On the Study of the Flow through an Impeller of Mixed and Inward-flow Radial Turbines : 1st Report, Theory and Experiment for Sufficiently Large Number of Blades

Abstract

The analysis of the flow in an impeller passage of a mixed and inward-flow radial turbine is very difficult due to many effective factors such as inertia force, Coriolis' force, three dimensionality, viscosity and compressibility. In this report, an approximate analytical method is presented for a steady three dimensional flow of nonviscous and compressible fluid through the impeller of a mixed and inward-flow radial turbine. To measure the pressure distribution on the rotating blades of the impeller of a radial turbine, a mixed and inward-flow radial turbine was manufactured. The experimental results are compared with those by theoretical analysis and good agreement is found to exist between them. It is also shown that the torque calculated from theoretical pressure distribution is in fairly good agreement with the torque measured by experiment.