Radial compressor

Abstract

A radial compressor is capable of preventing the occurrence of separation caused by a flow which goes beyond the front end of a blade and turns onto a negative pressure plane from a pressure plane, thereby reducing a surging flow rate to a smaller flow rate. The radial compressor includes an impeller which is rotatively driven, axially introduces air taken in through an air inlet passage formed in a housing, pressurizes the introduced air, and discharges the pressurized air in a radial direction, wherein an annular concave groove is formed in a peripheral wall of the air inlet passage of the housing, a rear end portion of an opening of the annular concave groove, which rear end portion meets the housing peripheral wall, is provided in the vicinity of a blade front end surface of the impeller, and the rear end portion of the opening of the annular concave groove is formed such that an axial projecting amount X thereof relative to the blade front end surface of the impeller is set to −1T≦X≦1.5T (where T denotes the thickness of the distal portion of a blade).

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.