Estimation of the Aerodynamic Force Induced by Vaneless Diffuser Rotating Stall in Centrifugal Compressor Stages

Rotating stall in centrifugal compressors not only adversely affects the performance before surge, but also can generate high subsynchronous vibrations, marking the minimum flow limit of a machine. Recent works presented an experimental approach to estimate the stall force induced by the unbalanced pressure field in a vaneless diffuser using dynamic pressure measurements. In this study, the results of a 3D-unsteady simulation of a radial stage model were used to estimate the stall force and to compare it with the approximation obtained with an “experimental-like” approach. Results showed that: a) the experimental approach, using an ensemble average approach for transposing data between time and space domains provides sufficiently accurate results; b) the momentum contribution, neglected in experiments, gives negligible contribution to the final intensity of the stall force.