R,'searcb in progress

School of Engineering, University of Bath, England

Computer-aided design of radial and mixed flow turbomach nery
R. C. ATKEY, D. S. EASTES, F. J. WALLACE and A. WHITF1ELD

I N T R OD U C T I O N

Work at Bath University over a number of years has led to

the development of suites of programs constituting a computer-
aided design package for turbocharger turbines and compres-
sors. The starting point for these packages was a successful
one-dimensional performance prediction program for radial
inflow turbines I which allowed the determination of the
influence both of external operating conditions and of
turbine geometry on the mass flow, torque and efficiency
'maps'.
Performance maps for turbines produced by these pro-
grams, coupled with compressor maps generated by one of
the programs described in the present paper 3 are the basis
of performance predictions for complete engine-turbocharger
combinations. The predictions that can be made are the
effects of changes in external operating conditions (altitude
and temperature) as wall as alterations of compressor and
turbine geometry, including variable inlet guide vanes for
the former and nozzles for the latter.
A suite of computer programs has been developed to aid a
in the design and analysis of radial and mixed flow turbo-
machinery. Recent efforts have concentrated on the design 1 33:.t
1 ill_ ~ Cj BBB7 1 B i_ -
of compressors leading to the following fluid dynam'ic and
thermodynamic design programs: 2 [~i_ 0 9152 2 Iqi_
3 Iqi_- 0 9r~lB .3 fli_ 1 42FS
1. A one-dimensional design program to initially set-up the 4 ill_ 1 G6~1 4 fli_, 1 ~'22
overall dimensions of the machine. 5 fik 1 054 5 NI_ 1 519
2. A one-dimensional analysis program to study the proposed B flL 1 101 ~. ,qi_ 1 5B5
design in detail and to predict the complete performance ? flL 1 147 ? t:t i_ 1 B12
map 3,4. l:J .ilL 1 194 B It i_ 1 BS~
9 flL 1 240 9 Fi L 1 205
3. A two-dimensional analysis program to check the pro- 1 [3 fti_ 1 2BB I0 1]i_
posed internal flow passage design. The data preparation
for this program has been automated by representing
the compressor hub, shroud and camberline curves
analytically. This facilitates the rapid analysis of a series
of possible designs.
4. A two-dimensional flow analysis in the blade-to-blade
plane, to give the pressure and velocity distributions on the
suction and pressure surface of the blades.

5. Following these fluid dynamic analyses, a computer

graphics procedure is used to plot the streamline, isobar
and isotach patterns in the rotor and to give the blade-to- f.
i "2
blade pressure and velocity distributions. A typical ?
graphical output is shown in Figure 1 (a and b).
2
6. A computer graphics procedure to draw the proposed
design and to provide suitable drawings for manufacturing 2
purposes.
The final computer graphics procedure provides detailed
drawings of the rotor in the form of a side view, front view
and isometric view. Typical results are shown in Figure 2.
This drawing is obtained from data describing the hub,
shroud and camberline curves of a single blade, or two
blades if splitter blades are used. This data can be read F I G U R E 1. (a) sbows a streamline plot for tbe rotor and
directly from cards; it can be generated by the program from (b) plots the isobar patterns for tbe same rotor design.

40 COMPUTER AIDED DESIGN

Research in progress

the analytic specification of the relevant curves, or can be

retrieved from backing store; the required data having been
left in store by the design and analysis programs. The data
is modified to give the optimum use of the plotter under
the constraints determined by the user, for example, \ j - f

whether integral or non-integral scaling factors are to be

used. o

The user decides at which angle the isometric view is to

be drawn, and whether a complete or part section view is
required. Each blade is described as a series of straight line
elements, and the data describing both the blades and the
central hub is stored in three two-dimensional arrays holding
x, y and z co-ordinates.
To remove the hidden lines each blade is compared with
every other blade in turn. For each of the two blades
currently being considered the maximum and minimum x
and y co-ordinates are found to define rectangles enclosing
the blades. If the enclosing rectangles do not overlap, then
any overlapping of the blades must be within this area so
only line segments lying partly or wholly within the area of 28~_
overlap of the rectangles are considered.
For the manufacture of an impeller, two special drawings
are provided together with the associated listings of the co-
ordinates. These consist of a cross-sectional view along the
axis to give the hub and shroud contours, and a view of a SO~L[ 5K1"

series of slices through a single channel, perpendicular to the

axis, to give the shape of the channel. The slices are taken
at intervals determined by the user, and after allowing for
the thickness of the blade the channel shape is plotted, as
shown in Figure 3.
These drawings, which are provided ten times full scale,
are used to manufacture templates from which the rotors are
manufactured using a three-dimensional copy milling
technique.
The University Production Engineering Group is shortly
to take delivery of a Hayes three-dimensional continuous
contouring vertical milling machine and it is hoped to have
suitable software programs, for example, APT or UNIAPT
/ reader, lineprinter, tapes and discs, and a CalComp 565
/J
i/t
FIG URE 3. Impeller channel sections are plotted to help
in manufacturing. The slices through a single channel are
taken at intervals decided by the user.
for full three-axis utilization of the machine. This machine
will then be used for rotor and impeller manufacture and
will eliminate the intermediate step of template manufacture
The computer graphics program, in its present form
occupies approximately 90 kbytes of core and takes about
90 seconds to produce a drawing of an average size problem.
The maximum size of problem that can be handled by the
hidden line program is a compressor with 36 blades, each
blade being defined by 100 data points. The program is
capable of drawing any object which can be defined as a
central hub with a number of symmetrical blades attached,
such as propellers, impellers and axial flow turbines.
The computer hardware currently available at Bath is an
ICL System 4/50 with 256 kbytes of core store with card
11in graph-plotter. Through the South Western Universities
Computer Network it is possible to access an ICL 4/72 with
768 kbytes of core store and a 30in CalComp graph-plotter.

I REFERENCES

1. Wallace, F. J. 'Theoretical assessment of the performance charac-

\ teristics of inward radial flow turbines' Proc Inst. Mecb Eng
Vol 172 (1958) No 33 p 931.
2. Wallace, F. J. and Cave, P. R. 'A general approach to the com-
puter solution of single and two stage turbocharged diesel
engine matching'. Presented at meeting of Inst. Mech Eng. on
lOth October 1973.
3. Wallace, F. J. and Whitfield, A. 'A new approach to the problem
of predicting the performance of centrifugal compressors' Znd
International JSME Symposium, Fluid Machinery and Fiuidics,
Paper No 124, Tokyo (September 1972).
4. Whitfield, A. and Wallace, F. J. 'Study of incidence loss models
FIG URE 2. Typical detailed drawing o f the rotor using tbe in radial and mixed flow mrbomachinery' Paper No C55/73,
computer grapbics procedure - an isometric view o f the Inst. Mech. Eng. Thermodynamics and Fluid Mechanics Groups
impeller. Convention, University of Warwick, (April 1973).

Volume 6 Number 1 January 1974 41