Transient Process of Rotating Stall in Radial Vaneless Diffusers

This paper describes the process of rotating stall inception in a radial vaneless diffuser. Unsteady flow and rotating stall were investigated by measuring the wall static pressures and velocity distributions using X hot-wire probe. From the measurements of the velocity fluctuation, it is confirmed that the periodical disturbance in the reverse flow region as the prestall symptom occurs prior to the onset of stall and then the growth of that periodical disturbance leads to the rotating stall with fully developed non axisymmetric reversed flow. On the process of the rotating stall inception, reverse flow regions in the diffuser grow from the diffuser exit toward the inlet along the shroud and hub wall, and the rotating stall occurs when the reverse flow region on the shroud wall reaches to the impeller exit. In this paper, the effects of the diffuser exit blockage on the process of stall inception were also described. The flow rate of stall onset is moved to the lower side by the restriction of the diffuser exit width, however, this restriction does not affect the distribution of the reverse flow regions. That restriction suppresses the prestall disturbance in the reverse flow regions and then stabilize the flow in the diffuser.