Investigation of inter-stage passive flow control for turbine performance improvement on regulated two-stage turbocharger

Abstract

The flow field coupling effect between the HPT (high pressure turbine) and LPT (low pressure turbine) introduces a particular flow structure to the two-stage turbocharging system. Compared to the isolated turbines, the performance of these two connected turbines will inevitably be affected by each other. However, in the open state of the bypass valve, the influence of the bypass flow on this flow field coupling effect is still unknown. In this study, the inter-stage performance interaction of regulated two-stage turbocharger was investigated through the three-dimensional numerical method. With the bypass valve open, the influence of different positions of the bypass branch on the inter-stage coupling effects is investigated. The results manifest that the different positions of the bypass branch significantly change the performance of low pressure turbine and the flow interactions within the inter-stage. When the bypass branch is on the right, the LPT efficiency improves by approximately 2.2%. The detailed flow field analysis of the inter-stage pipe, volute and rotor is conducted to reveal the flow mechanism behind the inter-stage interactions. Based on this investigation, a new passive flow control scheme is proposed to ameliorate the swirling flow at the LPT inlet and improve the performance of LPT.