A Review of Incompressible Diffuser Flow

Abstract

A QUARTER of a century ago, in September 1938, this journal published a review of diffuser behaviour by G. N. Patterson1 which, together with one of. its main information sources by Gibson,2 has formed the accepted guide to diffuser design. Patterson's paper was broad in scope and made clear reference to the effect of parameters which were not fully investigated until much later. It is the purpose of this paper to review experimental work, much of it being along the lines formulated by Patterson, and to indicate the improved analytical understanding of diffusers.