Abstract
The primary focus of this study is to optimize the shape of the exhaust volutes of a particular type of mixed working fluid centrifugal compressor. The objective is to improve the aerodynamic performance of the volutes and enhance the overall performance of the compressor. To achieve this, both the adjoint method and parametric optimization approach are employed, and their results are compared to determine the optimal approach. The results indicate that after 65 iterations of parametric optimization, the total pressure recovery coefficient of the exhaust volute increased by 0.577%. By using 37 steps of adjoint optimization, the optimized total pressure recovery coefficient can be increased by 1.614%. A comparison between the parametric optimization and adjoint optimization reveals that the latter resulted in more noticeable changes in the shape of the discharge volute, ultimately leading to significant improvements in its aerodynamic performance. Faster convergence is achieved by the adjoint optimization approach.
