Preliminary Design of Centrifugal Impellers Using Optimization Techniques

Abstract

The paper proposes a design method which may be used to evaluate the detailed geometry of an impeller (handling compressible and perfect fluid) from a prescribed mean streamline velocity distribution. The analysis makes use of numerical optimization, firstly in the step by step channel geometry calculation, and secondly in controlling the manner in which the relative velocity components are permitted to vary along the mean streamline for the condition of minimum entropy generation along the flow path. The components distribution of the relative velocity were not allowed to take arbitrary values, the variation of the radial, axial and tangential components was governed in such a way that the prescribed diffusion schedule is satisfied at every calculation point. The general configuration of the example design shows it to be well proportional and should not be difficult to manufacture.