Effect of Blade Thickness on Aerodynamic Performance of Three-dimensional Impeller With Arbitrary Spatial Surface

The influence of different spanwise and streamwise blade thickness distribution schemes on the aerodynamic performance of shrouded centrifugal compressors with arbitrary spatial surfaces was studied. The numerical results show that the reasonable thinning for the equal-thickness blades along spanwise and streamwise direction can both significantly improve the compressor performance at high flow operating conditions without obviously reducing the performance at low flow operating conditions. The performance improvement obtained by the spanwise blade thinning and the streamwise blade thinning could be superimposed. The isentropic efficiency of the compressor at the design condition was improved by about 2.08% by combining the spanwise and the streamwise blade thinning. Compared to the thickness thinning of the leading edge and the trailing edge of the blade, the thinning of the blade tip thickness had a greater performance improvement capability. The research work provides a useful guidance for the optimal design of the three-dimensional shrouded centrifugal compressor impeller. © 2020, Science Press. All right reserved.