Circumferential flow differences in the double-sided centrifugal compressor with non-balanced inlets

A double-sided centrifugal compressor consists of two impellers whose inlets are non-balanced, with one side of the impeller connected to the straight duct, and the other connected to the bending duct. This leads to the differences in the inlet conditions of the double-sided impeller, resulting in the differences in the flow structures of the rear impeller along the circumferential direction. In this work, aiming at analyzing the flow structures of the rear impeller, diffuser and volute internal in three flow rate conditions, the internal flow field of the double-sided centrifugal compressor was calculated in a numerical method. It is found that the inlet bending duct results in significant inlet axial velocity difference of the rear impeller along circumferential direction. The axial velocity differences at high span positions become more obvious with the increase of the flow rate. Moreover, the jet-wake structures among the blade passage outlets are also various. At the high static pressure zones of the volute, corresponding blade passage wake regions increase and their sizes are also influenced by the inlet distortion. The circumferential distributions of the static pressure in the diffuser agree well with that in the volute. In the diffuser, the non-uniform degrees of the static pressure distributions are roughly the same at different radius positions and are weakening with the decrease of the flow rate.