A novel design of impeller cavity pre-swirl system for efficient supercharging and low power consumption

Abstract A design for a turbine pre-swirl system with impeller cavity is proposed to improve the quality of cooling air supplied to the turbine blades of an aeroengine. Impeller cavity is analyzed in order to increase the system pressure ratio with a low system power consumption at the system outlet. Theoretical and numerical investigation are used to investigate the flow characteristics in an impeller cavity pre-swirl system. The conclusions in this study indicate that the impeller structure can increases the pressure ratio by changing the power consumption and distribution of the absolute velocity in the impeller cavity and system outlet. To obtain high pressure ratio and low power consumption, the impeller should have a structure with a high outlet installation radius and low outlet angle. The highest increase in the pressure ratio compared with the empty cavity pre-swirl system is 6.4% and the corresponding increase in the power consumption is 2620 W.