ABSTRACT
Centrifugal impellers are used in a wide variety of applications. One of the primary advantages of centrifugal impellers is the high pressure ratio that can be achieved from a small sized machine. Compactness and lightweight design, by comparison with axial machines, are other advantages of centrifugal machines. However, losses and flow distortions in these machines are higher compared to an equivalent axial machine. These higher losses and flow distortions stem, to a large extent, from secondary flows that develop due to curvature and rotation of the impeller passage. Secondary flows have been a focus of Professor Lakshminarayana’s research, and on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday this topic seems very appropriate to highlight. The results presented here also provide an opportunity to discuss a unique spatial marching computational procedure that has some of its features developed from the secondary flow equations of Professors Lakshminarayana and Horlock.
