Flow-noise characteristics of turbocharger compressors with rotational balance cuttings

Abstract

To correct the balance of the rotating assembly of a turbocharger, some parts of the compressor wheel are removed by cutting. A numerical investigation of the turbulent flows and flow noises produced by compressor wheels modified with such cutting parts was performed by a turbulence model and detached-eddy simulations. For the 6-cutting case, 0, 2, 4, and 6 circular cuttings and two additional—rectangular and triangular—shapes were used. To investigate the effects of the balance cuttings in a compressor wheel, the evaluation process using computational fluid dynamics was tried. It was found that the fluid forces due to the various wheel shapes have the potential to restore the eccentricity by approximately 50%. Severe variations of velocity, pressure, and turbulent kinetic energy in the interspace between the wheel and volute were observed. In particular, the wavelike patterns of pressure and turbulent kinetic energy were intensified for the modified wheels. The turbulent kinetic energy of the 6-cutting case had a dominant frequency at approximately 3000 Hz. The spectrum of the sound-pressure level of the modified compressor wheels exhibited the features of buzz-saw noise. The flow fields suggested that this feature of the sound pressure is related to the tip-clearance flow affected by the balance cuttings. In addition, the acoustic pressure and flow characteristics of the different types of modified compressor wheels were discussed and the resulting acoustic power was evaluated.