scholarly journals Low-Flow-Coefficient Centrifugal Compressor Design for Supercritical CO2

2014 ◽  
Vol 136 (8) ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Lettieri ◽  
N. Baltadjiev ◽  
M. Casey ◽  
Z. Spakovszky

This paper presents a design strategy for very low flow coefficient multistage compressors operating with supercritical CO2 for carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) and enhanced oil recovery (EOR). At flow coefficients less than 0.01, the stage efficiency is much reduced due to dissipation in the gas-path and more prominent leakage and windage losses. Instead of using a vaneless diffuser as is standard design practice in such applications, the current design employs a vaned diffuser to decrease the meridional velocity and to widen the gas path. The aim is to achieve a step change in performance. The impeller exit width is increased in a systematic parameter study to explore the limitations of this design strategy and to define the upper limit in efficiency gain. The design strategy is applied to a full-scale reinjection compressor currently in service. Three-dimensional, steady, supercritical CO2 computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations of the full stage with leakage flows are carried out with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) real gas model. The design study suggests that a nondimensional impeller exit width parameter b2* = (b2/R)ϕ of six yields a 3.5 point increase in adiabatic efficiency relative to that of a conventional compressor design with vaneless diffuser. Furthermore, it is shown that in such stages the vaned diffuser limits the overall stability and that the onset of rotating stall is likely caused by vortex shedding near the diffuser leading edge. The inverse of the nondimensional impeller exit width parameter b2* can be interpreted as the Rossby number. The investigation shows that, for very low flow coefficient designs, the Coriolis accelerations dominate the relative flow accelerations, which leads to inverted swirl angle distributions at impeller exit. Combined with the two-orders-of-magnitude higher Reynolds number for supercritical CO2, the leading edge vortex shedding occurs at lower flow coefficients than in air suggesting an improved stall margin.

Author(s):  
C. Lettieri ◽  
N. Baltadjiev ◽  
M. Casey ◽  
Z. Spakovszky

This paper presents a design strategy for very low flow coefficient multi-stage compressors operating with supercritical CO2 for Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS) and Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR). At flow coefficients less than 0.01 the stage efficiency is much reduced due to dissipation in the gas-path and more prominent leakage and windage losses. Instead of using a vaneless diffuser as is standard design practice in such applications, the current design employs a vaned diffuser to decrease the meridional velocity and to widen the gas path. The aim is to achieve a step change in performance. The impeller exit width is increased in a systematic parameter study to explore the limitations of this design strategy and to define the upper limit in efficiency gain. The design strategy is applied to a full-scale re-injection compressor currently in service. Three-dimensional, steady, supercritical CO2 CFD simulations of the full stage with leakage flows are carried out with the NIST real gas model. The design study suggests that a non-dimensional impeller exit width parameter b2* = (b2/R)ϕ of 6 yields a 3.5 point increase in adiabatic efficiency relative to that of a conventional compressor design with vaneless diffuser. Furthermore, it is shown that in such stages the vaned diffuser limits the overall stability and that the onset of rotating stall is likely caused by vortex shedding near the diffuser leading edge. The inverse of the non-dimensional impeller exit width parameter b2* can be interpreted as the Rossby number. The investigation shows that, for very low flow coefficient designs, the Coriolis accelerations dominate the relative flow accelerations, which leads to inverted swirl angle distributions at impeller exit. Combined with the two-orders-of-magnitude higher Reynolds number for supercritical CO2, the leading edge vortex shedding occurs at lower flow coefficients than in air suggesting an improved stall margin.


1995 ◽  
Vol 117 (4) ◽  
pp. 585-592 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Paroubek ◽  
V. Cyrus ◽  
J. Kyncˇl

Some results of a research and development program for centrifugal compressors are presented. Six-stage configurations with low flow coefficient were tested. The stages had channel width parameter b2/D2 = 0.01 and 0.03. For each value of the width parameter, three different impellers with inlet hub to outlet diameter ratio do/D2 = 0.3, 0.4, and 0.5 were designed. Test rig, instrumentation, and data analysis are described. Special attention was devoted to probe calibrations and to evaluation of the leakage, bearing, and disk friction losses. Aerodynamic performance of all tested stages is presented. Slip factors of impellers obtained experimentally and theoretically are compared. Losses in both vaneless diffuser and return channel with deswirl vanes are discussed. Rotating stall was also investigated. Criteria for stall limit were tested.


1994 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Paroubek ◽  
V. Cyrus ◽  
J. Kyncl

Some results of a research and development programme for centrifugal compressors are presented. Six stage configurations with low flow coefficient were tested. The stages had channel width parameter bo/D2=0.01 and 0.03. For each value of the width parameter three different impellers with inlet hub to outlet diameter ratio do/D2=0.3, 0.4 and 0.5 were designed. Test rig, instrumentation and data analysis are described. Special attention was devoted to probe calibrations and to evaluation of the leakage, bearing and disc friction losses. Aerodynamic performance of all tested stages is presented. Slip factors of impellers obtained experimentally and theoretically are compared. Losses in both vaneless diffuser and return channel with de-swirl vanes are discussed. Rotating stall was also investigated. Criteria for stall limit were tested.


Author(s):  
Jan Paroubek ◽  
Václav Cyrus ◽  
Jiři Kynčl

An aerodynamic investigation of the influence of outlet stator part (vaneless diffuser and return channel) surface roughness on aerodynamic performance of a very low flow coefficient centrifugal stage has been carried out. The stage with design inlet flow coefficient 0.007 was tested within the range of stage Mach number Mu2=0.5–1.1. Then the surface quality of outlet stator part was improved and the tests have been repeated. Aerodynamic performance and losses in both vaneless diffuser and return channel with de-swirl vanes were investigated. The values of isentropic head coefficient increased while those of loss coefficient decreased nearly in the whole range of characteristics in the stage with improved surface quality. The detailed pressure recovery in vaneless diffuser in vicinity of design point measured and calculated by the performance prediction method is compared and discussed. The nonsteady flow phenomena were also investigated. The change of dynamic stability limit by improving of surface quality was observed.


Author(s):  
Fabian Dietmann ◽  
Michael Casey ◽  
Damian M. Vogt

Abstract Further validation of an analytic method to calculate the influence of changes in Reynolds number, machine size and roughness on the performance of axial and radial turbocompressors is presented. The correlation uses a dissipation coefficient as a basis for scaling the losses with changes in relative roughness and Reynolds number. The original correlation from Dietmann and Casey [6] is based on experimental data and theoretical models. Evaluations of five numerically calculated compressor stages at different flow coefficients are presented to support the trends of the correlation. It is shown that the sensitivity of the compressor performance to Reynolds and roughness effects is highest for low flow coefficient radial stages and steadily decreases as the design flow coefficient of the stage and the hydraulic diameter of the flow channels increases.


Author(s):  
S. Anish ◽  
N. Sitaram

A computational study has been conducted to analyze the performance of a centrifugal compressor under various levels of impeller-diffuser interactions. The study has been conducted using a low solidity vaned diffuser (LSVD), a conventional vaned diffuser (VD) and a vaneless diffuser (VLD). The study is carried out using Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes simulations. A commercial software ANSYS CFX is used for this purpose. The intensity of interaction is varied by keeping the diffuser vane leading edge at three different radial locations. Frozen rotor and transient simulations are carried out at four different flow coefficients. At design flow coefficient maximum efficiency occurs when the leading edge is at R3 (ratio of radius of the diffuser leading edge to the impeller tip radius) = 1.10. At lower flow coefficient higher stage efficiency occurs when the diffuser vanes are kept at R3 = 1.15 and at higher flow coefficient R3 = 1.05 gives better efficiency. It is observed that at lower flow coefficients positive incidence causes separation of flow at the suction side of the diffuser vane. When the flow rate is above design point there is a negative incidence at the leading edge of the diffuser vane which causes separation of flow from the pressure side of the diffuser vane. Compressor stage performance as well as performance of individual components is calculated at different time steps. Large variations in the stage performances at off-design flow coefficients are observed. The static pressure recovery coefficient (Cp) value is found to be varying with the relative position of impeller and diffuser. It is observed that maximum Cp value occurred at time step where Ψloss value is lowest. From the transient simulations it has been found that the strength and location of impeller exit wake affect the diffuser vane loading which in turn influences the diffuser static pressure recovery.


Author(s):  
Y. N. Chen ◽  
U. Seidel ◽  
U. Haupt ◽  
M. Rautenberg

It was shown in a previous paper of the authors (1991) that jet and wake in the flow of the impeller of the centrifugal compressor are developed from the Dean’s type vortex pair formed in the curvature of the blade channel. The jet rotating against the sense of the impeller is weakened, and the wake rotating in the sense of the impeller is enhanced during travelling with the flow toward the outlet. This property is attributed to the conservation of the potential vorticity of the vortex. The experimental result obtained by Krain (1984) has confirmed this theory. The secondary flows found by Farge and Johnson (1990) enable the determination of the vorticity of the wake at the outlet of the impeller. It amounts to 6.9 Ω and 5.8 Ω for the radial-blading and the 60°-backswept blading impeller, respectively. The intensity of the vortex jet is weakened to undetectable value for both the impellers. The patterns of these secondary flow fields are also quite different between these two kinds of impellers. Whilst that of the former is controlled by the intrinsic motion, that of the latter is governed by the relative velocity along the blades. Furthermore, the experimental result obtained by the injection of colored dye at the impeller outlet and the measured velocity field around the impeller reveal an intense reverse flow in the radial blading impeller, travelling from the outlet toward the inlet, along the shroud. It can be shown that this reverse flow is caused by the intrinsic motion occuring in this impeller and impinging on the leading edge of the diffuser vane. As the rotating stall is introduced by the reverse flow, the low-solidity vaned diffuser, and still better the vaneless diffuser can therefore shift the stall line to a very low flow rate.


2019 ◽  
Vol 140 ◽  
pp. 06010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aleksey Yablokov ◽  
Ivan Yanin ◽  
Nikolay Sadovskyi ◽  
Yuri Kozhukhov ◽  
Minh Hai Nguyen

The study presents the simulation results of the viscid gas flow in low flow coefficient centrifugal compressor stages. The problem is solved in a stationary formulation using the Ansys CFX software package. The numerical simulation is carried out on three ultrahigh-pressure model stages; two stages have blades of the classical type impeller and one stage is of the bodily type. The value of the conditional flow coefficient is 0.0063 to 0.015. As part of the study, block-structured design meshes are used for all gas channel elements, with their total number being equaled as 13–15 million. During the calculations a numerical characteristic was validated with the results of tests carried out at the Department of Compressor, Vacuum and Refrigeration Engineering of Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University. With an increase of inlet pressure as a result of a numerical study, it was found that for a given mathematical model the disk friction and leakage coefficient (1 + βfr + βlk) is overestimated. The analysis of flow in labyrinth seals has shown an increase of total temperature near the discs by 30–50 °С, nevertheless this fact did not influence gas parameters in the behind-the-rotor section. The calculation data obtained with finer design mesh (the first near-wall cell was 0.001 mm) is identical to those obtained with the first near-wall cell 0.01 mm mesh.


Author(s):  
James M. Sorokes ◽  
Jason A. Kopko

The paper addresses the use of a rib style (partial height) vaned diffuser to improve the flowfield downstream of a high flow coefficient centrifugal impeller. Empirical and analytical (3-D CFD) results are presented for both the original vaneless diffuser and the replacement rib configuration. Comparisons are made between the CFD results and the data obtained through single stage rig (SSTR) testing. Comments are offered regarding the qualitative and quantitative agreement between the empirical and analytical results.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document