Development of Efficient Compressors for Turbochargers

Automotive turbochargers play an important role in improving fuel economy, reducing emissions and improving drivability. Key to the improvement of the turbocharger performance is compressor efficiency. Compressors used in turbochargers are typically operated in a wide range of speed and flow. This wide operating range is a challenge to the design and improving the performance is often a fine balance between required efficiencies towards the surge, choke regions apart from having a comfortable speed margin for high altitude operations. In this study an existing compressor that best matched a 180hp commercial diesel engine application is chosen and its performance is further improved towards the lower flow region. Improvement is carried out through a set of designed experiments using a combination of Preliminary Design (PD) and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) tools. Mechanical integrity of the wheel is ensured using Finite Element Analysis. A prototype is made out of the improved design and tested in an in-house gas stand. Predicted efficiency improvements are reflected in gas stand tests. Efficiency improvements in the lower flow range are observed over 7% while there is an acceptable drop (3.7%) near the peak power side. The improved compressor also shows higher part load efficiencies.