PERFORMANCES EVALUATION AND BLADE NUMBER OPTIMIZATION OF RADIAL INFLOW TURBINE

The energy exhaust recovery in engines is obtained using turbochargers which are widely used in the automotive industry. A turbocharged engine leads to a better overall system efficiency and a reduction in exhaust emissions compared, at constant power, with a naturally aspirated engine. The numerical approach in the present work is to explore ways of improving the performances of the radial inflow turbine. This work investigates the performances of a radial inflow turbine under steady states conditions and how they are affected by the rotor geometry. The radial inflow turbine is investigated numerically using 3D Reynolds averaged Navier-Stokes equations, the objective hear is to determine the optimum of performance characteristics of the turbine. The building of the geometry and the generation of unstructured meshes are achieved using ANSYS-ICEM software whereas in order to simulate the flow, the ANSYS-CFX code is applied. The numerical method is also used to determine optimum geometrical characteristics such as the optimum of blade number. It has been found that the rotor with 12 blades gives better performances.