Mechanical Design of Wound Composite Impeller Using FEM

A low-cost, light-weight, high-performance, composite turbomachinery impeller with uniquely designed blade patterns is analyzed. Such impellers can economically enable refrigeration plants to use water as a refrigerant (R718). A stress and vibration analyses procedure is developed to assess the maximum stresses and natural frequencies of these wound composite axial impellers under operating loading conditions using Finite Element Method. A commercially available software ANSYS is used for the FE calculations. Analysis is done for two different blade geometries and then suggestions are made for optimum design parameters. The relationship between impeller natural frequency and rotating speed is also determined based on dynamic characteristics analysis.Copyright © 2010 by ASME