NON-AXISYMMETRIC FLOWS AND ROTORDYNAMIC FORCES IN
SHROUDED RADIAL COMPRESSORS

Centrifugal compressors are used in diverse applications, including aero gas turbine engines, chemical processing equipment, and oil and gas process machines.  If not designed properly, such compressors can suffer from rotordynamic instability due to destabilizing rotordynamic forces, and the rotordynamic instability can cause mechanical failures, delay in delivery, and financial loss.  The rotordynamic instability is a self-excited vibration in which an unsteady, non-axisymmetric flow field induced by a whirling rotor, in turn, exacerbates the rotor whirl. 

This study aims to experimentally and analytically investigate the steady, non-axisymmetric flow field and the corresponding rotordynamic stiffness coefficients induced by a statically eccentric shrouded centrifugal compressor.