Experimental Development of Compressor and Turbine Performance Maps for Turbomachinery

Turbomachinery performance maps are used to reveal the on and off design performance of compressors and turbines. These maps plot the component’s pressure ratio versus the corrected flow rate for multiple engine rotor speeds. In this experiment, a Boeing T50-BO-8A converted turbojet engine was operated at a wide variety of rotor speeds with orifice plates of different sizes to vary the flow rate. The corrected flow rate through the turbojet ranged from 1.32 to 2.55 lb/s. The pressure ratios for the compressor and turbine ranged from 2.0 to 4.3 and from 1.7 to 4.3, respectively. The resulting performance maps showed the correct overall trend of increasing flow rate and pressure ratio with higher rotor speeds. However, the individual speed lines were very inconsistent and lacked discernible trends. It was concluded that bench testing the compressor and turbine components is the ideal way to develop the performance maps