Coupled vibration of unshrouded centrifugal compressor impellers. Part I: Experimental investigation

Abstract

The increased use of small gas turbines and turbochargers in different technical fields has led to the development of highly-loaded centrifugal compressors with extremely thin blades. Due to the high rotational speed and the corresponding centrifugal load, the shape of the impeller hub must also be optimized. This has led to a reduction of the thickness of the impeller disc in the outlet region. The thin parts of the impeller are very sensitive and may be damaged by the excitation of dangerous blade vibrations. Experimental investigations by means of holographic interferometry and telemetry were carried out for two different impeller types; one with radial-ending blades and the other with backswept blades. The results presented in Part I of the paper are able to explain the dominance of coupling effects between the blades and the disc in the middle and higher frequency range of the two tested impellers. Especially excitations caused by downstream sources such as vaned diffusers can endanger the blades and the impeller. The finite element (FE) code computations presented in Part II of the paper to investigate the coupled vibration behavior of the whole impeller were found to be in close agreement with the experimental results.