Centrifugal compressor impeller with nonlinear backwall
OwnerNoel Blairinventor
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A centrifugal compressor impeller includes a plurality of blades on a front side that extend from a first axial side to an outer radial end of the impeller. The centrifugal impeller includes a back side having a nonlinear backwall. The backwall can include a flat area hear a bore of impeller, a flat area near a tip of the impeller, and a convex surface between the flat areas of the bore and the tip. In some forms the impeller further includes a concave surface between the convex surface and the tip to form an s-shape. A transition or inflection point can denote the change from convex to concave. The convex and/or concave surfaces can take any variety of forms such as constant radius sections and/or compound curves.
Claims21
1-20. (canceled)
An apparatus comprising:
- a centrifugal impeller having an impeller center defined around an axis of rotation of the centrifugal impeller, a front side, and a backwall side, the backwall side including:
- an impeller center flat area surrounding the impeller center, and
- an extension region disposed radially away from the impeller center flat area
- wherein the backwall side defines a convex region including the impeller center flat area and the extension region.
A centrifugal impeller comprising:
- an impeller center defined around an axis of rotation of the centrifugal impeller, a front side, and a backwall side, the backwall side including:
- an impeller center flat area surrounding the impeller center, and
- an end region proximate to a radial end of the centrifugal impeller,
- wherein the backwall side defines a convex region including the impeller center flat area and the end region.
A centrifugal impeller comprising:
- an impeller center defined around an axis of rotation of the centrifugal impeller, a front side, and a backwall side, the backwall side including:
- an impeller center flat area surrounding the impeller center, and
- an end region proximate to a radial end of the centrifugal impeller,
- wherein the backwall side defines a convex region including the impeller center flat area and the end region, where the end region extends radially towards the radial end of the centrifugal impeller and axially towards the front side of the centrifugal impeller.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.