal flow rate and/or angular velocity fluctuation. It is shown that the unsteady torque can be divided into three components—quasisteady, apparent mass and wake—and the nature of each component is discussed. As a result of separating the torque into these three components, it is shown that the wake component is usually smaller than the others. A gross estimate of torque fluctuation can be made easily by using the apparent mass coefficient given in the paper for logarithmic impellers covering a wide range of blade angles, blade numbers and impeller diameter ratios.