The Number of Blade Effects on the Performance of a Mixed Turbine Rotor

Article history: Received: 14.06.2016. Received in revised form: 01.12.2016. Accepted: 06.12.2016. Turbochargers have become widely applied to diesel vehicle engines. The mixed flow turbine type is suitable for systems where compact power sources are required with higher boost pressure. The sensitivity of the rotor to incidence effects and tendency of the flow to separate have given rise to considerations of the optimum number of blades. This paper investigates the performance of a mixed inflow turbine under steady conditions with the effect of the blade number. This study deals with the determination of the performance characteristics of a mixed flow turbine by solving numerically the 3D Reynolds averaged Navier-Stokes equations. The ANSYSICEM software is used to build the geometry and generate the unstructured meshes while the ANSYS-CFX code is used to simulate the flow in the mixed flow turbine. The numerical method is also used to determine optimum geometrical characteristics such as the optimum number of blades. It has been found that the rotor with 14 blades exhibits better performance.