Random Vibration Analysis for Centrifugal Compressor Impellers With Unsteady Aerodynamic Excitations

Dynamic response of impeller of centrifugal compressor is studied considering pulsating pressure field on blades due to unsteady flow conditions. The aerodynamic forces on the blades are modeled as random load whose spectral characteristics are determined through computational fluid dynamic simulations in the time domain. The dynamical response in the unsteady case is solved as a random vibration problem in the frequency domain which provides useful power spectral density displacement and stress for early stage of impeller design. A semi-open impeller mounted with 19 blades is modeled using three dimensional solid finite elements. The random vibration problem of the impeller is solved through the Pseudo-Excitation Method considering spatial variance of the pressure field. A user-defined module is developed based on harmonic analysis to generate the auto power spectral density and variance of displacement and stress at 200 nodes. It is demonstrated that solving a random vibration problem through the Pseudo-Excitation Method is faster than the commonly adopted multiple-step transient analysis. It is concluded that evaluating the structural integrity of impeller solids in the regime of random vibration is a feasible and efficient approach at the early design stage of compressors.Copyright © 2016 by ASME