Tip clearance effects on the flow characteristics of the 15,000 HP centrifugal compressor

This paper numerically investigated the influences of tip clearance of impeller in the 15,000 HP centrifugal compressors. The leakage flow by tip clearance of impeller could be resulted in increasing pressure loss and decreasing performance and efficiency of centrifugal compressor. The numerical simulation using ANSYS CFX was conducted with various values of tip clearance of impeller between 0.6 mm to 1.4 mm. Loss coefficient, pressure, velocity and entropy distributions were graphically depicted. Numerical results showed that the loss of internal flow at the small tip clearance model was lower than that of the large tip clearance model.