Natural Frequencies of Centrifugal Compressor Impellers for High Density Gas Applications

Characteristics of natural frequencies of an impeller and an equivalent disc were investigated in high-density gas to develop a method for predicting natural frequencies of centrifugal compressor impellers for high-density gas applications. The equivalent disc had outer and inner diameters equal to those of the impeller. We expected that natural frequencies would decrease with increasing the gas density because of the added-mass effect. However, we found experimentally that some natural frequencies of the impeller and the disc in high-density gas decreased but others increased. Moreover, we observed, under high-density condition, some resonance frequencies that we did not observe under low-density condition. These experimental results cannot be explained by only the added-mass effect. For simplicity, we focused on the disc to understand the mechanism of the behavior of natural frequencies. We developed a theoretical analysis of fluid-structure interaction considering not only the mass but also stiffness of gas. The analysis gave a qualitative explanation of the experimental results. In addition, we carried out a fluid-structure interaction analysis using the finite element method. The behavior of natural frequencies of the disc in high-density gas was predicted with errors less than 6%.