compressors

Definition
 Compressors are the prime movers of gas and air in process
industries.
 Compressors are used to increase the static, or inlet, pressure
of the gas and deliver it at the specified discharge pressure
and flow rate in a process application. Part of the increase in
static pressure is required to overcome frictional resistance in
the process.

 How it is different from pumps?

 Major difference is that compressors handles the gases and pumps
handles the liquids.
 As gases are compressible, the compressor also reduces the volume of
gas.
 Liquids are relatively incompressible
 Types of Compressors
 Compressors are available in a variety of types, models and sizes, each of
which fulfills a given need. The selection should represent the best available
configuration to meet specified requirements.
 Types of Compressors

 Positive displacement compressors causes movement by

trapping a fixed amount of air then forcing (displacing) that
trapped volume into the discharge pipe.

 The dynamic compressor is continuous flow compressor is

characterized by rotating impeller to add velocity and thus
pressure to fluid.

 It is widely used in chemical and petroleum refinery industry

for specific services.
Summary of Typical Operating Characteristics of Compressors (Metric)
Maximu Adiabati Operati Maximu
Inlet m c ng m
Capacity Dischar Efficien Speed Power Applicatio
(acmh, ge cy (%) (rpm) (MW) n
m3/h) Pressur
e (bar)
Dynamic
Compressors
Centrifugal 170 - 690 70 – 87 1,800 - 38 Process gas & air
850,000 50,000
Integrally Geared 500 - 350 80 7,000 - 60 Process gas & air
50,000
Centrifugal 500,000
Compressors
Axial 50,000 - 17 87 - 90+ 1,500 - 75 Mainly air
850,000 10,000
Positive
Displacement
Compressors
Reciprocating 20 - 34,000 4,150 80 - 90 200 - 15 Air & process gas
(Piston) 900
Diaphragm 0 – 250 1,400 60 - 70 300 - 1.5 Corrosive & hazardous
500 process gas
Rotary Screw (Wet) 100 - 24 65 - 70 1,500 - 1.5 Air, refrigeration & process
12,000 3,600 gas
Rotary Screw (Dry) 200 – 1 – 50 55 – 70 1,000 – 6 Air & dirty process gas
100,000 20,000
Rotary Lobe 25 - 50,000 0.3 - 1.7 55 - 65 300 - 4,000 0.4 Pneumatic conveying,
process gas & vacuum
Sliding Vane 15 - 5,000 10 40 - 70 400 - 1,800 0.35 Vacuum service & process
gas
Liquid Ring 10 - 17,000 5.5 – 25 - 50 200 - 3,600 0.3 Vacuum service & corrosive
10.5 process gas
Taken from
PIP REEC001
Compressor Selection Guidelines
Typical Operating Envelopes of Compressors (Metric)

Taken from
PIP REEC001
Compressor Selection Guidelines
Typical Operating Envelope of Centrifugal and Axial
Compressors (Metric)

Taken from
PIP REEC001
Compressor Selection Guidelines
centrifugal compressor
 Introduction

 A centrifugal compressor is a radial flow rotodynamic fluid

machine that uses mostly air as the working fluid and utilizes
the mechanical energy imparted to the machine from outside
to increase the total internal energy of the fluid mainly in the
form of increased static pressure head.

 Achieves compression by applying inertial forces to the gas

by means of rotating impellers.
 Application areas
 In gas turbines and auxiliary power units.

 In automotive engine and diesel

engine turbochargers and superchargers.

 In pipeline compressors of natural gas to move the gas from

the production site to the consumer.

 In oil refineries, natural gas

processing, petrochemical and chemical plants.

 Air-conditioning and refrigeration and HVAC: Centrifugal

compressors quite often supply the compression in water
chillers cycles.
 Components of centrifugal compressor

A centrifugal compressor
essentially consists of three
components.
 A stationary casing
 A rotating impeller -which
imparts a high velocity to
the air.
 A diffuser consisting of a
number of fixed diverging
passages in which the air is
decelerated with a
consequent rise in static
pressure.
 Components of centrifugal compressor

Single entry and single outlet centrifugal compressor

 Principle of operation:

 Air is sucked into the impeller eye and whirled outwards at

high speed by the impeller disk (Fluid flow enters the impeller
axially and discharged radially)
 At any point in the flow of air through the impeller the
centripetal acceleration is obtained by a pressure head so that
the static pressure of the air increases from the eye to the tip
of the impeller.
 The gas next flows through a circular chamber (diffuser),
where it loses velocity and increases pressure.
 The remainder of the static pressure rise is obtained in the
diffuser, where the very high velocity of air leaving the
impeller tip is reduced to almost the velocity with which the
air enters the impeller eye.
 Principle of operation:
 Impeller diameter and width, rotational speed and the angle
of the vanes that make up the impeller are important
parameters in the design of centrifugal compressors.
 It maybe single stage or multiple stage;
 each stage consists of an impeller as the rotating element and
the stationary element, i.e. diffuser
Why multistage compressor?
 The limit on high temperature rise leads into limitation for
the maximum achievable pressure rise.
 A multistage centrifugal compressor compresses air to the
required pressure in multiple stages.
 Intercoolers are used in between each stage to removes heat
and decrease the temperature of gas so that gas could be
compressed to higher pressure without much rise in
temperature
 Principle of operation:

 The following points are worth mentioning for a centrifugal

compressors.
 The pressure rise per stage is high and the volume flow rate
tends to be low. The pressure rise per stage is
generally limited to 4:1 for smooth operations.
 Blade geometry is relatively simple and small foreign
material does not affect much on operational
characteristics.
 Centrifugal impellers have lower efficiency compared to
axial impellers and when used in aircraft engine it
increases frontal area and thus drag. Multistaging is also
difficult to achieve in case of centrifugal machines.
 Diffuser flow
 The basic purpose of a compressor is to deliver air at high
pressure required for burning fuel in a combustion chamber
so that the burnt products of combustion at high pressure and
temperature are used in turbines or propelling nozzles (in
case of an aircraft engine) to develop mechanical power.
 The problem of designing an efficient combustion chamber is
eased if velocity of the air entering the combustion chamber
is as low as possible.
 It is necessary, therefore to design the diffuser so that only a
small part of the stagnation temperature at the compressor
outlet corresponds to kinetic energy.
 It is much more difficult to arrange for an efficient
deceleration of flow than it is to obtain efficient acceleration.
 Diffuser flow
 There is a natural tendency in a diffusing process for the air to
break away from the walls of the diverging passage and reverse
its direction.
 This is typically due to the phenomenon of boundary layer
separation
 Experiments have shown that the maximum permissible
included angle of divergence is 11° to avoid considerable losses
due to flow separation.
 Energy Analysis of centrifugal Flow Compressor

Change in Enthalpy of fluid in moving blades

Energy equation Momentum equation



P  m h h


 mc T  T    ωVw2r2  Vw1r1 
P  Tω  m
02 01 p 02 01

 2 
 Vw2U2  Vw1U1 
Pm
 V 2  V
 m c p  T2  2  T1  1  
 2c  2c  
 p  p  
   V22 V 2 
 m c p  T2  T1    1 
  2c 2c  
  p p  
   V22 V12  
 m h2  h1     
  2 2 
Work done (impeller flow)
 Work done (impeller flow)
Slip effect
The energy transfer per unit mass in case of slip becomes

where n is the number of vanes.

Power Input Factor

The power input factor takes into account of the effect of disk friction, windage, etc. for
which a little more power has to be supplied than required by the theoretical
expression.
Considering all these losses, the actual work done (or energy input) on
the air per unit mass becomes

where  is the power input factor.

From steady flow energy equation and in

consideration of air as an ideal gas
 Work done (impeller flow)


𝑐 𝑼𝟐 2 −1
𝑷𝟎𝟑
= 1+
𝑷𝟎𝟏 𝐶𝑝 𝑇01

Ideal and actual processes of compression on T-S plane

 Losses in a Centrifugal Compressor
 Frictional losses
 Incidence losses
 Clearance and leakage losses
 Compressor characteristics(performance )

 The theoretical and actual head discharge relationships of a

centrifugal compressor are same as those of a centrifugal pump

D, 𝑃01 and 𝑇01 are repeating

Variables

Non dimensional
groups (π terms)
 Compressor characteristics(performance curve)
 When we are concerned with the performance of a machine of fixed size
compressing a specified gas, and D may be omitted from the groups and
we can write

Variations of pressure ratio over the

The theoretical characteristic curve complete range of mass flow for d/t rpm
 Compressor characteristics(performance curve)
 The performance of centrifugal compressors is typically
represented by pressure ratio versus mass flow rate curves,
efficiency versus mass flow rate and shaft power versus mass
flow rate curves.

 The end points of the curves represent two important limits

of centrifugal compressors: surge and stonewall or choke
point, defined as follows:
 Surge is characterized by cyclic variation (and even reversal) of gas
flow and discharge pressure, and it occurs if the flow is reduced below
the surge point. It is typically accompanied by abnormal noise and
vibration and it can lead to significant damage if the compressor’s
operating condition is not changed quickly to increase the flow.

 A stonewall or choke point condition is encountered if the gas flow

reaches sonic conditions somewhere in the compressor passages. In
this condition, flow through the compressor cannot be increased
further.
Axial Flow Compressors
 Introduction

 Working fluid principally flows parallel to the axis of rotation.

 The energy level of air or gas flowing through it is increased

by the action of the rotor blades which exert a torque on the
fluid

 Have the benefits of high efficiency and large mass flow rate

 Require several rows of airfoils to achieve large pressure rises

making them complex and expensive
 Applications
Axial Compressors are suitable for applications requiring high flow rates and
moderate pressure ratios
 Aerospace
– Jet engines and rockets.
 Power Generation
– Gas turbines in power plants for electricity generation.
 Oil and Gas Industry
– Gas reinjection and transmission.
– LNG production and pipeline operations.
 Industrial Processes
– Chemical plants (air separation, process gas compression).
– Refineries for hydrocarbon processing.
 Marine
– Gas turbines for naval and commercial ship propulsion.
 Research and Testing Facilities
– Wind tunnels and high-speed aerodynamics testing.
 HVAC Systems
– Used in large-scale heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems.
 Components
 The basic components of an axial flow compressor are a rotor
and stator
 Axial flow compressors usually consists of a series of stages.
 Each stage comprises of a row of rotor blades followed by a
row of stator blades.
 Some compressors also
have inlet Guide Vanes (IGV)
that permit the flow
entering the first stage to
vary under off-design
conditions.
 Basic operation of axial compressors

 The working fluid is initially accelerated by the rotor blades

and then decelerated in the stator passages.
 In the stator, the kinetic energy transferred in the rotor is
converted to static pressure. The stator also redirect the flow
into an angle suitable for entry to the next row of moving
blades.
 This process is repeated in several stages to yield the
necessary overall pressure ratio.
 The compression process consists of a series of diffusions.
 This occurs both in the rotor as well as the stator.
 Basic operation of axial compressors

 Due to motion of the rotor blades two distinct velocity

components: absolute and relative velocities in the rotor.
 The absolute velocity of the fluid is increased in the rotor,
whereas the relative velocity is decreased, leading to
diffusion.

 Per stage pressure ratio is limited because a compressor

operates in an adverse pressure gradient environment.
 Careful design of the compressor blading is essential to
minimize losses as well as to ensure stable operation.
 Velocity triangles
 Elementary analysis of axial compressors begins with velocity
triangles.
 The analysis will be carried out at the mean height of the
blade, where the peripheral velocity or the blade speed is, U.
 The absolute component of velocity will be denoted by, V and
the relative component by, Vr.
 The axial velocity (absolute) will be denoted by Vf and the
tangential components will be denoted by subscript w, i.e Vw.
 α denotes the angle between the absolute velocity with the
axial direction and β the corresponding angle for the relative
velocity.
Velocity triangles
Property changes across a stage
Thermodynamics of An Axial flow Compressor Stage
 Stage flow (work done)
Assuming, Vf  Vf 1  Vf 2 U
 tan 1  tan 1  tan  2  tan 
from the velocity triangles, we can Vf
see that
By considering the change in angular w  UVw2  Vw1 
momentum of the air passing through the
rotor, work done per unit mass flow is w  U Vf 2 tanα2  Vf 1tanα1 

w  UVf tanα2  tanα1   UVf tanβ1  tanβ 2 

The input energy will reveal itself in the form

of rise in stagnation temperature of the air. 
w  h02  h01   m c p T02  T01 
The work done as given above will also be
equal to the change in stagnation enthalpy
across the stage.
w  c p T02  T01   UVf tanβ1  tanβ2 
 Stage flow (work done)

w  c p T03  T01   c p T02  T01   c p ΔT0 UVf tanβ1  tanβ 2 

ΔT0 
cp

 c ΔT0
 γ 
 
T03s  T01 p03,act  ηstage ΔT0   γ 1 

c  T  T  T  1 T
T03s  1 
03 01 01 01
p01  T01 

 γ 
p03,act  ηstageUVf tanβ1  tanβ 2  
 
 γ 1 
 1 
p01  c T 
 p 01 
From the above equation that relates the per stage temperature rise to the pressure
ratio, it can be seen that to obtain a high temperature ratio for a given overall pressure
ratio (for minimizing number of
stages),
– High blade speed: limited by blades stresses
– High axial velocity, high fluid deflection (β1-β2): Aerodynamic considerations and
adverse pressure gradients limit the above.
 Radial equilibrium (Free vortex design)

 For a realistic design of an axial compressor blade, it is

necessary to take into account radial variations in
– Blade speed, U
– Axial velocity, Vf
– Tangential velocity, Vw
– Static pressure
 Maintain a reasonably uniform flow at the exit of the
compressor i.e uniform radial work input
 Since Δh0=UΔVw=ωrΔVw
 This means that for a given rotational speed, rΔVw must be a
constant.
 One such configuration that satisfies the above is the Free
Vortex Design.
 In this approach, the product rΔVw is held a constant across
the exit of each blade row.
 Degree of reaction

 Degree of reaction provides a measure of the extent to which

the rotor contributes to the overall pressure rise in the stage.
Vr12  Vr22 h h
Degree of Reaction of a Stage, Rx Rx  Vr12  Vr22  V22  V12  2 1

h h
02 01

U
 tanα1  tanβ1  tanα2  tanβ2 Vf tanα1  tanβ1  tanα2 
Vf Vr2 
cosβ2
Vf
Rx  2U
(tanβ1  tanβ2 )

Special cases of Rx
• Rx=0, , There is no pressure rise in the rotor, the entire pressure rise is due to the
stator, the rotor merely deflects the incoming flow: impulse blading
• Rx=0.5, gives , the velocity triangles are symmetric, equal pressure rise in the rotor
and the stator
• Rx=1.0, , entire pressure rise takes place in the rotor while the stator has no
contribution.
 Performance characteristics
 An axial compressor performance characteristics can be
derived in the same way as the centrifugal compressor.
 Performance is evaluated based on the dependence of
pressure ratio and efficiency on the mass flow at different
operating speeds.
 Axial compressors also suffer from instability problems like
surge and rotating stall.
 Performance characteristics curve is similar to that of
Centrifugal compressor