3D Printed Centrifugal Turbo Compressor

Quick proof-of concept to see if you can 3D print a working single stage turbo compressor. Lot's of lessons learned and I hope to revisit this again.

#turbo #turbocharger #3dprint #centrifugalcompressor #compressor

[ericlotze]

I'm amazed at how your channel is as small (relitively speaking i guess, still an unimagineable ammount of people (2.56 THOUSAND in a room?) ) as it is, but

"Oh ya know, just designed and FDM 3D Printed kickass F-1 componet models"

"Oh ya know, just researched and designed a Centrifugal Turbo Compressor then FDM Printed it"

AMAZING stuff, keep up the awesome work !

[filmweaver]

Great channel, great content, instant sub! Would love if you can show more math and your design process...! Thanks for the videos

[abrahampitman]

Centrifugal compressors are fantastic for volumetric flow, but unfortunately not for pressure, in fact compressor surge is a major issue with these machines, if there is insuffiencient flow and high pressure, the flow can reverse going through the vanes and destroying the impeller. They're commonly used in industry for low pressure / high volume air applications, or on LNG tankers to send boil off gas to the ships boiler. Its a cool approach to arrange the stages axially, all of the multi stage machines I've seen simply take the output from scroll the volute and feed it into the inlet of another compressor stage

[goom]

Amazing designes, I work in factory automation and I happen to have delt with instrument air axial compressors. The ones we have are 4 stage compressors, first stage is the biggest stage sucking huge amounts of air then goes to interstage rad fan style cooler and then to the second stage, the process is the same throught to the 4th stage. Now the second is smaller than first and 3d is smaller 4th is the smallest. The ratio between the drive gear and the dreven gears, one was called high speed and the other is the low speed, was so high like 1:100 for low gear 1:150 for the high gear or even more " not exaggerating". I have actually seen inside of them during overhaul and noticed and linked what i have studied about axial compressors. In order to comperss you need rotor and stator blades. Rotor will move the air at very high speed, now this is were your designs stopped and in this stage it is a blower not a compressor. The secret is stator blades are essential to creat an effect in axial compressors called defusion. Air is comming at high speed by the rotor, stator will change air direction and reduce its velocity, now you are creating pressure and then the max amount of pressure will be limited to multiple factors of efficiency of the designe and clearences between the housing and rotor leakage. As for yor multistage design I have noticed that all stages are the same size which indicate no pressure increase throught the stages + the missing stator part in each stage. Hope i helped and i really look forward to you next videos. 😊

[kingsgambit]

choked flow is absolutely not the same as reverse flow 08:05 in terms of a compressor characteristic, these two states are on the opposite ends of the characteristic curve

[martylawson]

You should look up regenerative blowers or side channel blowers. Neat way to get somewhat higher boost at lower flow than with centrifugal blowers. Also, invest in some colored water and clear tubing to make a simple U-tube manometer. You were probably making 5-10 inH20. Which is quite good for something with a tip speed not measured by Mach number.

[martylawson]

If you want 5-10 psi and decent flow rates with a 3D printed pump, I'd suggest that you look at positive displacement diaphragm pumps. Just need a few sheets of rubber for the valves and diaphragm. (though thin printed reeds and bellows might work well too)

[ericlotze]

9:45

"Just a goofy little thing to mess around with"

*showing a practical use case* (not commercial leafblower quality, but for V0.1 you get my gist)

[ruuman]

I can't believe it balanced so well, maybe to complete this series you should do a piston style pump?

[Rampart.X]

For smooth surfaces, dip parts in fibreglass resin.

[zaksrdanovich]

Fusion has its benefits like just being able to quickly design organic shapes, but solidworks, if you know what your doing, is a lot more precise, and can way more easily design production parts

[letsdosomething]

1:55 I THINK I HAVE THE SOLUTION. Your blade is not efficient at all at the base. The mouth or top of the blade is fine and sucks in air like it should but the base of your blade is at the wrong angle. You have something that looks like the straight spokes of a wagon wheel looking from the top down. You need to angle them backwards more like the look of a hurricane. Your current setup pushes air tangent to the direction of the wheel and it can’t get out of its own way fast enough for more air to come in efficiently. Basically the fan on top is doing all the work. The idea as I’m sure you’re aware is to throw air to the outside of the housing. So by curving the base it will help push the air outward more and create better pressure. All the other dimensions are fine, you basically just need to grab the bottom corner of the blade and move it counter clockwise a little. The idea of a turbo is at its core an impeller with a fan attached on top. I think this is why you aren’t making any boost. Another idea you can try is something I saw on a rumba fan. You have trouble with the clearance because it’s 3d printed and it will never be good enough because that’s just how 3d printing is. The way rumba got around this is putting a cone over the blades and attached to them. This makes the compressor wheel a closed system and your tolerances between the wheel and the housing can be utter garbage and still work perfectly. I would recommend looking up a picture of their vacuum fan to understand what I’m talking about better. But I would try that above all else. Hope this helps and good luck. Can’t wait to see more.

[golgothapro]

I'm an automotive performance builder and an electronical industrial control technician with a number of engineering skills acquired through years of experience. I've been experimenting with brushless motors and centrifugal superchargers for a few years now and have recently considered forced induction for a small block V8 consisting of four pairs of mirror image centrifugal bldc motor-driven direct-drive compressors each on its own stack to an individual-throttle-body (ITB) EFI setup. T-3s like they use on Isuzu 2.2 diesels would make a good model and since there's no turbine they don't even have to be metallic. Most small blocks ran 750 cfm carbs N/A so distributed a couple of hundred cfm each would probably be adequate. At least 15 to 20 psi static would be a great target. 40, 000 is a pretty safe impeller speed and small ones would have little inertia. Just something to think about. There was a Dutch co. that did bigger T-4 versions with 48v brushless motors (Torqamp) but they're already history. Apparently covid blew it for them; but they were way pricy anyway.

[tahustvedt]

I designed one too and tried it on my car. It works. I made mine much bigger.

[dwight_boi]

I LOVE THIS! Can’t wait too be able to use this on my car one day 🤣😂

[DaRealdioactiveMan]

Cool turbo
To smooth your surfaces: I´ve seen on another channel a guy, who puts his parts in a box and soaks the printed parts in acetone vapor (not in the liquid itself)

[RexAnothership]

The types of projects you do, you should invest in angular bearings as they can do both thrust and radial loads. You need to mount them opposite orientation to lock thrust in both axial directions and keep them from falling apart. Another design flaw is that you need to calculate the intake area to a smaller exhaust ratio not the wrong way around as you have here. A ratio of 1.5:1 per stage for 3d printing would be stellar. Maybe a little less at first like 1.4:1 Don't give up, you'll get there. Keep up the great content.

[jumonjii]

These type of compressors are used in vapor distillation to raise the temperature of steam.

[RetrocarStyle]

Axial flow turbocharger...it is possible. A Jet engine is nothing more than a GIANT axial flow turbocharger that can run on its own exhaust energy. Take a look inside a high bypass turbofan engine. The multiple stages of compressors can create some serious HP.

[adrianyo]

great video, I wonder, if the pressure would increase if you just joined 3 of those compressors.