Rotating Stall in Centrifugal Compressors

Introduction

When dealing with centrifugal compressor applications, terms such as surge and stall are often used.
While compressor surging is generally an understood phenomenon, the concept of rotating stall is often
harder to explain and understand. This paper will provide a technical explanation of rotating stall and
show how rotating stall can be minimized or prevented.

Rotating stall is not a design or manufacturing defect, but an aerodynamic fact of life when dealing with
centrifugal compressors.

Although rotating stall does not adversely affect the reliability of the rotating parts of the compressor, it
does change the operating characteristics of the chiller package. Additional noise and vibration are
generated when operating in rotating stall. Depending on the severity and duration of operation in this
condition, the vibration generated can fatigue system piping, sometimes leading to line breakage.

The chances of the chiller operating in rotating stall during normal operation can be reduced or eliminated
if care is taken during the selection process and if the system is operated properly once installed. Making
a selection based on knowledge of how the system operates and training of operating personnel can
make these two things happen.

Selections should be carefully reviewed to allow for adequate turndown, based on the specific applica-
tion requirements. Operating personnel should be educated about YORK chiller operation and allow
the entering condenser water temperature to drop and track the outdoor wet bulb temperature. Oper-
ating this way provides the greatest energy savings for the chiller system and the best cooling tower and
chiller operation. In multiple chiller installations, chillers should be run at higher loads with some chillers
cycled off, rather than running multiple chillers at low load.

R
otating stall is an aerodynamic disturbance that Impeller and vaned diffuser stalls occur at flows and
occurs in centrifugal compressors at re- heads that are very near the surge point. Centrifugal
duced flow (reduced load) and/or increased compressors do not operate for any length of time
head (increased temperature lift). with impeller stall or vaned diffuser stall because even
a small flow or head variation will shift the compressor
There are three kinds of rotating stall: impeller stall, into a surge condition and out of stall.
vaned diffuser stall, and vaneless diffuser stall. Which
stall occurs, at what flows and at what heads, depends Although vaneless diffuser stall occurs at conditions
on the compressor geometry, the position of the near the surge point, it may, depending on application
compressor’s inlet prerotation vanes (PRV), and the and compressor characteristics begin to occur at con-
impeller tip speed. ditions that are farther away from the surge point. Cen-

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trifugal compressors may operate for long periods of Several impeller blades usually stall at the same time
time with vaneless diffuser stall. so that multiple stalls rotate around the impeller. When
too many blades stall, or too much of the flow re-
Rotating stall in a vaneless diffuser generates a char- verses in the stalled passages, all impeller flow stops.
acteristic noise and vibration whose frequency is close When this happens, the higher pressure in the con-
to the impeller rotating frequency. This noise and vi- denser forces refrigerant to flow backwards, from the
bration can be minimized when operating at reduced condenser, thru the diffuser, thru the impeller, to the
load by allowing reduced condenser water tempera- evaporator. This complete reversal of flow, from the
ture. condenser to the evaporator, is called a “surge”.

Stall noise and vibration can also be minimized by se- Rotating stall in an impeller is sometimes called “in-
lecting a compressor whose full-load operating point cipient surge” because impeller stall occurs quite close
is far removed from the surge point. to the surge point on a compressor performance map.
Once an impeller begins to stall, only a small decrease
Impeller Stall in flow or increase in head will stall the impeller com-
pletely, and cause the compressor to surge.
In an impeller, rotating stall begins when the flow stream
passing around one of the impeller blades separates Vaned Diffuser Stall
from the back of the blade. This happens when the
angle-of-attack of the flow approaching the blade be- Rotating stall in vaned diffusers also occurs near the
comes so large that the blade “stalls” in the same way surge point and acts the same way as impeller stall.
that an airfoil stalls. When one diffuser vane stalls, the stalled flow in the
passage behind the vane causes an adjacent vane to
The flow angle increases as the flow decreases, so the stall. This ends the stall of the first vane. Multiple stalls
large angle-of-attack that stalls the blade occurs when rotate from vane to vane
the flow is low. When the inlet PRVs are partly closed,
the flow angle entering the impeller is reduced. This Vaneless Diffuser Stall
reduces the tendency of the impeller blades to stall
when the flow is reduced. Rotating stall in a vaneless diffuser is quite different
from the other two kinds of stall. Vaneless diffuser stall
The tendency of the blades to stall increases as the can begin some distance from the surge point, and
impeller outlet pressure increases. At border-line flow typically occurs when the compressor PRVs are partly
angles, stall only occurs when the impeller outlet pres- closed. Vaneless diffusers have no airfoil blades or
sure is high; i.e., when the compressor head is high. vanes that can be “stalled”.

The flow separation behind a stalled blade reduces Instead, recirculating “eddies” form in a vaneless dif-
the volume of flow in the passage behind the blade. It fuser when the flow is reduced and/or the head is in-
may even cause some of the flow to reverse itself and creased. These eddies are called “stall cells” because
flow back out of the passage. This reduced (possibly they affect the diffuser flow in much the same way as
reversed) flow increases the angle of the flow at an stalled diffuser vanes do.
adjacent blade, causing the adjacent blade to stall. The
stall of the second blade lowers the flow angle at the When an eddy forms in a vaneless diffuser, the altered
first blade, thereby restoring normal unstalled flow flow on one side of the eddy causes the eddy to move
around the first blade. Thus the stall moves from blade sideways. The eddy moves (rotates) around the dif-
to blade around the impeller. The stall is said to “ro- fuser similar to the way a vane stall rotates around a
tate” around the impeller, hence the name “rotating vaned diffuser. Several eddies usually form and rotate
stall”. around a vaneless diffuser at the same time. If the flow

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is further reduced, or the head further increased, the a vaneless diffuser design. A key advantage of a
eddies become larger. If the eddies become too large, vaneless diffuser is the ability to accept a wide range
the flow stops, and the compressor surges. of inlet flow conditions.

Thus, YORK compressors with vaneless

Vaneless Diffuser verses Vaned Diffuser diffusers maintain high efficiency over a broad flow
As discussed previously, the diffusing passages down- range. With no obstacles in the flow, vaneless diffus-

Compressor Performance Map

100

PRV
Temperature Lift %

100%

50%

25%

0%

0 100
Evaporator Cooling Load %
Figure 1

stream of the impeller in centrifugal compressors can ers are not contributors to noise generation over most
be of two types; vaned or vaneless. of their range, providing relatively quiet chiller opera-
tion over a wide operating range. The exception is
The compressor diffuser is used to decelerate the high when the machine operates in rotating stall. Although
velocity flow leaving the impeller, causing a static pres- compressor noise may increase when rotating stall
sure rise -the purpose of the compressor. occurs, the compressor continues to be able to main-
tain its pressure rise with high efficiency.
The YORK YT and YK centrifugal compressors use Vaned diffusers employ wedge-shaped, airfoil-shaped,

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or conical tube flow guides that arrest the swirling com- noise levels than compressors with vaneless diffusers.
ponent of the flow leaving the impeller. The flow is Since chillers rarely operate at the design point of full
guided into passages that accomplish the desired static load and design ECWT, the higher peak efficiency of
pressure rise in a shorter distance than in vaneless dif- a vaned diffuser is of little value. YORK has chosen
fusers, allowing for a more compact design. There is vaneless diffuser for better off-design performance and
also potential for slightly higher efficiency at the design quieter chiller operation.
point. However, the presence of the vanes near the

Compressor Sound Spectra

100

90 Low Load

80

70
High Load
60

50

40

30

20

10

0
63 125 250 500 1000 2000 4000 8000
Figure 2
Octave Band Frequency (Hz)

impeller discharge is a significant noise generator analo- Performance Map

gous to a siren. Since the vaned diffuser has fixed inlet
angles, they are less tolerant of flow angle changes Figure 1 is a typical performance map for a constant-
that occur as the chiller load changes. Thus, compres- speed compressor with a vaneless diffuser. Each PRV
sors with vaned diffusers may have slightly higher peak position generates a performance line which moves
efficiency but a more limited capacity range and higher upward and to the left, from low head (low +T/+P

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 between evaporator and condenser) to a higher head, Since YORK’s single-stage compressors utilize a
until rotating stall in the diffuser begins. The PRV line vaneless diffuser design, Figure 1 is representative of
continues upward, thru a zone of rotating stall, until YORK single-stage compressor performance at con-
the compressor surges. stant speed.

The points on the PRV lines at which rotating stall be- Surge and Stall
gins are connected by a line that is called the “stall
envelope”. The points at which the compressor be- A surge is a reverse flow in which refrigerant moves

Compressor Performance Map

100

PRV
100%
Temperature Lift %

u ced
R ed

0%

0 100
Figure 3 Evaporator Cooling Load %

gins to surge are connected by a “surge envelope”. A backward, from the condenser, thru the compressor,
considerable distance can separate these envelopes. to the evaporator. The condenser pressure goes down
Vaneless diffuser stall is not an immediate forerunnerwhen the refrigerant flows back to the evaporator, and
of surge in the way that impeller stall is. the evaporator pressure goes up. This lowers the head
against which the compressor is operating, and allows
There is no vaneless diffuser stall when the PRVs are the compressor to begin pumping refrigerant in the right
wide open. The impeller stall and surge point are at direction again. When the compressor starts pumping
the same point with open vanes. again, the condenser pressure goes up and the evapo-
rator pressure goes down. If the +P is still above the
limit for the compressor, the unit will surge again.

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The flow reversal during a surge unloads the com- with the compressor operating at high load without
pressor motor. This drops the motor ammeter reading stall, the other with the compressor operating at low
almost to zero. When the compressor starts pumping load with rotating stall in its diffuser.
again, the ammeter swings up again, almost to its full-
load reading. The evaporator and condenser pressure In both cases, the impeller blade frequency appears
gages also swing up and down as the flow swings back as a mild peak in the 2000 Hz octave band. An impel-
and forth through the compressor. ler with 17 blades rotating at 7100 rpm would pro-
duce discharge pressure fluctuations (noise) at a fre-
In all forms of rotating stall, only a small amount of the quency of 2012 Hz, almost in the middle of the 2000
total flow recirculates inside the impeller or diffuser. Hz band.
Most of the flow is pumped continuously from the
evaporator to the condenser. The evaporator and con- At low load, a larger peak occurs in the 125 Hz oc-
denser pressure gages are steady during rotating stall. tave band. This is rotating stall noise. The stall noise
The motor load is also steady. A centrifugal compres- frequency is about the same as the impeller running
sor can operate indefinitely under these conditions. speed (7100 rpm = 118 Hz).
Operation in surge, on the other hand, even for a short
time, can damage the compressor. Operating Conditions

Noise and Vibration The noise and vibration associated with rotating stall
in a vaneless diffuser can be minimized, if not com-
In surging, flow reversals occur every one or two sec- pletely avoided, by keeping the entering condenser-
onds. Small systems surge at higher frequencies and water temperature low when the load is low. Of course
large systems at lower frequencies. The sound of surg- this also keeps the compressor power consumption
ing is distinctly different from the sound of rotating stall.
low, and keeps the compressor from surging.
A surging unit emits a loud “groan” every few sec-
onds. Surging makes a unit sway rather than vibrate. In Figure 3, two different operating lines are shown
Long water pipes attached to a surging unit may swing on the compressor performance map of Figure 1. The
back and forth every few seconds. upper line is one of constant entering condenser water
temperature (ECWT) at all loads. The lower line is a
Stall cells rotate around impellers and diffusers at less typical part-load line with the same ECWT design
than the impeller’s rotational speed. But when mul- point.
tiple stall cells rotate in a vaneless diffuser, their com-
bined frequency is close to the impeller rotational fre- When the cooling load is reduced below the full-load
quency. Three cells, equally spaced around a vaneless (100%) point, the constant ECWT line reaches the
diffuser, each rotating at one-third of the impeller run- stall envelope at 71% load. With further load reduc-
ning speed, will produce compressor discharge pres- tion, the compressor operates with rotating stall in its
sure fluctuations at the frequency of the impeller rota- diffuser until the load reaches 24%, at which point the
tion. compressor surges.

The discharge pressure fluctuations that are caused With lower condenser-water temperatures, the re-
by rotating stall in vaneless diffusers are too small to duced ECWT line avoids the stall zone until the load
be seen on the condenser pressure gage, but they can is reduced to 31%. This line never reaches a surge
be heard as a “roaring” noise, and felt as a condenser point.
shell vibration.
Figure 2 is an octave-band analysis of the sound emit- Keeping the full-load point some distance away from
ted by a typical constant-speed compressor with a the PRV 100% OPEN surge point also minimizes stall
vaneless diffuser. Two sound spectra are shown: one and surge. If the full-load point in Figure 3 was further

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to the right on the PRV 100% OPEN line, the con-
stant ECWT load line would almost completely avoid Left Side Selection
surge, and the reduced ECWT load line would al-
most completely avoid stall.
PRV
Conclusion 100%

Temperature Lift %
Recognizing and understanding the difference between
rotating stall and surge is the first step in the process
of making better chiller selections and helping guide Stall Zone
the user on how to best operate installed chillers. Reduced ECWT
0% Constant ECWT
When looking at chiller selections, operating points
are often referred to as being on the “left or right 0
Evaporator Cooling Load %
side” of the compressor map. This is illustrated in Figure 5
Figures 4 and 5. Being on the right side of the map gives a design point with the vanes in a full (or near
full) open position, further away from both the stall
Right Side Selection and surge zone. As noted above in the paper, moving
to the right gives a wider unloading range outside the
surge and stall zone. When one starts with a selection
towards the left side of the map, this range is reduced,
PRV
100%
and the machine may spend more operating hours in
Temperature Lift %

the stall region.

Operating chillers with lower ECWT(at full and part

Stall Zone load) saves energy and minimizes cooling tower fan
Reduced ECWT cycling, reducing system maintenance. This is also the
0%
Constant ECWT best way to keep machines away from operation in
0
stall and surge conditions. Emphasizing this type of
Evaporator Cooling Load %
Figure 4 system operation provides a winning combination of
efficient and reliable chilled water plant operation.

Draft 1f-Joe Brillhart

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