Numerical investigation of diffuser solidity effect on turbulent airflow and performance of the turbocharger compressor

Low solidity diffuser in centrifugal compressors can achieve both high efficiency and wide operating ranges which is of great importance for turbocharger compressor. Low solidity is achieved by using a low chord to pitch ratio. In this work, a CFD simulation is carried out to examine the effect of solidity on airflow field of a turbocharger centrifugal compressor which consists of a simple-splitter impeller and a vaned diffuser. By changing the number of diffuser vanes while keeping the number of impeller blades constant, the solidity value of the diffuser is varied. The characteristics of the compressor are evaluated for 6, 8, 10 and 12 stator vanes which correspond to solidity of: 0.78, 1.04, 1.29 and 1.55, respectively. The spatial distribution of the pressure, velocity and turbulent kinetic energy show that the diffuser solidity has significant effect on flow field and compressor performance map. The compressor with a 6 vanes diffuser has higher efficiency and operates at a wider range of flow rate relative to that obtained with larger vans number. However a non-uniform flow at the compressor exit was observed with relatively high turbulent kinetic energy.