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The effect of aerodynamically induced pre-swirl on the acoustic and performance characteristics of an automotive centrifugal compressor is studied experimentally on a steady-flow turbocharger facility. Accompanying flow separation, broadband noise is generated as the flow rate of the compressor is reduced and the incidence angle of the flow relative to the leading edge of the inducer blades increases. By incorporating an air jet upstream of the inducer, a tangential (swirl) component of velocity is added to the incoming flow, which improves the incidence angle particularly at low to mid-flow rates. Experimental data for a configuration with a swirl jet is then compared to a baseline with no swirl. The induced jet is shown to improve the surge line over the baseline configuration at all rotational speeds examined, while restricting the maximum flow rate. At high flow rates, the swirl jet increases the compressor inlet noise levels over a wide frequency range.

Low levels of Engine Idle Shake are required to produce a vehicle that delivers to the customer the overall perception of quality. Some previous metrics used to measure idle shake, e.g. SDIMEP, LNV, etc. have not always been good discriminators of engines that produced low levels of idle shake and those that did not. This paper will propose a new metric, Combustion Uniformity, that does a better job of describing the phenomena that creates idle shake. This new metric will then be used to describe how different distributions of cylinder-to-cylinder variation create different levels of Combustion Uniformity and how those levels of Combustion Uniformity compare to previous metrics.