Effect of housing surface roughness on the performance of a centrifugal compressor for turbocharger: Experimental and numerical study

Centrifugal compressor plays a vital role in the performance of a turbocharger. The compressor contains an impeller and housing, including the vaneless diffuser and a volute. The high-speed flow from the impeller is diffused in the diffuser and volute, before being delivered to the engine. Hence, the housing flow characteristics affect the compressor performance and operating range. Generally, housing has noticeable surface roughness, especially in the volute. This study evaluates the effect of the volute surface roughness on the compressor performance by experimental and numerical analysis. The experiments are conducted for three different volute surface roughness levels to measure the overall compressor pressure ratio and efficiency. The uncertainty in the efficiency for experimental results is within ±0.5% pts. Also, steady-state numerical simulations are performed to analyse the flow mechanisms causing pressure losses. Then, a numerical analysis is done to understand the effect of roughness of the diffuser hub and shroud walls on the compressor performance. From the experimental results, it is found that the increase in the roughness level of the volute from the smooth surface by circa 900% and 1400% shows a significant reduction in the compressor efficiency at the design speed (N) and off-design speeds (0.87 and 1.13 N). The reductions of efficiency are about 0.5%–1% pts at the near surge point, 1%–1.5% pts at the peak efficiency point and 2%–2.5% pts at the near choke flow point. The CFD analyses show significantly higher near-wall turbulence and wall shear resulting in additional pressure losses. Also, it is found that the pressure losses are more sensitive to roughness of the diffuser shroud-wall than that of the hub-wall. On the other hand, the diffuser hub-wall roughness increases the radial momentum in the diffuser passage which suppress the flow separation at low flow rates.