KT Thesis July2009 Final Print

Contents
Introduction 1.1 1.2 1.3
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Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Objectives and scope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Thesis outline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 19
Literature review 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Compressor characteristic curve . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Compressor instability - surge and stall characteristic . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Surge control techniques . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 2.4.1 2.4.2 2.4.3 Surge avoidance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Surge suppression . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Active surge control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
2.5 2.6 3
Compressor surge test rig overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 Summary of literature review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 38
Engineering analysis and experimental setup 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 Test Rig Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 Motor bearings improvement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 Piping system design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 1
CONTENTS 3.4.1 3.5
2 Piping supports modal analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Compressor rotor modication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 3.5.1 3.5.2 Rotordynamics analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 Unbalance force analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
3.6 3.7 3.8 4
Chiller for high speed motor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 Precision Alignment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 Assembled compressor test rig . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 76
Testing and experimental results 4.1 4.2
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76 Commissioning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 4.2.1 4.2.2 Motor solo run . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 Maximum speed testing and mechanical assessment of compressor . 77
4.3
Characteristic curve and instability identication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 4.3.1 4.3.2 4.3.3 4.3.4 Characteristic curve . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 Uncertainty analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 Analysis of surge observations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86 Discussions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
4.4 5
Effect of impeller tip clearance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95 100
Conclusions 5.1 5.2 5.3
Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 Implications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 Recommendations for future work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104 5.3.1 5.3.2 5.3.3 5.3.4 Develop surge controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104 Speed tachometer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105 Accelerometers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105 Acoustic measurement for surge detection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
CONTENTS 5.3.5 5.3.6 5.3.7 5.3.8 5.3.9
3 Additional pressure tappings in scroll . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106 Vaned diffusers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106 Bearing force measurement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 New variable speed drive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 Hole pattern seals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
5.3.10 Spare parts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108 A Precision alignment procedure 115
A.1 Prealignment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115 A.2 Alignment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115 B Procedure to check impeller tip clearance C Chiller - Model HCV 1500 PR D Inlet Air Filter Details E Orice Flow Meter Details 121 123 124 126
E.1 Flow meter selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126 F Procedure for testing surge on compressor 131
List of Figures
1.1 Examples of barrel and horizontal split multistage centrifugal compressor (Siemens) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 1.2 1.3 2.1 Examples of overhung and integrally geared compressors (Siemens) . . . . 13 Compressor characteristic curve . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 (A) Velocity vector triangle at high ow; (B) Velocity vector triangle at low ow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 Illustration of gas particle path across diffuser [1] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Photos to illustrate damage on impeller from compressor surge [1] . . . . . 26 Illustration of inlet guide vanes to suppress surge [24] . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Illustration of air injection technique for compressor stabilization [23] . . . 32 Illustration of experimental setup for Spakovszky test rig [29] . . . . . . . . 33 Simulated surge occurrence without any surge controller [3] . . . . . . . . 36 Simulated surge control result with impeller tip clearance actuation [3] . . . 36 Compressor test rig cross sectional drawing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 Exploded view of compressor test rig . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 Comparison between SKF 7005 CD bearing versus SKF hybrid bearing . . 46 Piping layout to show the three discharge throttle valve positions . . . . . . 50 Frequencies of several types of aerodynamics ow instabilities by Willems [40] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
LIST OF FIGURES 3.6 3.7 3.8 3.9
Schematic of the equivalent model to represent compressor system . . . . . 53 Flow area to be considered when calculating the Helmholtz frequency . . . 53 Inlet piping support and discharge piping supports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 Modal analysis results for inlet pipe support - 1st and 2nd modes . . . . . . 57
3.10 Modal analysis results for discharge piping support - 1st and 2nd modes . . 58 3.11 Locations of 4 lead pieces on the impeller face . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 3.12 Location of spacer ring behind the impeller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 3.13 Courtesy of Kobe Steel - Finite Element model showing deection of impeller 64 3.14 Rotstab rotor model with spacer ring added behind impeller . . . . . . . . . 65 3.15 Free-free mode shape of rotor with space ring included . . . . . . . . . . . 66 3.16 Schematic to illustrate force analysis on spacer ring of compressor . . . . . 68 3.17 Show an offset spacer ring could contribute to unbalance force . . . . . . . 69 3.18 Frictional force analysis - analogous analysis to clamped spacer ring . . . . 69 3.19 Air cool chiller skid for the high speed motor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 3.20 Inlet lter and exhaust for compressor test rig . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 3.21 Assembled compressor test rig for surge testing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 3.22 Assembled compressor test rig for surge testing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 4.1 4.2 4.3 Motor amperage versus compressor speed curve . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78 Overload protection card in variable frequency drive - damaged red diode . 79 Orbital plots for impeller end and motor end of compressor rotor at 10000rpm at full ow(Throttle valve is 100% open) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 4.4 Orbital plots for impeller end and motor end of compressor rotor at 10000rpm at minimum ow (Throttle valve is 31% open) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 4.5 Orbital plots for impeller end and motor end of Compressor Rotor at 17000rpm at full ow(Throttle valve is 100% open) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82 4.6 Orbital plots for impeller end and motor end of compressor rotor at 17000rpm at minimum ow (Throttle valve is 31% open) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
LIST OF FIGURES 4.7 Characteristic curve at different operating speed (Impeller tip clearance at
23 mils) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 4.8 4.9 Plot at 16292 rpm to characteristic curve with error bar . . . . . . . . . . . 86 Pressure prole uctuations at compressor discharge plenum, compressor casing and compressor inlet at 16000 rpm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 4.10 Magnied pressure prole plots at discharge plenum, casing and inlet at the initiations of instability at 16000 rpm - showing 21 pressure peaks . . . 89 4.11 Magnied pressure prole plots at discharge plenum, casing, inlet at instability at 16000 rpm - showing 7 pressure peaks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90 4.12 Waterfall plot to show dominant frequency change as throttle valve is closed - 10000 rpm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 4.13 Waterfall plot to show dominant frequency change as throttle valve is closed - 15000 rpm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93 4.14 Waterfall plot to show dominant frequency change as throttle valve is closed - 16000 rpm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93 4.15 Sanadgols simulated result to show inuence on characteristic curve with impeller clearance adjustment [3] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97 4.16 Characteristic curve at 14900 rpm when thrust disk is statically moved in the axial direction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98 4.17 Characteristic curve at 16287 rpm when thrust disk is statically moved in the axial direction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99 A.1 Final soft foot readings on motor and amount of shims used . . . . . . . . . 119 A.2 Setup for face and rim alignment on between compressor and the motor . . 120 A.3 Alignment xtures for ne adjustment of the motor . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120 E.1 Illustration of a typical setup for an orice ow meter [35] . . . . . . . . . 127
LIST OF FIGURES E.2 An illustration of the orice ow meter by Lamdasquare with ow straight-
eners upstream . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
List of Tables
3.1 ndm - Speed limit calculation for compressor test rig at possible running speeds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 3.2 3.3 Material construction for ball bearings [47] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 Deep groove versus angular ball bearings design properties for 25 mm inner diameter bearings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 3.4 3.5 3.6 Descriptions for hybrid bearing 6005-2RSLTN9/HCFC3WT . . . . . . . . 48 Helmholtz frequency estimated comparison table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 Comparison of pipe supports predicted frequencies versus Helmholtz frequencies at each valve location . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 4.1 4.2 Results of motor solo run up to maximum speed of 10000 rpm . . . . . . . 77 Comparison of amount of axial position uctuations at 16000 rpm . . . . . 91
A.1 Table of key items required to perform alignment between motor and compressor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116 A.2 Final alignment readings between motor and compressor . . . . . . . . . . 119
Nomenclature
H L H Ac A a bf bf BL C c Flow angle at high ow Flow angle at low ow Flow Angle Coefcient of friction Helmholtz resonator frequency [Rad/s] Shaft rotational speed [rad/s] Diameter of coupling hub [inch] Flow area at the eye of the impeller [m2] Axial distance between motor front and back leg Speed of Sound [m/s] Bottom face alignment reading [mils] Bottom rim alignment reading [mils] Motor back leg alignment adjustment [mils] Damping Matrix [lbs/inch] Speed of sound in air under ideal conditions 9
LIST OF TABLES dm d eu FL Fu F G i K k Lc Mm mu M n pd pu Q T U2 Mean nominal diameter of bearing nominal major diameter [m] Eccentricity [m] Motor front leg alignment adjustment [mils] Unbalance Force [N] Tightening Force on bolt [N] Global Gyroscopic Matrix Incidence angle Stiffness Matrix [lbm/inch] Coefcient of collar friction Equivalent pipe length [m] Mach Number Unbalance Mass [Kg] Global Mass Matrix [lbm] Speed [rpm] Pressure downstream of orice ow meter Pressure upstream of orice ow meter Volumetric ow rate Torque [Nm] Impeller blade tip velocity vector
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LIST OF TABLES V2 r V2t V2 Vd Vp vs Vu W2 x Absolute velocity radial component Absolute velocity tangential component Absolute velocity vector of gas particle Velocity downstream of Orice Plenum Volume [m3] Maximum discharge ow velocity [m/s] Velocity upstream of orice ow meter Impeller blade tip exit velocity vector Displacement vector
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Chapter 1 Introduction
1.1 Background
Centrifugal compressors are used extensively in many industries such as oil rening industries, chemical industries and the upstream oil and gas industries. They are particularly well suited for processes that require a very wide performance range as they can be designed with different mechanical congurations for the specic process needs [1].They are commonly used for pressurizing different types of gases and moving them in ow volume from different physical locations or from different containments. These compressors are dynamic machinery and work on the principle of using motion to transfer energy from the compressor rotor to the process gas. Compression of the gas is achieved by means of blades on a rotating impeller for a single stage machine, or a set of impeller blades for a multi stage machine. This rotary motion of the gas results in an outward velocity due to the centrifugal forces. The tangential component of this outward velocity is then transformed to pressure by means of a diffuser. Centrifugal compressors come in many different congurations. Figure 1.1 and Figure 1.2 show four typical types of centrifugal compressors commonly found in the industry today. Barrel design multi-stage compressors are used in high pressure services. Horizontally split multi-stage compressors are typically applied in
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CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION
13
Figure 1.1: Examples of barrel and horizontal split multistage centrifugal compressor (Siemens)
Figure 1.2: Examples of overhung and integrally geared compressors (Siemens) high volume medium pressure applications [1]. Its horizontally split design provides good accessibility and on site maintenance to the internal components of the compressor. Overhung centrifugal compressors are generally applied in low pressure high volume services. Their economical cost is an attraction for a wide variety of general purpose air compression applications. Integrally geared centrifugal compressors are commonly applied in industrial gas industry or instrument air services where its small foot print gives advantage to use a low speed coupling and short rigid rotor design to provide the advantage for such applications [2].
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The unique capability to apply centrifugal compressors in a broad range of services had rendered them as the work horse in many of such industries. Hence it is important to learn how to control these machines more effectively and in a pursuit to make them more efcient, improve or optimize their working envelop. The attractiveness of centrifugal compressors over other compressors such as screw compressors, reciprocating compressors or axial compressors is mainly because they have fewer rubbing parts, are relatively energy efcient, and give higher airow than a similarly sized reciprocating compressor (i.e, positive-displacement). The performance of a centrifugal compressor is identied by its characteristic curve, which relates three main parameters of the compressor - mainly the ow rate, the differential pressure head produced and the speed of the compressor. It is important to note that changing any one of these three parameters will affect the other two parameters, and hence the operating point on the compressor curve. The operating point of the machine is determined by the intersection between the system resistance curve superimposed onto the compressor characteristic curve. The point of intersection is the current operating point of a centrifugal compressor. The stable operating region on the compressor curve is bounded by the surge line and the choke line. The surge line basically separates the region of stable operation from the region of unstable operation. Figure 1.3 illustrates how a typical compressor characteristic curve would look like. Surge is a system phenomena in a centrifugal compressor and the surge point is dened as the peak head on the compressor characteristic curve at the particular operating speed. It is the point at which the compressor cannot add enough energy to overcome the system resistance [3]. This causes a rapid ow reversal. As a result, high vibration, temperature increases, and rapid changes in axial thrust can occur. These occurrences can damage the rotor seals, rotor bearings, the compressor driver and cycle operation. Most turbo machines are designed to withstand occasional surging. However, if the turbo machine is forced to surge repeatedly for a long period of time or if the turbo machine does not have an adequately designed surge control system, repeated surges could result in a catastrophic failure of the machine.
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Figure 1.3: Compressor characteristic curve To prevent surge from occurring in centrifugal compressors, it is widely practiced in the industry to limit the full operating envelop of a compressor by placing a safety margin line of typically 10% away from the surge point of the compressor [9]. This limit line basically completely prevents surge from happening, but at the expense at lower efciency of the centrifugal compressor and a smaller operating window. In todays world of centrifugal compressors, as demand for machine efciency and exibility keeps increasing, maintaining this practice of a 10% safety limit line may not be the best option. This is because such margin would limits the operating range of the centrifugal compressors and can prevent it from operating at maximum efciency, which may lie at or close to the safety margin line [22]. Researchers, users and manufacturers [6, 29, 25, 12, 23]are seeking more innovative ways to stabilize the compressor or limit surge without signicantly compromising compressor performance and efciency. Numerous research works [42, 16, 15, 12, 48]have been attempted over the years to nd an economically and practically feasible solution to better control surge. These approaches are mainly classied into [20, 22]surge avoidance, surge suppression and active surge control. Of the three approaches, active surge control offers the most promising approach to really stabilize the compressor and hence allow it to
CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION operate at a wider operating envelop.
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Sanadgol [3] developed a new method for active surge control for centrifugal compressors with unshrouded impellers that would use a magnetic thrust bearing to modulate the impeller tip clearance. Sanadgols simulation results showed that if the position of the compressor shaft could be actuated with sufcient authority and speed, the induced pressure modulation makes control of surge promising. The active control of the magnetic bearing would allow realistic real time static and dynamic positioning of the rotor with precision. This makes it possible to modulate the impeller tip clearance even when the centrifugal compressor was in operation. Sanadgols theory and results had to be validated with experimental data. A centrifugal compressor test rig that would be fully supported on radial and axial magnetic bearings had to be built [4]. The fully operational test rig would serve as the hardware required to perform experimental work and provide actual test data to validate Sanadgols theory. The compressor test rig, the magnetic bearings and the control philosophy had been developed over the years by Sanadgol, Nathan and Buskirk [3, 4, 5]. Various major components of the test rig had been sponsored by industrial partners of Rotating Machinery and Controls Laboratory. The work for this thesis focuses on the improvement of mechanical components, and assembling and commissioning the test rig. The test rig would also be tested into its instability region to demonstrate the effect of static axial modulation of impeller tip clearance.
1.2
Objectives and scope
The objectives and scope of study for this thesis is: Perform engineering analysis and improvement on the mechanical components of the test facility and its supporting systems to ensure that the test facility could be assembled, commissioned and tested safely and reliably into high speed for experimental work to be carried out.
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Experimentally determine the safe operating envelop and identify the potential limitations on the commissioned test facility. Characterize the performance of the compressor at various speed of operations and developed the compressor characteristic map base on experimental collected data. Experimentally evaluate the performance of the compressor and characterize the observations when it is operated into its instability region. Examine ways or parameters that had to be observed so as to aid in the future development and implementation of a surge controller. Experimentally demonstrate and investigate that the axial movement of the impeller tip clearance would inuence the performance of the compressor and its surge points.
1.3
Thesis outline
The thesis is divided into 5 main chapters, followed by the Appendix section. Chapter 1 provided an overview on the background of the present study and centrifugal compressor applications. It also outlined the reduction in compressor efciency and operating envelop due to the current industry practice that involves avoiding surge completely by maintaining a safety margin. Chapter 2 is a literature review and gives an insight into the mechanism that results in stall and surge instability. It further outlines the typical characteristics expected when these instabilities are encountered and also provides overview of surge related research work. An overview of previous work on the compressor surge test rig of the University of Virginia is summarized. Chapter 3 provides engineering details for all the mechanical enhancement and upgrades that had to be performed on the existing test rig as part of this study, such that it would ensure that the compressor test rig could be commissioned and tested safely. Component run test results and also maximum speed test results are provided. Chapter 4 focuses on the experimental test results and includes how surge is identied on the test rig and also the inuence of static impeller tip clearance adjustment
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on the instability points on a characteristic curve. Discussions of the experimental data was collected and compared. Chapter 5 contains conclusions for this thesis and is further broken into 3 parts; summary of conclusions, implications and recommendations. This chapter not only aims to provide the conclusion drawn from the experimental results, but it also provide recommendations that forms the fundamentals for future research work. The Appendix section presents all the test procedures developed so as to ensure smooth transition of mechanical knowledge to future researchers working on the test rig. Mechanical specications of the main accessory components in the test rig are also included for future reference.
Chapter 2 Literature review

2.1 Introduction
This literature review aims to provide the background regarding centrifugal compressor characteristics, the different types of instability and an overview about research work on surge control. This background knowledge serves as reference when conducting experimental testing on the compressor and also helps in drawing conclusions from the experimental observations. Velocity triangles at the impeller is used to describe the mechanism behind the drooping shape of the characteristic curve for the compressor. Surge and stall phenomenon are explained and its differences highlighted as these two phenomenon are commonly mixed up. Differences between deep surge and mild surge is also compared and summarized. Finally an highlight of surge research work performed by other researchers is summarized.
2.2
Compressor characteristic curve
The performance of a centrifugal compressor is best illustrated by what is called the compressor characteristic curve, or commonly known as the compressor performance map. It is most usual to see these maps plotted with compressor pressure ratios on the vertical 19
CHAPTER 2. LITERATURE REVIEW
20
axis versus the inlet volumetric ow on the horizontal axis. These performance maps can be used to explain many aspects of the performance of the compressor [14]. A basic understanding of how the slope of these curve is generated is a good aid for visualizing the physics behind compressor performance and especially surge. Figure 1.3 shows a typical centrifugal compressor performance map operating at some xed speed. Two extreme points on the compressor curve, the high ow point and the low ow point, would be explained in details using velocity triangles to understand how the compressor pressure ratio would increase as ow is reduced. Figure 2.1 shows the two velocity triangles at the exit of the impeller at low ow and high ow. To understand the slope of the centrifugal compressor characteristic curve, it is necessary to rst understand the characteristics of the ow process at the impeller blade exit in terms of the velocity vector triangle shown in Figure 2.1(A) and Figure 2.1 (B) [1]. Referring to the velocity triangles for the high ow, W2 is the gas velocity relative to the blade exit angle, U2 is the tip speed of the blade. The designation 2 is used in all this nomenclature to indicate the velocity triangles are done at the exit of the impeller, which is commonly depicted as subscript 2. The addition of these 2 velocity vectors gives the absolute velocity of the gas particle, V2 .
U2 +W2 = V2
(2.1)
Having obtained V2 , it can be then resolved into its own radial and tangential components, V2r and V2t respectively as shown in the velocity triangles. The head of a centrifugal compressor can be approximated as the product of the U2 and V2t as stated by the aerodynamics head equation [38]: H U2 .V2t (2.2)
For a constant speed compressor, the vector is constant since it is derived from the actual speed of the impeller tip and the impeller rotates at constant speed. Therefore, the
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Figure 2.1: (A) Velocity vector triangle at high ow; (B) Velocity vector triangle at low ow
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aerodynamic head of the centrifugal compressor is proportional to its absolute velocity tangential component Vt . When the compressor operates in the high ow as system resistance decreases, its vector W2 will be large in magnitude and this results in a small magnitude Vt . A small magnitude will result in a small head to be produced by the compressor. This would explain why a compressor would develop small heads during high ow operating conditions. In comparison, if one is to analyze the velocity vector triangles when the compressor operates in a low ow conditions (which could be obtained by closing a throttle valve downstream of the compressor and increasing the system resistance of the compression system), it can be noticed that the operating point on the compressor characteristic curve would move up the compressor curve and end up operating very close to the surge limit. This low ow operating condition results in a smaller magnitude vector W2 to be produced. This would produce a larger magnitude vector of Vt as seen in Figure 2.1 and results in a higher head produced by the compressor during a low ow condition. Hence understanding how the velocity vectors change in a centrifugal compressor during different ow applications allows one to understand why the compressor slope could be a negative sloped curve on a compressor performance map. On the compressor performance map, the useful operating region of a particular centrifugal compressor is typically bounded by the compressor surge limit and choke lines. The surge limit line is shown in Figure 1.3 . The surge limit line separates the regions of stable and unstable compressor operation [25]. The stable region of operation is on the right of the surge limit line while the region on the left is known as the unstable operation region or the surge region. In modern day compressors, a surge margin is typically imposed on the compressor operating region. The surge control line is typically placed on the negative slope of the compressor performance curve at a location of 10% [38]away from the surge limit line on the compressor performance map. Providing this safety margin allows the compressor to operate continuously and avoid operating near the surge region of the compressor.
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Having understood how the velocity triangles affects the shape of the compressor curve, the surge phenomena which typically occurs at low ow and peak head conditions, can be further explained using velocity triangles at the impeller exit. As ow is reduced at constant speed as shown in Figure 2.1, the system resistance would decrease in the compression system and the magnitude of the velocity vector W2 would decrease proportionally. This would result in a corresponding reduction of the ow angle at the impeller exit and an increase in the incident angle i at inlet of the compressor blades[14]. The reduction of the ow angle at the exit results in a longer spiral path of the gas particles across the diffusion section of the compressor. And when gas particle ow path on the diffuser becomes long enough and the ow angle i small enough, as compressor ow is reduced, the ow momentum of the gas particle would reach a point where it is totally dissipated by the diffuser walls due to friction [38]. This results in a situation whereby the frictional force within the compressor begins to increase faster than the head that could be produced from the compressor as the ow is reduced. The stable forward ow of the compressor reverses at this point and results in surge [17]. Figure 2.2 illustrates and compares the difference in gas particle paths across the diffuser as the ow is reduced. In Figure 2.2 L and H stand for the ow angle at low ow and high ow respectively.
2.3
Compressor instability - surge and stall characteristic
The two types of instability commonly encountered in compressors are stall and surge. Stall is a known as a local instability within the compressor itself and it could occur in both a centrifugal or axial ow compressor. It is further classied into stationary stall and rotating stall phenomena [46]. Stationary stall typically occurs in the stationary components of the compressor (e.g, the diffuser vanes) and is caused by a ow separation occurrence. Its characteristic is that it typically results in a vibration frequency that is higher than running speed frequency. Rotating stall, on the other hand, is a non-uniform circumferential pres-
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Figure 2.2: Illustration of gas particle path across diffuser [1]
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sure eld which rotates at a different speed than the compressor operating speed, causing unbalance in the rotor. It can occur in the impeller, IGV and impeller recess and its vibration frequency is typically subsynchronous. The most common stall to occur in a vaneless centrifugal compressor (such as this test rig) would typically be rotating stall and the subsynchronous frequency would change with running speed change. Rotating stall is a special class of stall phenomena of stall [46] and is characterized by circumferential non-uniform mass decits that propagate around the compressor annulus at a fraction of the compressor operating speed. And once the stall cells are formed, it generally require to operate the compressor away from the instability point by opening up the throttle valve to ush out the stall cells. Stall is a commonly encountered in axial ow compressors. Surge, on the other hand, is known as a phenomenon of the entire compression system involving the compressor itself and its discharge piping or discharge plenums [19, 16]. The key difference between rotating stall and surge are that the average ow in pure rotating stall is steady over time, but the ow has a circumferential nonuniform mass decit, while in pure surge the ow is unsteady but circumferentially uniform [20]. Surge is to be avoided in centrifugal compressors due to the potential of catastrophic damage associated with its occurrence, especially in process manufacturing plants, where for example, the main process gas compressors could be a large turbo machinery ranging between 20,000 - 50,000 hp. Any catastrophic damage to these large plant critical turbo machinery from surge would result in extended downtime that would result in signicant monetary losses and also possibly compromise the safety of the plant personnel. Figure 2.3 shows an example of an impeller rub that occurred due to surge. Surge cycles are typically known to be short but could occur several times within a second [21]. This ow reversal during surge not only results in sudden reverse bending loads on nearly all compressor mechanical components [1], but the gas temperature will also increase signicantly due to the continuous energy added to the recycled gas from compression. This can lead to serious temperature overloads in the machine and result in temperature related failures of machine components
26
Figure 2.3: Photos to illustrate damage on impeller from compressor surge [1] as well. Hence the combination of high sudden load reversal and high gas temperatures puts surge as the unstable operating region to be avoided at all costs during the operation of centrifugal compressors. Surge may be broadly classied into two distinct categories - mild surge and deep surge [30]. The occurrence of each of these two categories is dependent on the compression system and the operating conditions of the compressor. Mild surge is closely associated with the Helmholtz frequency, i.e. the resonance of the compressor duct and the volume connected to the compressor [20]. Mild surge identication may be performed by identifying the Helmholtz frequency derived from the compression system model where the compressor and throttle valve are both modelled as throttle disk. The Helmholtz frequency remains constant even when the compressor rotational speed is changed as it is considered a resonance frequency and it generally occurs near or at the start of compressor instability limit. The pressure prole observed in mild surge is typically linear and its pressure prole is sinusoidal. Mild surge has been recognized as a low frequency trigger but more damaging deep surge inception [30]. Deep surge, on the other hand, is known to be a non-sinusoidal or non-linear behavior [28, 43], as outlined by many researchers who have tested compressors into deep surge. The deep surge cycle typically depends on speed and the amount of throttling of the con-
27
trol valve. Its occurrence is also usually accompanied by a deep audible sound and the compressor rotational speed is often observed to uctuate or even drop signicantly [44]. The frequency of deep surge is governed by the lling and emptying of the discharge volume plenum connected to the compressor and this frequency would vary with changes in the piping congurations of the compressor system (e.g, different piping orientation and throttle valve location) [6]. Frequency of deep surge is known to be well below Helmholtz frequency and it usually exhibits large pressure amplitude uctuations and lower oscillation frequency as compared to mild surge. Deep surge generally only occurs in system congurations that have signicant amounts of energy (e.g, pressure) stored downstream of the compressor. In an industrial setup, this would normally occur when there is signicant discharge pipework connected to the compressor which acts like a large plenum reservoir [45]. Flow reversal is very possible during deep surge condition and this reversal would bring about a change in bending load and thrust load on the compressors rotor system. Usually in experimental work to investigate instability or surge in centrifugal compressors, investigations and data recordings are carried out during surge inception, detecting mild surge. With mild surge detected in the compression system, the observations of deep surge is typically limited to a few consecutive cycle to prevent any damage to test compressors or on site compressors [30]. Between surge and stall instability phenomena, the occurrence of stall instability in centrifugal compressor is still a subject of discussion in the compressor community [3, 20]. It appears to be more readily observed in low pressure centrifugal compressor systems or high pressure centrifugal compressor systems operating at partial speed of the compressor design . For high speed operational compressors, the compressor generally goes directly from stable operation to ow separation on all blades and immediately into ow reversal when the ow reduces beyond the surge limit line[1]. Rotating stall appears to have little effect on the pressure rise in centrifugal compressors and hence it will not have signicant contributions to surge [20].
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2.4
Surge control techniques

Due to the severity of centrifugal compressor damage that could result from surge,
the understanding of this phenomena and how it could been controlled or suppressed had led to a continuous study on it over the years [20]. There has been much effort in trying to determine the causes, precursors and control mechanisms of surge [23]. The various methods are broadly classied into three main categories. They are surge avoidance, surge detection and surge suppression [22].
2.4.1
Surge avoidance
Surge avoidance is the most mature [22] and widely implemented method in the industry to prevent damage of machines due to surge. It is very common practice to place a surge control line to the right of the surge limit lines on centrifugal compressors in the industries. The surge limit line is the line in the compressor map that divides the map into an area of stable compressor operation and unstable (surge) operation. This line passes through the maxima of the constant speed lines in the map [12]. The surge control line is typically placed about 10% from the surge limit line [25, 9]. This line basically denes a smaller region of stable operation for the centrifugal compressor and in most circumstances, surge is completely avoided from happening because whenever the compressors ow reduces and reaches the surge control lines protective actions are taken to increase ow and bring the operating point of the compressor back to the right side of the compressor curve. For air compressors, this is commonly achieve by using the blow off valve placed downstream of the compressor discharge. This valve would be commanded to open and start venting if the surge control line is reached during operation. The opening of this valve increases ow through the compressor and hence prevents surge. In a process gas compressor that could not have a blow off valve to vent to products to the atmosphere due to safety reasons, the operator typically installs a recycle valve with an inter-cooler downstream of the
29
compressor discharge. In the event that the surge control line is reached during operation for this process compressor, its recycle valve will be regulated and opened to allow more discharge ow back to the suction of the compressor. The valve will open until the operating point of the compressor moves to the right of the surge control line again. Both these methods are capable of avoiding surge completely, but they result in loss of efciency of the compressors from the venting or the recycling. The useful stable operating region of the compressor is also greatly reduced as a result of introducing the surge control line and dening a typical safe margin of 10%.
2.4.2
Surge suppression
In recent years, there have been increasing innovative attempts to suppress surge beyond the surge limits [20, 22, 6]. These studies are mainly aimed at increasing the stable ow range of the centrifugal compressors. These research works can be further sub categorized into 2 approaches. The rst approach focuses on attempts to improve the interior of the compressor and is known as the design method, while the second approach aims to include additional external devices on the compressor to expand the useful operating range of the compressor. These are typically known as the operational methods to achieve surge suppression [22]. Rodgers [24] investigated on the effect on operating range extension for a centrifugal compressor by installing variable angle inlet guide vanes to the suction of the centrifugal compressor. He operated the inlet guide vanes at varying angles, called preswirl angles on a high speed overhung design single stage open impeller compressor designed to run at 64643 rpm. He was able to show that by allowing the inlet gas of the suction side of the impeller to be preswirled, the surge line on the compressor map would move signicantly to the left, as compared to the original surge line that did not have the assistance of the inlet guide vanes. Figure 2.4 shows the results plot and also an an overview of the test rig. The test results showed that the surge margin could be considerably extended by the regulations
CHAPTER 2. LITERATURE REVIEW of the inlet guide vanes due to increased stability on the impeller.
30
Gary [23] investigated how air injection into the compressors diffuser region would help in stabilizing the ow range of the centrifugal compressor. The experimental investigation was based on three-dimensional time accurate simulations of high speed compressor impeller at surge condition. The simulation studies showed that ow reversal occurred on the leading edge of the impeller blades at reduced mass ow conditions, such as near the surge point. The study also showed that ow separation was the cause of the ow reversal and that introducing additional air injection into the compressor diffuser region could eliminate the local separation on the impeller blades. The air injection would be able to suppress and prevent the ow separation from occurring and its introduction would be able to improve the stability of the impeller. He designed a system of injectors that could provide variations in position, direction and ow rate to affect as many regions of the diffuser as possible in a high speed compressor with a design speed of 21789 rpm. The injected ows directions could be either forward tangent injection or reverse tangent injections. Figure 2.5 shows a cross sectional schematic of where the air is injected into the compressor and also the results from his testing. As can be observed from the results in Figure 2.5, injection ows that were recycled from the compressor would help in stabilizing surge and therefore increasing the surge margin of the compressor, as compared to the baseline data where no ow injections was introduced.
2.4.3
Active surge control
Active surge control is fundamentally different from surge avoidance or surge suppression. In an active surge control setup or scheme, the open loop unstable region of the compressor map is sought to be stabilized through the use of feedback rather than avoided by placing a surge margin line [48]. Spakovszky [29]developed and designed a high speed axial compressor that could be used to investigate the effectiveness of using magnetic bearings as servo-actuators to stabilize the rotating stall in axial compressors. The basis of his
31
Figure 2.4: Illustration of inlet guide vanes to suppress surge [24]
32
Figure 2.5: Illustration of air injection technique for compressor stabilization [23]
33
Figure 2.6: Illustration of experimental setup for Spakovszky test rig [29] investigation was that the blade tip clearance in axial ow compressors has a strong impact on compressor stability and it also plays a major role in the interaction between the rotordynamic shaft deections and the aerodynamic behavior of the compressor. The objective was to use the magnetic bearing servo-actuator to actively whirl the shaft to induce unsteady variations of the rotor blade tip clearance which would suppress prestall dynamics. This would help in suppressing stall and improved the stability operating region of the axial ow compressors. The test compressor facility consisted of a single stage axial ow compressor that was capable of a pressure ratio of 2.05 and design speed of 17000 rpm. Figure 2.6 shows a schematic of the test compressor. The driver of the train was a 3000 HP motor. The bearing nearest to the impeller was the magnetic bearing actuator, while the other supporting bearing was a uid lm bearing.
2.5
Compressor surge test rig overview
Sanadgol [3]proposed a rst of a kind innovative active surge control method by using a magnetic thrust bearing for a high speed centrifugal compressor. The theoretical back-
34
ground to her surge control method is based on the fact that compressor performance and efciency are highly dependent on the clearance between the blade tip and adjacent stationary shroud or also known as the scroll [12]. This relationship is especially important for high pressure ratio compressors, because the specic volume of the gas is reduced signicantly at the blade exit, and hence this results in a short height design of the exit blades. This makes these compressors much more sensitive to tip clearance adjustment because the ratio of its tip clearance to its exit blade height is signicantly larger than similar compressors that would be operated at lower pressure ratios. Therefore, any adjustment to the impeller tip clearance would affect the efciency of the compressor [26]. This results in less energy transfer from the impeller to the uid and would result in a loss of pressure ratio and efciency of the compressor. Sanadgol developed a mathematical model of the compressor to include the tip clearance and compressor efciency relationships from Senoo and Ishida [26] into a one dimensional incompressible compressor model developed by Greitzer [27]. The improved model was capable of showing the sensitivity of the centrifugal compressor characteristics curve parameters to impeller blade tip clearance. Her simulation results based on the model showed that if the tip of the impeller can be axially modulated by moving the position of the rotor shaft using a magnetic thrust bearing with sufcient speed and control authority, the induced pressure modulation makes the control of surge promising. Figure 2.7 shows the simulated result without the surge controller. The two plots shows pressure ratio p plotted over time and delta change in impeller tip clearance cl plotted over time. As can be observed, when surge occurs, pressure ratio p would start and continue to oscillate. There is no controller and hence cl remains at zero. Figure 2.8 shows the simulated resulted with surge controller in place. The plot shows that with a surge controller in place to actuate the impeller tip clearance as can be seen in the change of cl over time, there would be almost no pressure ratio p oscillations over time. This simulation results show that the surge controller could stabilize the compression system. Sanadgol chose to use magnetic
35
bearings as the control actuators for this form of control method as it would fully make use of the active nature of the magnetic bearing systems and make real time static and dynamic positioning of the rotor and the modulation of the impeller tip clearance possible. Coupled with the increase in the use of magnetic bearings for turbomachinery in recent years, an innovative control philosophy as such is very attractive. An industrial size compressor test rig was planned to be built to validate the model and its results in ROMAC Laboratory at University of Virginia. The experimental results from the compressor test rig would be able to provide actual results that could be used to rene or enhance the mathematical model as required. The nal validated model of the compression system would be used for designing an active surge control systems through impeller tip clearance modulations. The controller would be implemented into the compressor test rig and used to assess the amount of compressor stable ow range that could be improved with this form of active control surge suppression method. The test rig had been mechanically designed and its components built over the years. However, it is still not yet operational and therefore no test data had been obtained to support the simulation results. Further detail engineering work was still required to be done on the test rig, before it could be assembled, commissioned and operated into high speed for the experimental surge testing and data collection.
2.6
Summary of literature review

This literature review highlights surge control research work performed to stabilize
surge and also increase the stable ow range of a centrifugal compressor. The combination of surge avoidance (e.g, safety margin) and surge suppression (e.g, Inlet guide vanes) is still widely applied methods in the industry as compared to active surge control. However, these two methods are already mature technology eld and could only offer possible incremental improvements[20]. Active surge control, on the other hand, is still a devel-
36
Figure 2.7: Simulated surge occurrence without any surge controller [3]
Figure 2.8: Simulated surge control result with impeller tip clearance actuation [3]
37
oping eld that has the potential to product substantial improvement in surge control and extending the stable operating range of the compressor. In addition, active surge control using magnetic bearings offers even better potential since there are already a substantial amount of industrial compressors suspended by magnetic bearings. This would serve as a platform to further developed magnetic bearings as surge control actuators or mechanisms in compressors. Therefore, the control theory put forth by Sanadgol has a good potential as a practical means to actively control surge in high speed centrifugal compressors.
Chapter 3 Engineering analysis and experimental setup

3.1 Introduction
The compressor surge test rig mainly consists of a few sections. These are the driver, the driven equipment and the supporting system such as the pipings and chilling unit. The driver is a high speed induction motor that is controlled by a variable frequency drive. The compressor was direct coupled to the motor. The compressor is the single stage type with an overhung semi-open impeller and is fully supported on active magnetic bearings both radially and axially. The compressor service is atmospheric air. Due to the unique test location of the test rig, it required inlet piping with an inlet lter to take in clean air from the atmosphere. And in order to install an orice ow meter and also varying locations for the throttle valve, the piping was assembled using vitaulic couplings to provide exibility of installation. The test rig had been developed and designed over the years to provide a hardware to allow actual compressor surge testing. Major components of this rig had been sponsored by Rotating Machinery and Controls Laboratory members, such as the single stage overhung centrifugal compressor by Kobe Steel, the magnetic bearings by Revolve
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CHAPTER 3. ENGINEERING ANALYSIS AND EXPERIMENTAL SETUP
39
and the motor rotor by SKF. Though the hardware had been designed and fabricated over the years, the test rig had not been assembled and tested before. Engineering review and improvement work had to be performed in order to install and commission the test rig safely and reliably. The following sections provide an overview of the test rig, the bearings selection for the motor, the modal analysis performed on the piping supports using Ansys, a rotordynamics analysis performed when the compressor rotor assembly had to be modied with the addition of a spacer ring and the accessory components selection such as the chiller and the orice ow meter.
3.2
Test Rig Overview
The motor is an induction motor rated for 125 KW at 30000rpm. It was provided by SKF and was driven by a variable frequency drive by Alcomel. The motor was designed with more than sufcient required power to drive the test rig over its entire operating range and up to a maximum design speed of 23000rpm. As per the compressor supplier Kobe, the compressor only requires 52KW of power at its maximum speed. The coupling selected was a Thomas exible disk-pack coupling. This coupling allows both axial and radial misalignment between the motor and the test sections. The coupling was balanced and was rated for the maximum design speed of 23000rpm [4]. The test section consisted of two radial magnetic bearings and one thrust bearing built by Revolve. Figure 3.1 shows the cross sectional drawing of the compressor test rig. Position measurements are very critical in these active magnetic bearings as they provide the position feedback to the bearing controllers to ensure proper control of these bearings to its optimum reference positions. The two radial bearings use reluctance sensors to provide accurate position measurements of the compressor rotor for the controller. The axial position is measured with two SKF 5mm button eddy current probes. One probe is placed on either side of the thrust bearing and targets a shoulder on the compressor rotor to measure the axial position of the rotor for the
40
Figure 3.1: Compressor test rig cross sectional drawing controller. The compressor is overhung in design and only has a single stage. Its impeller is unshrouded and it can be used with either a vane or vaneless diffuser. At the current test facility, it has been setup as a vaneless diffuser. The compressor is rated to provide a maximum ow rate of 2500m3/hr and develops a pressure ratio of 1.7. The required gas power at this point would be 52KW and the operating speed would be 23000 rpm. In order to investigate surge and stall, the compressor housing is drilled and tapped with holes to allow the connection of twenty Kulite silicon on silicon pressure transducers. This arrangement of sensors enables the capture of stall cells and visualization of surge or stall effects in the compressor. The major data acquisition is performed by Lab-view. High speed data acquisition cards (DAQ), PXI-6052 and PXI-6071, are used together with National Instruments (NI) signal processing cards [4]. A thorough review of the design and mechanical components of the test rig was conducted as a preparation for the next phase - which was to assemble, install and commission the test rig. Hence this mechanical design audit is an important step to ensure the compo-
41
Figure 3.2: Exploded view of compressor test rig nents are nally designed to meet the required design speed and performance as required in the compressor characteristic performance. A few critical mechanical items were identied that required furthering engineering analysis and improvement. Figure 3.2 shows the exploded view of the compressor and the test section, where all the magnetic bearings are housed.
3.3
Motor bearings improvement

The motor was designed to be supported on ball bearings that had a 47mm outer
diameter and an inner diameter of 25mm. For anti-friction bearings or commonly also called rolling element bearings, a speed factor evaluation is commonly used as a evaluation criteria to determine if the bearings selected for an equipment is the appropriate bearing type and would provide a suitable running life for the bearings. The speed evaluation is also used as a decision indicator to identify if a machine is suitable to be supported on ball bearings or should it be upgraded to a uid lm bearings, which has always been preferred as the supports for rotating shafts due to its better damping properties. This speed factor is commonly known as the ndm factor [8]. The guidelines for the speed limit ndm factor is commonly found in industrial references such as API 610 for centrifugal pumps and also
42
in various bearing manufacturer literature such as Timken bearings, who have published recommended speed limit for particular bearing design. ndm is actually the multiplication of the: n= rotating speed in rpm dm = average bearing diameter = (Outer diameter of bearing + Inner diameter of bearing)/ 2 The use of speed as a parameter in the ndm factor calculation allows this simple evaluation to determine the suitability of the bearing design. This is because speed directly relates to many things such as friction, centrifugal forces and stresses encountered on the bearing cages and balls. Coupled with the nominal size of the bearing, this factor readily indicates if a bearing selection would likely work. The many limit references quoted in typical bearing standards are cumulative data compiled over years to arrive at a recommended ndm value to aid in evaluation. It is commonly known in the industry that exceeding the ndm numbers would compromise the reliability of a bearing signicantly and increase the chance of premature failure of the equipment. The motor is controlled on a variable frequency drive (VFD) and there is a speed range where the motor can potentially run during the surge evaluation. Hence Table 3.1 summarizes the ndm for speeds between 16000 rpm - 23000 rpm, which is the intended compressor test speed range. The dm is xed for all the cases since the housing bore of 47mm and shaft diameter of 25 mm already set the size of the ball bearings. The motor dm is hence: Motor dm = (47+25)/2 = 36 From the comparison illustrated in table 3.1, it is clear that the ndm factor for the test rig exceeds the recommended limits stated in API 610 and Timken bearing manufacturer literature. Even at the lower intended operation speed of 17000 rpm, the ndm factor already exceeds the limitations listed in API 610 by 22%. In order to fulll the ndm factor of 500 000, the compressor would have to run at a maximum speed of only 13800 rpm. This speed
CHAPTER 3. ENGINEERING ANALYSIS AND EXPERIMENTAL SETUP Speed (rpm) 23000 21000 19000 17000 ndm factor 828 000 756 000 684 000 612 000 API 610 [8] 500 000 500 000 500 000 500 000 Timken [49] 300 000 300 000 300 000 300 000 % Exceed API 610 65 % 51 % 36 % 22 %
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Table 3.1: ndm - Speed limit calculation for compressor test rig at possible running speeds is considered low for the compressor design and it will not develop signicant pressure rise at such a low speed and hence may not be suitable for experimental surge investigation. However to completely redesign the motor bearings at this stage of the project would involve signicant cost and time. After much considerations, it was decided to still proceed with the use of ball bearing. As the test rig is not intended to run continuously like typical machinery in E.g. manufacturing plants and hence , it was decided to proceed with the ball bearing design because it is expected the compressor will only run intermittently during testing. The SKF 7005CD/P5A angular contact ball bearings were originally selected as the bearings for the motor rotor as these bearings had the required speed ratings to allow the motor to run safely at its design speed of 23000rpm [4]. However, in order for the bearing to run reliably up to 23000rpm, it was identied that meeting the speed limit alone is not sufcient. Maintaining the lubrication grease within the bearings is equally important, if not more important. At such a high design speed of 23000rpm, ball bearings will generate signicant amount of heat, and hence the viscosity of the lubricant would reduce as the motor is spun up to the desired speed of 23000rpm. The reduction in the viscosity of the grease at these high speed would result in the originally lled grease in the bearings to ow easily out of the bearings and result in poor lubrication on these high speed bearings. This leakage would occur because the SKF 7005 CD/P5A bearing selected was an open design bearing and does not come with end seals, and hence it would not able to retain the grease within the bearings. In order to apply this bearing correctly in an application, modications would have to be made in the bearing housing to have a grease path to the
44
bearings and provide periodic greasing to these bearings in order to ensure there is sufcient lubricants in the bearings. Seals would have to be designed in the bearing housings to keep the grease inside the bearings. This approach would require signicant modications in the existing motor housing and was not the optimum option for the test rig from a cost and time considerations. Hence it was decided to upgrade the motor bearings to a sealed for life bearings that would also have the adequate speed and load ratings for this service. Sealed for life bearings are bearings that have grease prelubricated inside the bearings from the manufacturers. The seals in these bearings would keep the grease inside the bearings and allow the bearings to operate smoothly and without the need to provide periodic greasing to these bearings. Hybrid bearings typically refers to a class of bearings that has material of construction besides regular bearing steel. Commonly used construction material for ball bearings are stainless steel or chrome steel. Hybrid bearing incorporates the use of ceramic material for its balls and the rest of the construction material for the bearing are retained as steel material. The unique combination of ceramic material with steel material offers signicant amount of advantages and therefore hybrid bearings have been also termed as performance bearings since its introduction decades ago [47]. Bearing manufacturer FAG began the study of the use of ceramic materials in rolling bearings some 30 years ago. And out of the many different ceramic material studied, silicon nitride (Si3N4) is found most suitable to be used in bearings applications. Silicon nitride is a hard solid substance. Its main component in silicon nitride ceramics and offers very superior shock resistance, thermal and mechanical properties over many other ceramic materials. The silicon nitride balls are much harder than metal and hence it reduces contact with the bearing inner race and outer race tracks. This reduction in friction results in less wasted energy and allowed the hybrid bearings to achieve higher speed ratings as compared to conventional steel bearings of the same size. Silicon nitride also has a much lower density than bearing steel. Its density is only about 40% of the density of bearing steel [47] This results the balls or rollers made
45
from silicon nitride to weigh much less and have lower inertia. This means less damage to the cage during rapid start up and stops and also much less frictional forces in the bearings. The hybrid bearings can hence runs much cooler, last longer and also has higher speed rating. Besides the above mentioned mechanical properties given by the hybrid bearings, it also provides a key property that is also valuable when the author decides to select hybrid bearings for the motor. The hybrid bearings have very good electrical insulation property. This makes them especially useful for induction motor or synchronous motor applications, because the material insulation offers protection from any form of electric arc damage which is a result of stray current in electrical machines like the motors. Silicon nitride material in hybrid bearings provides insulation from electric currents in both AC and DC motors [47]. Table 3.2 compares the main electrical and mechanical properties between regular bearing steel and silicon nitride used in hybrid bearings. It is clearly obvious that silicon nitride is superior to steel in many aspects and hence make a more suitable material for ball bearing balls or rollers. Material Property Density [g/cm] Hardness, HV10 [kg/mm] Modulus of elasticity [GPa] Thermal expansion [x10/k] Electrical resistivity [m] Dielectric strength [kV/mm] Relative dielectric constant Bearing Steel 7.9 700 210 12 ~0.4e-6 Silicon Nitride 3.2 1600 310 3 ~10e12 ~15 ~8
Table 3.2: Material construction for ball bearings [47] These hybrid bearings are typically designed with a seal designed on both sides of the bearings. Unlike the open bearing design of the SKF 7005 CD, the sealed designs main advantage is that lubricant are kept away from contaminants as they are sealed in within the bearing during manufacturing. Which means the grease is expected to be in the highest state of cleanliness and hence minimum impurities. And these sealed bearings, when operated
46
Figure 3.3: Comparison between SKF 7005 CD bearing versus SKF hybrid bearing on site, it requires no further re-greasing. The seals on both side of the bearings also act as protectors that keep out any form of contaminants that may commonly inltrate in open design. Figure 3.3 shows a comparison between the two bearings. Deep-groove ball bearings is one of the most common type of ball bearings in the world of bearing applications. It main advantage is its capability to handle both radial and directional thrust load. Its only disadvantage is that it has a low tolerance for misalignment and hence for installation that involves deep groove ball bearings, alignment accuracy is very important. And for this particular high speed motor application, Browns [4] estimates that the axial load on the motor would be relatively low. Hence this make deep groove ball bearings suitable for this application. SKF 6005 series hybrid bearings fullls this requirement and typically had a speed limiting range for a ball bearing inner diameter of 25mm to be 28000rpm, which is rated to run 20% above the desired design speed of 23000rpm. Manufacturers of ball bearings typically provide a reference speed and limiting speed as specications for a particular bearing. Limiting speed is preferred to be used as the evaluation criteria over reference speed because they are typically determined based on cumulative actual application experience from the industry, whereas the higher reference speed stated in a bearing catalog is based on test lab conditions which has the lubrication, cleanliness, alignment and installation of the test bearings onto the test rig set up in a very controlled and near perfect condition. Hence the reference speed rating determined in such
CHAPTER 3. ENGINEERING ANALYSIS AND EXPERIMENTAL SETUP Dynamic C (kN) 9.56 7.02 11.9 11.9 Static C0 (kN) 5.6 4.3 6.55 6.55 Limiting rpm 34000 18000 16000 28000 Bearing Type Angular contact Explorer class Regular deep groove Hybrid
47
Lubrication Design Non lubricated Sealed Lubrication Sealed Lubrication Sealed Lubrication
Table 3.3: Deep groove versus angular ball bearings design properties for 25 mm inner diameter bearings testing condition are typically higher than the limiting speed. These test laboratory conditions are very unlikely to be replicated easily in an actual application environment, e.g. in the renery or chemicals plant, where there are signicant uncertainties such as dust, bearing handling cleanliness, equipment alignment and the proper installation of the bearings onto the equipment. Therefore, in the selection of bearings, the limiting speed limit is preferred to be used over reference speed. Table 3.3 illustrates and compares the various types of SKF bearings that could are dimensionally similar (25 mm inner diameter), but has varying properties and lubrication design that would result in different bearing properties. As can be seen from the comparison, the hybrid bearings provided the best bearing properties in terms of dynamic loading limit of the bearing, its static loading, the maximum recommended speed limit and the type of lubrication provision. Because all these bearing are of the same inner diameter size (25mm), their ndm factor would all still be high at the designed running speed. The hybrid bearing is the best in class from such a comparison and is therefore selected as the bearings for this high speed motor. This would give the motor its best possible reliability and the self lubricated design of the bearing. It also means there is no modications required on the motor housing to provide for grease nipple and grease path to the motor bearings. The SKF hybrid bearing model 6005-2RSLTN9/HCFC3WT was selected. The details and explanation for its bearing designations are listed in table 3.4.
CHAPTER 3. ENGINEERING ANALYSIS AND EXPERIMENTAL SETUP Designations 6005 2RSL TN9 HC5 WT C3 Descriptions Model of bearing and last 2 digit (x5) would be size of shaft Low friction seal on both side of bearings to keep grease in Injection molded snap type ring of glass reinforced bre Rolling elements are of Silicon Nitride material Grease with polyurea. -40 Degree to +160 degree Celsius range Radial clearance is greater than normal clearance for bearings
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Table 3.4: Descriptions for hybrid bearing 6005-2RSLTN9/HCFC3WT
3.4
Piping system design
As discussed previously, the compressed medium for this test compressor is atmospheric air. The suction of the compressor takes in air from the atmosphere, compresses it and then discharges it into the atmosphere again. It is an open loop system and there is no recycling of the discharge air or neither is there a blow off vent as is commonly noticed in the air compressor used in the industry as a form of surge protection. Therefore the piping layout and piping support is an important part of the test rig to ensure the air is brought smoothly to the compressor and discharges the hot compressed air safely back to the atmospheric. At the same time, instruments were also to be installed along the piping system to measure the pressure, ow and temperature during the test run. These measurements were critical to the accuracy of surge investigation and the development of the compressor characteristic curve, and their location will be installed in accordance to Power Test Code ( PTC 10) 1997, which is an commonly applied industrial testing standards for compressors. Since this compressor is a prototype and the nature of the research investigation is similar to that of a new test compressor as if in a factory acceptance test, adopting PTC 10 would be suitable. Pressure and temperature measurement tappings are drilled and spaced on the inlet and outlet piping immediately before and after the compressor. The length of the straight section piping immediately before and after the compressor were also designed to meet the requirement of PTC 10 1997 [32]. The straight length of the piping at the inlet and immediately at the discharge had to be maintained to ensure a smooth laminar
49
ow of the air and hence ensure the recorded test data are stable. The suction piping is of straight length 72 inches or 9 times of the pipe diameter. The pressure tappings were placed upstream of the temperature probes as per PTC 10. This is mainly because the temperature probes will be placed into the ow and hence as the air ow passes the probes, turbulence will be created and hence if pressure is measured at locations after the pressure probes, the pressure readings may uctuate due to the turbulence. In a similar fashion, the temperature and pressure tappings are placed on the discharge piping of 64 inches or 8 times the piping diameter. However, in this case, the pressure tappings will be closed to the discharge on the compressor, followed by the temperature probes. The same reasoning on the placement of the inlet pressure and discharge probes apply on the discharge piping as well. Four measurement locations spaced at ninety degrees apart are installed for each pressure and temperature measurement location on the inlet and discharge piping. This is to allow average pressure and temperature measurements to be taken and ensure consistent data comparison without bias to any particular side of the piping. The piping system was also designed to include the exibility to adjust the outlet plenum. The outlet plenum is dened as the volume between the compressor discharge to the discharge throttle valve. Mizuki and Tamaki et al [39, 42] investigated and found that the discharge plenum has an effect on the surge points of the compressor. Since the main objective of this test rig is to investigate active surge control, the author decided to include the additional exibility into the piping design by providing 3 throttle valve location, such that the discharge plenum volume could be adjusted as required. Three throttle valve locations were included in the overall piping length, with position 1 being closest to the compressor discharge, position 2 at about mid span along the discharge piping and position 3 as the furthest location away from the compressor discharge, and hence provided the largest plenum volume. The initial valve position is recommended to be at position 1 so that it limits the amount of plenum volume for the compressor when it is brought into surge and also serves as the position for initial testing and design of rst surge controller.
50
Figure 3.4: Piping layout to show the three discharge throttle valve positions Figure 3.4 shows the three locations of the discharge throttle valve in the piping system.
3.4.1
Piping supports modal analysis
One of the main concern with piping support design was that the surge frequency encountered in the compression system would occur close to the resonance frequency of the piping supports. This concern was evaluated by performing a modal analysis on the designed piping supports using Ansys nite element software to determine the natural frequency of the supports. These would then be compared to estimated mild surge frequency of the compression system, using the widely used Helmholtz resonator frequency formula utilized by many researchers [3, 27, 6, 20, 42] as the mild surge frequency. Based on the literature review established in Chapter 2, once mild surge frequency (Helmholtz frequency)
51
Figure 3.5: Frequencies of several types of aerodynamics ow instabilities by Willems [40] is estimated, it is generally observed that deep surge frequency would be be lower than mild surge frequency. The reason for this is that deep surge frequency is generated by the plenum emptying and lling times, and is hence normally well below Helmholtz frequency [44]. Willems [40] developed a summary plot to show the frequencies range of occurrence for several types of aerodynamics ow instabilities. Figure 3.5 shows the plot referenced to Willems research work and it summarized the various frequencies on the occurrence of deep surge, classic surge, mild surge and also rotating stall. One main observation from the literature review about using Helmholtz resonant frequency estimation by modeling the compressor system as a lumped mass parameter model developed by Greitzer [27, 28] is that there are varying approaches used by different researchers in the estimation. An example would be Mizuki and Willems [42, 40] used the exit area of the impeller as the equivalent area for the compression model. In Mizukis experiment, he obtained an experimental surge frequency of 27 Hz versus his Helmholtz estimate of 32 Hz. Meulesmann [6] uses the eye of the impeller for the equivalent area Ac instead for his Helmholtz estimation. Maulesmann [6] concluded that using the Greitzer lumped mass parameter compression model to estimate the Helmholtz frequency is not a straightforward approach and explained it was because the equivalent compressor length, areas and volumes are not always directly obtainable from physical dimensions of the complex compression system. Willems [40] explained that Lc is the most difcult to determine because it is difcult do determine the transient mass ow rate and at times, it is chosen
52
to match to the experimental studies, instead of rst being determined from the simulation. Tamaki [39] also concluded from his experiment with different plenum volumes that the lumped mass parameter compression model using the Helmholtz frequency estimate would typically have an error of 10% as compared to the actual experimental frequencies obtained. Helmholtz frequency can be determined by [39]:
H = a Ac /(Vp Lc)
(3.1)
where Vp is the volume between the compressor discharge to throttle valve position or commonly known as plenum volume, Lc is the compressor equivalent pipe length, a is the speed of sound, and Ac is the inlet ow through area. For this compressor, the inlet ow through area Ac is the area of air ow at the eye of the impeller [6] or it could also be the area at exit of impeller, which is what some researchers used as a parameter. Figure 3.6 shows the schematic equivalent compression system model to determine the Helmholtz and Figure 3.7 shows how Ac was obtained based on the impeller hub diameter and impeller tip diameter at the inlet of compressor [6, 15, 39]. The dimensions of the hub diameter and impeller tip diameter were obtained from Kobe Steels dimensional drawing of the impeller and compressor assembly. The equivalent pipe length Lc could be determined from the following formula [28, 44]: Lc Ac =
model
dx Ax
(3.2)
Actual piping
where the integral would be over the entire actual length of the compressor test rig[39] and Ax would be the actual piping area. Table 3.5 summarizes the estimated Helmholtz frequency based on the resonator frequency equation using different equivalent areas. This compressor test rig would have three Helmholtz frequency, since it has three different throttle valve locations which results in three different discharge plenum volumes
53
Figure 3.6: Schematic of the equivalent model to represent compressor system
Figure 3.7: Flow area to be considered when calculating the Helmholtz frequency
Descriptions Vp (m3) Lc (m) Ac (m2 ) a (m/s) fH (Hz)
Using inlet area, short pipe length [39] 0.053 1.233 0.008 341 19.1
Using inlet eye area, full pipe length [39] 0.053 4.1 0.008 341 10.54
Using impeller outlet area [40] 0.053 4.1 0.006 341 9.13
Table 3.5: Helmholtz frequency estimated comparison table
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(The volume between the compressor discharge to the discharge throttle valve). The piping supports natural frequency obtained from the Ansys modal analysis can then be compared to the mild surge frequencies and evaluate if sufcient safety margin exist between the two parameters. This would serve as an evaluation on the feasibility of the piping supports designed. Commercial nite element software Ansys was used next to perform a modal analysis of the piping supports to determine its natural frequency. The material of construction of the piping supports was mainly carbon steel. The choice of three inch angle supports was used mainly as the material was readily available within the University and three inch supports would be more than sufcient in terms of strength to support the pipes, which are eight inch diameter steel pipe. The piping supports were rst designed using Solidworks 3D and then saved as a parasolid le format to be imported in Ansys for the modal analysis. As it was structural modal analysis to be performed in Ansys, solid elements were chosen to mesh the imported piping support design. Two main piping supports were evaluated. They are mainly the inlet piping supports to the compressor and the discharge piping supports. The inlet piping support would basically only have a single pass of suction pipes and hence the support design can be of a single stand support. Single stand support is a good design for the inlet because of the space constraint and also the inlet piping to the compressor itself is already limiting easy access to the whole test rig. Hence a simple straightforward piping support design for the suction pipings would prevent the compressor setup from being further obstructed with bulky pipe supports. From an ergonomic standpoint, it was decided the inlet should consist of two piping supports so that the inlet pipe to the compressor can be adequately supported and leveled, and would not pose any signicant pipe strain when it is bolted up against the compressor inlet ange. At the same time, these inlet piping supports are also required to support the vertical piping section of the inlet that extends up to the roof of the compressor test rig locations and also an inlet lter. It is a better design to have two sturdy inlet pipe
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Figure 3.8: Inlet piping support and discharge piping supports supports to ensure all the piping from the inlet lter to the compressor inlet ange are robustly supported and able to withstand unforeseen piping vibrations, if any, when the compressor is brought into surge. The support will have its bottom end bolted into the concrete oor. At its top, it has a semi circular bracket that the outer diameter of the inlet pipe to rest on. And to secure the pipe to the supports, a top semi circular bracket is bolted onto the bottom bracket via two bolts. This would secure the pipe tightly onto the supports but unlike a weld, it allows the exibility of future removal or disassembly by loosening the two holding down bolts. The discharge piping supports was designed like a frame using available three inch steel brackets to provide it with the strength to support two pipe runs at its upper and bottom level. Circular pipe clamp brackets would be used to clamp the pipes onto the supports. The discharge pipe supports are also bolted to the foundation. Figure 3.8 shows the design of the inlet and discharge piping supports. The irregular shape of the piping supports including the semi circular bracket could be accurately mesh using a 3-D 10-Node Tetrahedral Structural Solid elements in Ansys. This element is known as Solid 92 element in Ansys and it is dened by the ten nodes and each node has three degrees of freedom, which are translations in the nodal x, y, and
CHAPTER 3. ENGINEERING ANALYSIS AND EXPERIMENTAL SETUP Pipe supports Inlet 1st mode Inlet 2nd mode Outlet 1st mode Outlet 2nd mode Frequency Hz 287 304 159 209 Location 1 19.1 19.1 19.1 19.1 Location 2 11.4 11.4 11.4 11.4 Location 3 8.05 8.05 8.05 8.05
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Table 3.6: Comparison of pipe supports predicted frequencies versus Helmholtz frequencies at each valve location z directions. The element also has the plasticity, creep, swelling, stress stiffening, large deection, and large strain capabilities. This element would be sufcient to mesh properly and determine the natural frequency of the piping supports. In order to ensure the meshed supports would provide good estimates of the natural frequency, the modal analysis results were observed for results convergence by observing the number of elements used. Proper constraint assumption in the nite element model was also chosen to ensured as realistic a model as possible. The bolting of the supports to the foundation would be assumed as a constraint that has negligible or no movement in the model itself. And the circular bracket on the supports are also assumed as a constraint that has minimum movement, especially lateral movement. This was because once all the pipes are bolted to the foundation and the pipes are anged bolted to the compression system, the whole bracket would be rigid. Hence minimum deection or movement is assumed on these brackets. Figure 3.9 and Figure 3.10 shows the results of modal analysis from Ansys. In both plots, only the rst two natural frequencies are compared. Table 3.6 summarizes the results. As can be compared from the table, the predicted rst and second natural frequency of the supports would be far away from the anticipated Helmholtz frequency calculated. Hence the piping supports are expected to remain sturdy as supports during surge testing at the three different valve locations.
57
Figure 3.9: Modal analysis results for inlet pipe support - 1st and 2nd modes
58
Figure 3.10: Modal analysis results for discharge piping support - 1st and 2nd modes
59
3.5
Compressor rotor modication
One of the key clearances to be veried and adjusted as required is the impeller tip axial clearance. This is the clearance between the front of the impeller to the stationary shroud. The size of this clearance has a signicant effect on the efciency of the compressor. It the clearance is too large, compressor efciency would drop because of leakage from impeller discharge back to the suction. If it was too small, there would be a higher possibility of contact between the rotating impeller to the stationary shroud. This would result in severe damage to the impeller and compressor. And most importantly, since this compressor research is to utilize the dynamic modulation of the impeller axial tip clearance to increase the surge margin of the compressor, the precision of this clearances is very important and had to be controlled such that it allows adequate clearance range for axial modulation without any rubs of running components and also ensure the compressor efciency is kept to the optimum. As per the Kobe Steel requirement, the design impeller tip clearance was designed to be at 0.5mm for the supplied compressor and impeller design. Sanadgol also referred to this design clearance in developing a mathematical model to evaluate the effect of static axial clearance change on the surge point of the compressor characteristic curve [3].
3.5.1
Rotordynamics analysis
After the initial assembly of the magnetic bearings and the compressor, the impeller tip clearance was rst checked using four soft lead strips that were evenly secured and placed at four locations on the impeller tip. Each location is spaced at 90 degrees to the other and hence these locations are commonly known as the twelve, three, six and nine oclock positions. The lead pieces were cut into a thin strip shape of approximately 30 mm in length and 2 mm in thickness and are to serve as thickness measurement gage. Lead was preferred over plastic gage mainly because lead pieces offered much better accuracy com-
60
pared to commercial plastic gages, which sometimes tends to be too soft and will crush even further under the measurement of a vernier caliper and hence produces some variance in the nal thickness measurement. The lead pieces are then secured rmly onto the impeller tip at the four locations with tapes. Prior to crushing the soft lead, the magnetic thrust bearing had to be moved all the way back towards the driver motor during this procedure. The target clearance to be achieved was the total addition of the 0.5mm thickness with half the clearance of the auxiliary thrust bronze bearings. The compressor inlet shroud is then mounted and bolted against the back plate. That crushed the lead pieces from its initial original thickness to a much smaller thickness. The crushed thickness represented what was the impeller axial tip clearance. The crushed lead piece can be measured using a vernier caliper. Four measurement location were selected mainly to obtain an overall average reading to set as a target to adjust the axial tip clearance or as the acceptable value if the desired clearance was achieved. Another usefulness of the four point location checks was to indicate any severe run out between the rotor and impeller assembly to the bore of the compressor casing. Any signicant deviations in the clearance readings between the four measured points need to be rechecked rst to determine any installation or assembly error that could cause this discrepancy prior to start up of this high speed compressor. Figure 3.11 illustrates the four locations for the lead pieces to be mounted on the impeller face nearer to the outer diameter of the impeller as that was the area which had been determined by Kobe Steel to ex during high speed rotation. The rst measurement of the impeller axial tip clearance was by using 2 mm thickness lead gage. However, when the shroud was removed, there was no indentation or crushing on these 2mm thickness gage at all. This indicated that the impeller tip clearance in this initial setup was much larger than 2mm. The author decided to repeat the measurement with 4 mm thickness gage. And these 4 mm lead thickness gage gave a surprising large average impeller tip clearance of 3.55mm. This was signicantly higher than the design value of 0.5 mm given by Kobe Steel and was considered a large clearance for high speed
61
Figure 3.11: Locations of 4 lead pieces on the impeller face compressors. A thorough review of all the axial clearances in the compressor assembly was performed and it was determined that the existing setup was not possible to reduce any amount of shims within the already designed compressor assembly to compensate another 3 mm of axial movement. Hence based on originally designed compressor rotor and shims, it was not able to allow the impeller to be relocated closer to the stationary shroud casing, which would then allow the impeller tip clearance to be reduced and closer to design value. In addition, a further conrmation that the originally designed rotor assembly within the test section requires correction was the observation of the the rubbing on the impeller back onto the back plate when the compressor is manually hand turned. This further conrms that the current designed rotor assembly in the compressor test sections requires an axial correction to move the impeller closer towards the stationary shroud and the originally designed rotor oat had not been accurately determined. Hence it was decided to fabricate correction spacers that would increase the forward sitting position of the impeller on the shaft and hence reduce the current large impeller tip clearance from 3.55 to as close to 0.5 mm as possible. The normal design of any spacer behind a impeller would preferably have the inner diameter of the spacer ring to be same as that of the shaft, such that the spacer ring will sit
62
Figure 3.12: Location of spacer ring behind the impeller rmly onto the shaft and does not potentially slip off during rotation. However, the unique polygon shape design of this impellers integral male shaft made it difcult to fabricate a spacer ring with a polygon inner diameter. Hence the author decided to make a spacer ring that had a much larger inner diameter ring than the polygon shaped impeller male shaft. This design was possible due to the fact that the spacer ring would be tightly clamped between the impeller back shoulder and the shaft collar shoulder. Hence if the impeller tightening bolt is tightened and bolt stretch to the recommended bolt torque value of 145Nm (107 ft-lb) , it would ensure that the whole impeller shaft assembly could spin to the design speed with the spacer ring held tightly in position. Figure 3.12 shows the location of the spacer ring and also the whole rotor impeller assembly mounted into the compressor casing with the magnetic bearings installed. An initial plain carbon steel ring of 2.55 mm thickness was made to be installed behind the impeller. This thickness was selected to reduce the impeller tip clearance from
63
the measured 3.55mm to 1 mm. A value of 1mm impeller tip clearance was selected as the initial clearance to be used for the mechanical test runs. This was 100% larger than the recommended design value of 0.5mm. Kobe Steel also recommended for all initial test run of compressors to be performed with larger clearance. This was to protect the machine and the initial test mechanical test runs to design speed was primarily to assess that the assembled compressor rig works mechanically well with all its installed supporting system and also all the instrumentation involved. Efciency was not considered a key parameter to be achieved at the rst complete test rig mechanical test run. In fact, Kobe Steel recommended to further increase the initial clearance to a total of 1.8 mm, by adding in all the bronze shims on the compressor shroud. This was mainly due to a computational uid dynamics study that they had performed on the impeller at a maximum design speed of 23000 rpm to evaluate the deection of the impeller blades due to centrifugal force. The study shows that the outer tip of the impeller on the outer diameter would deect inwards the most and hence can potentially rub on the stationary shroud if inadequate impeller tip clearance is provided as advised by Kobe Steel incorporated. The maximum deection predicted at the exit impeller tip is 0.2 mm, which is signicant as that is about 40% of the design impeller tip clearance of 0.5mm. Figure 3.13 is provided by Kobe Steel and illustrates the maximum deection of the impeller at its outer diameter region. Since the introduction of a ring may affect the unbalance response, a rotor dynamics model was rst created to evaluate the stability and unbalance response of the rotor with the addition of the spacer ring. This evaluation veried that the addition of the spacer ring would not alter the natural frequency of the rotor signicantly. An original rotor model created by Brown [4]was modied with a small mass included behind the impeller of the rotor in ROMACs rotordynamics code Rotstab. The model was then imported into Critspd 2, where the free free mode shape was veried against the actual ring test results performed by Sandagol [3]. Critspd 2 The general equation of motion for a rotor takes the following form:
64
Figure 3.13: Courtesy of Kobe Steel - Finite Element model showing deection of impeller
M x + (C + G)x + Kx = F
(3.3)
Where M is the global mass matrix, C is the global damping matrix, G is the gyroscopic contributions,K is the global stiffness matrix, is the shaft rotational speed, and the x, x, x are the displacement, velocity and acceleration vectors respectively. To ensure that the natural frequency predicted in the free free model matches closely to the actual ring test, the gyroscopic effect on the rotor model need not be included. This is because gyroscopic effects are a speed related damping contribution and will only be contributing when the shaft is rotating. In the case of a suspended rotor for ring test, there will be no gyroscopic or damping involved and neither will there be any form of applied force on the rotor. Hence the equation of motion simplies to the form:
M x + Kx = 0
(3.4)
The predicted 1st critical mode from the modied rotor model with the addition of the spacer ring matches closely to the ring test result. The predicted 1st mode of 684 Hz is
65
Figure 3.14: Rotstab rotor model with spacer ring added behind impeller very close to the 1st critical mode measured from the ring test at 691 Hz. The error is only about 1 percent. This comparison veried that the addition of the spacer ring would not lower the natural frequency signicantly. The rotor is veried to remain rigid even with the addition of the space ring and continue to operate with a minimum 40% safety margin when it is operating at its maximum design speed of 23000rpm. Because it is still rigid, no further rotor stability analysis is required as per API 617 [9]. A level 2 rotordynamics would not be required since the maximum continuous operating speed of 23000 rpm is below the predicted 1st critical speed. Figure 3.14 and Figure 3.15 shows the rotor model with the spacer ring and the free free rotor mode shape plots generated by Critical Speed 2.
3.5.2
Unbalance force analysis
The other concern with the spacer ring was the possibility of the spacer ring slipping while the compressor is in operation, especially at high speed of rotation. This could be due to unbalance force that are generated from unbalance caused by the spacer ring. This had to be evaluated carefully because unbalance force increases with the square of rotational speed and since the compressor is design to operate at a very high speed, the magnitude from any unbalance force could result in the slippage of the ring. The spacer ring is located axially between the compressor shaft shoulder and the back of the impeller. These three assemblies (rotor shoulder, spacer ring and back of impeller)
66
Figure 3.15: Free-free mode shape of rotor with space ring included
67
are stacked and tightened in place by a M14-6H TAP 2mm coarse threaded pitch bolt that goes through these three assemblies as shown in Figure 3.16. The bolt would need to be tightened by torquing it with a torque wrench to a required bolt torque of 115 ft-lb as per manufacturers specications. A worse case unbalance scenario was considered as evaluation, such that it would produce a large enough force to overcome the clamping force on the ring itself. To analyze the situation, a friction force analysis of a steel block on a dry steel table and subjected to both a normal force and a horizontal pushing force would represent the situation adequately [11],
Fu = F
(3.5)
The tightening force due from the bolt torque would be analogous to the normal force acting the steel block as illustrated in Figure 3.18. And the steel block is analogous to the spacer ring itself and the horizontal force would be represented by the unbalance force that would arise due to a assumed off-centered assembly of the steel spacer ring. If the spacer ring had its center of mass placed exactly and coincided with the axis of rotation of the compressor, there would not be any unbalance force and centrifugal force from the addition of the spacer ring [50]. However, in the actual assembly of the spacer ring behind the impeller, it is difcult to know exactly how much the two centers would be offset, hence some form of assumptions had to be made to start this frictional force analysis. The assumption would be that the maximum unbalance force that could be produced when the center of mass of the ring is off center would be when the ring center of mass had somehow been arbitrarily extremely offset to the outer radius of the spacer ring. Though this assumption cannot happen due to the physical limitations of the ring, from an analysis standpoint, it is a valid assumption as a worse case scenario. This is because if the friction analysis is able to show that the unbalance force from this assumed worse case is unable to overcome the normal force acting on the steel ring, then it is safe to conclude that any physical imperfect placement of
68
Figure 3.16: Schematic to illustrate force analysis on spacer ring of compressor the spacer ring behind the impeller would not produce any large enough unbalance force that could move the ring further away from its installed position due to centrifugal force when the compressor runs at its maximum speed. Figure 3.17 illustrates the cause of force analysis on the spacer ring and how the unbalance force may be generated due to an offset installed spacer ring. Figure 3.17 shows how the ring could be offset when looking at it from the impeller end towards the driver motor. The bolt torquing on the M14 bolt is 115 ft-lb (156 Nm). From Shigley [11], the clamping force can be calculated from the bolt torque:
T = kFd
(3.6)
where T is the torque applied on when tightening the bolt, k is the coefcient of collar friction at 0.2, F is the equivalent tightening force or normal force acting on the spacer ring and dis the nominal major diameter of the bolt at 0.014m. The tightening force F is calculated to be at 55715 N. And since all the material such as the spacer ring and compressor are made of steel and there is no lubricant between their mated faces, the coefcient of
69
Figure 3.17: Show an offset spacer ring could contribute to unbalance force
Figure 3.18: Frictional force analysis - analogous analysis to clamped spacer ring friction, , between two dry steel face would be 0.8 [7]. Hence the horizontal static force to start overcoming the normal force F and move the steel spacer ring would be 44517 N. Hence in the unbalance force analysis, the worse case unbalance force calculated should be less than this horizontal force of 44517 N calculated, so as to prove that the spacer ring would not have any possibility of slipping when tightened by a bolt that has been torque to 155 Nm. If the calculated unbalance force Fu due to an offset spacer ring is higher than this value, there is a possibility that the spacer ring may not be held tight enough and slippage may occur, especially at high speed. A more elaborate analysis would then be required to evaluate if the compressor is safe to run with the ring in place.
70
Assuming that the unbalance mass mu to be the full mass of the spacer ring at 0.019 Kg and that it had an assumed maximum eccentricity eu as the full radius of the spacer ring at 0.025 m, the unbalance force Fu can be calculated as per the following steady state unbalance force formula. The maximum speed of the compressor is 23000 rpm and hence would be 2408 rad/s. And because the assumption is that the whole mass of the spacer ring is displaced as a worse case unbalance scenario, mu is equal to the full mass m in this calculation.
Fu = mu eu 2
(3.7)
The unbalance force Fu calculated is 2754 N. This is much less than the calculated normal force F of 44571 N, which was derived from the bolt torquing formula earlier. Hence from this analysis, it showed that the applied torquing force of 155N was sufcient to hold the spacer ring in position without the danger of it slipping out even at its maximum design speed. From this analysis, it was concluded the compressor assembly was safe to operate into high speed with the addition of the spacer ring into the compressor rotor assembly.
3.6
Chiller for high speed motor
Brown [4]and Chiu [31]investigated the amount of heat that would be generated when the high speed motor runs at its maximum design speed of 23000 rpm. The motor was originally designed to produce motor power of 128 KW at 30000 rpm. However, because the compressor was only designed to run at 23000 rpm, the maximum power that would be required from the motor was 107 KW. Brown conducted a detailed thermal nite element analysis on a section of the motor stator to determine the amount of cooling water required be supplied to the motor cooling jacket in order to ensure the heat are removed efciently and does not damage the motor windings. His thermal studies showed that by providing
71
a cooling water ow at ambient temperature at a rate of 4 GPM would be sufcient to maintain the winding temperature of the motor at 95 degree Celsius when the motor is fully loaded at 107 KW at a speed of 23000 rpm. A cooling circuit or chiller skid had to be selected to provide the minimum required cooling water ow rates to the motor in order to ensure the motor runs reliably at high speed. An old chiller skid that had the suitable cooling capacity was salvaged and reused for this applications. The Dimplex HCV-1500 PR model air cooled chiller was removed from the old high speed spindle test rig and installed to provide a cooling water supply to the motor cooling jacket and cool the motor when it was in operation. The unit was a self contained chiller unit with its own cooling water reservoir, circulating pump and refrigerant compressor. The heat from the warm cooling water leaving the motor jacket would be removed by an induction fan that creates a air draft to cool the unit. The chiller is rated for a heat removal rate of 15000 BTU/hr and provide a cooling water ow rate of 10 GPM at 35 Psi water pressure. This was more than sufcient for the cooling requirement needs for the motor heat removal. Prior to circulating the cooling water to the motor, the motors cooling jacket was rst leaked check with compressed air. This was to ensure that there was no leak within the motor cooling jacket that could result in a water leak into the motor winding, which could result in potential serious damage to the motor. A 0-50 Psi pressure gage was installed at one opening of the cooling jacket, while air was introduced into the water jacket. The pressure in the gage was observed after several hours of keeping the cooling jacket pressurized with air at 40Psi. At the end of the 7 hours test, the air pressure dropped to 39.5 Psi. The slight drop in pressure was mainly due to slight leaks from the connection joints external to the motor and hence was determined as not a leak inside the motor cooling jacket. Finally the chiller was connected to the motor using two exible hoses. The motor rotor was removed to provide visual assess for any leaks within the motor cooling jacket. Cooling water from the chiller was allowed to circulate continuously around the motor
72
Figure 3.19: Air cool chiller skid for the high speed motor cooling jacket. After four hours of cooling water circulating run, no leaks were detected inside the motor casing. This concluded that the chiller operated well with the motor and there was no leak within the motor cooling jacket. The motor rotor was reinstalled to the motor housing. Figure 3.19 shows the setup of the chiller unit that is commissioned to cool the motor.
3.7
Precision Alignment
The motor was directly coupled to the compressor. Precision alignment had to be
performed between the two equipment to ensure a smooth and reliable coupled operation of the test rig. Face and rim method of alignment was selected to achieve the precision alignment between the motor and the compressor. The motor was the movable equipment during alignment while the compressor was the reference equipment. This was because the motor would be easier to be moved during alignment and also because the compressor had already been properly aligned to its suction piping and discharge piping, with minimal piping strain on the compressor casing. Rough alignment was rst performed between the
73
motor and the compressor. Shimming was rst performed on the compressor to allow it to be slightly higher than the motor vertically. This was followed by soft foot check on the four legs of the motor. The target for soft foot was less to be less than 2 mils in vertical rise of the leg, when the hold down bolt is loosened while the rest of the three bolts are still tightened. Soft foot check would ensure there is no excessive distortion to the motor casing when all the four hold down bolts are tightened. Finally the actual face and rim precision alignment was carried out between the motor and the compressor. This would ensure that the compressor runs reliably during testing. Procedure on how to perform precision alignment and installation of coupling is detailed in Appendix A.
3.8
Assembled compressor test rig
All the detail engineering works and improvements were performed to enhance the test rig. The nal assembled compressor test rig is shown in gure 3.20, gure 3.21 and gure 3.22. The test rig is located at the Aerospace Research Laboratory of University of Virginia.
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Figure 3.20: Inlet lter and exhaust for compressor test rig
Figure 3.21: Assembled compressor test rig for surge testing
75
Figure 3.22: Assembled compressor test rig for surge testing
Chapter 4 Testing and experimental results

4.1 Introduction
This chapter highlights the key experimental work performed on the test rig. The motor was tested by running it on its own (without the compressor coupled to it) to assess its running condition since it was the rst time to run it continuously. It was also checked for leakage within its stator while the circulating cooler was turned on. The motor performed very well and was coupled up the compressor. The compressor was operated to high speed and its characteristic curve were determined at various speeds. The compressor was tested into surge at high speed and observable dominant pressure frequencies and audible sound were detected at the surge points. The impeller tip clearance of the compressor was also statically adjusted while the compressor was in operation. The static impeller tip clearance adjustment showed inuence on the the characteristic curve, which supported the simulation results of Sanadgol.
76
CHAPTER 4. TESTING AND EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS Rpm 2000 3000 5000 7000 8000 10000 Motor Temperature (Celsius) 21 25 31 38 43 48 Amps 41 41 42 43 43 44 Vibration low low low low low low Abnormal sound normal normal normal normal normal normal
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Table 4.1: Results of motor solo run up to maximum speed of 10000 rpm
4.2
4.2.1
Commissioning
Motor solo run
The motor was initially ran on its own (solo run) to mechanically assess the upgraded hybrid bearings and the proper assembly of the motor. Motor winding temperature and the amperage of motor was taken during the solo run to assess its overall condition. The operating sound and vibration level was also assessed to gather a complete assessment of the solo run test. The motor was smoothly tested up to a speed of 10000 rpm and it ran well without any high temperature or abnormality observed. Table 4.1 is a record of the data obtained during the solo run.
4.2.2
Maximum speed testing and mechanical assessment of compressor
After the motor was tested safely on solo run up to 10000rpm, it was precision aligned to the compressor and the shim pack coupling installed between the motor and compressor. The coupled up compressor motor was evaluated to see if it could reach its maximum design speed of 23000 rpm. The objective of the test was to evaluate if the VFD was capable of supplying the required power to the compressor up to its design speed of 23000 rpm. It also served to evaluate the assembly and mechanical soundness of the test rig. It was the rst time the compressor and motor and all its supporting accessory such as the
CHAPTER 4. TESTING AND EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
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Figure 4.1: Motor amperage versus compressor speed curve chiller skids, VFD, piping and throttle valve were tested and operated at the same time. Motor amperage, motor winding temperatures, orbit plots of the compressor rotors, visual observation of the test rig were set up to help assess the conditions of the test rig during the test. The compressor was started up at very slow speed and its speed was gradually increased. At each step of speed increase, the health of the test rig was assessed to identify any abnormality that could occur. The throttle valve was kept fully throughout the test. The compressor was tested safely up to a maximum speed of 21000 rpm. However, as the speed was increased beyond 21000rpm, the VFD protection fuses were triggered and tripped the VFD. Two out of the three protection fuses were triggered. The fuses were replaced and the test was repeated. The VFD tripped on the second attempt as well. This indicated that the trip was a genuine trip protection from high amperage and not due to initially suspected deteriorated fuses that have been in the VFD for many years. From
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Figure 4.2: Overload protection card in variable frequency drive - damaged red diode the amperage date, it was found that the maximum rated amperage of the VFD was only 180 amps. However, this was exceeded at about 21000 rpm. The power required by the VFD increased exponentially as the speed of the compressor is increased. Figure 4.1 plots the amperage increase exponentially as the speed is increased. In addition, a protection card within the VFD was also found to have one of its protection diodes slightly damaged. Figure 4.2 shows the slight damage on the protection cards diode. The motor winding temperature recorded was also increasing rapidly as the speed increases, even with the chiller turned fully on. It reached about 100 degree Celsius (230 degree Fahrenheit). The maximum recommended winding temperature was 120 degree Celsius. Therefore, base on the limitations found on the VFD maximum amperage, the high winding temperature and the slightly damaged diode on the VFD, it was decided to test the compressor test rig at lower speeds below its intended design of 23000 rpm. This decision was made because the VFD model was already obsolete and it would extremely difcult to purchase spare parts or repair it if it was damaged. The cost to replace to a new VFD at this stage of the project was not justied. Hence the decision was made to rst test the
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compressor test rig into surge at lower speeds and develop a surge controller to suppress surge at a lower speed. If the surge controller proved to work successfully at lower speed, decisions could be made at a later stage to justify the upgrade to a better VFD to test it to its design speed of 23000 rpm. Besides testing to maximum speed, the compressor vibration orbital plots were also evaluated at each testing speed to verify the mechanical soundness of the compressor. From the results, it was concluded that the compressor had been installed properly and no mechanical abnormality was detected within the compressor. The orbital plots are generated from the variable reluctance radial sensors mounted to measure the rotor position at each of the radial bearing location. Figure 4.3 and Figure 4.4 shows the orbital plot at 10000rpm at two different valve opening position. From the orbital plot, it can seen clearly that the shaft center line is maintained well within approximately 1 mil inside of the the stationary back up bearing clearances (Depicted by the blue circle). Similarly, Figure 4.5 and Figure 4.6 also shows that the shaft center line is maintained well within the stationary backup clearances. Hence from the orbital plot, it was concluded that the shaft is rotating very concentric within the compressor and all the mechanical assembly and bearing clearances set during installation had been performed properly. The orbital plot also showed that the bearing controller was capable of maintaining the shaft center line central at both lower speed of 10000 rpm and higher speed of 17000 rpm.
4.3
4.3.1
Characteristic curve and instability identication

Characteristic curve
Upon successful determination of the power limitation for the test rig and vibration analysis assessment of the compressor, the next phase of the testing was to rst determine the characteristic curve and then the surge point or unstable point for the compressor at different operating speed as the system resistance in the compression system is increased
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Figure 4.3: Orbital plots for impeller end and motor end of compressor rotor at 10000rpm at full ow(Throttle valve is 100% open)
Figure 4.4: Orbital plots for impeller end and motor end of compressor rotor at 10000rpm at minimum ow (Throttle valve is 31% open)
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Figure 4.5: Orbital plots for impeller end and motor end of Compressor Rotor at 17000rpm at full ow(Throttle valve is 100% open)
Figure 4.6: Orbital plots for impeller end and motor end of compressor rotor at 17000rpm at minimum ow (Throttle valve is 31% open)
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by closing the throttle valve. According to [1], surge was commonly and easily detected by an audible change in sound level near the compressor, as the throttle valve is closed. The pulsating sound during surge was typically low frequency, ranging typically from 0-25 Hz. And the surge point was typically taken as the rst indication of sound and pressure discharge pressure bouncing [23]. Surge testing in this test rig was started at a relatively low speed of 6000 rpm. The low speed test served as an initial testing speed to validate the developed testing procedures to operate the compressor into instability and to verify all the parameters recorded from the pressure sensors, pressure and ow were providing good sensible results. As the throttle valve was closed, the compressor discharge pressure continued to rise as the ow reduces. At around low valve opening of around 30%g, an audible low frequency sound was heard coming from the compressor. At the initiation of this audible sound, pressure in the inlet, discharge plenum and even in the compressor casings were observed to be bouncing or uctuating. The valve position at which this occurred was recorded and data recorded. The valve was opened upon completion record of data and brought the compressor back to a higher stable ow condition. This was to prevent unnecessary damage that could occur on the compressor during such test. The same procedure was repeated at increasing speed of 10,000rpm, 12,000 rpm, 14,000 rpm, 16,000 rpm and 17,000 rpm to investigate the effect of the instability observed with increasing speed. The test procedure developed and applied can be found in Appendix F. Figure 4.7 shows the various characteristic curve at different speeds. This is to ensure consistency in comparison of the results. The impeller tip clearance during the test is at the designed clearance of 23 mils (0.6 mm), which is very close to the Kobe Steel intended design clearance of 0.5 mm. Figure 4.7 shows that as the speed increases, the characteristic curves would shift upwards accordingly. This is expected for a centrifugal compressor running at different speeds. At each speed, the throttle valve was closed to a point where an audible sound change was heard and pressure uctuation was observed in all the pressure sensors, ow meter and
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Figure 4.7: Characteristic curve at different operating speed (Impeller tip clearance at 23 mils) even in the proximity probes signals. This point was marked as the start or initiation of instability in the compressor. Each point on the left of each curve represents this condition. This was commonly recorded as the instability point in the compressor curve [23] as shown by the blue line in the plot. The red dotted line is included to highlight that the sound changes had been observed at times to occur between the two different valve openings.
4.3.2
Uncertainty analysis
Uncertainty analysis was performed on the pressure and ow data collected from the test rig to generate the characteristic curve for the test rig. The pressure data were read with the Kulite pressure sensors. The ow data was also derived mainly from the differential pressure Kulite sensors at the orice ow meter. Both data sets are collected by Labview software. This analysis basically aims to evaluate amount of error that are contributed from the sensors and software used in the data collection. As dened by Goyne, Coleman and
85
Steele, [53, 52, 51], error in the data is dened as the difference between an experimentally determined value and the true value of the experiments. As the error is typically estimated, it is called uncertainty and takes the symbol,
r
. Uncertainty estimate are made at some
condence level, typically at a 95% condence estimate. This would mean that the true value of the quantity measured is expected to be within the of a 100 times that the quantity is experimentally determined. The total error consist of two components [52]. The precision or random error (Pr ) contributes to the scatter of the data and is closely related to the sample size. The bias or systematic error (Br ) is generally related to errors that would be generated within the test system or sensors used E.g. kulite sensors on the test rig. These could be from the sensors or even the softwares used to compile the collected data. Total uncertainly
r r
interval for 95 times out
is given by:
2 r
= B2 + Pr2 r
(4.1)
Pr is further related to m which is the sample size, Sr which is the standard deviation of the sample. And t could be approximated to 2 if the sample size m is larger than 10 [53, 52]. Therefore the total uncertainty equation becomes: tS r m
2
2 r
= B2 + r
(4.2)
For this analysis, the sample size m was 1300 samples at each data point. The Br was contributed mainly from errors from the kulite pressure sensors and the labview software errors. The estimated error in each was obtained from the sensors and software manufacturer respectively. Analysis was performed at the most frequently tested operating speed of 16292 rpm. The uncertainty determined for the ow measurement data was 1% and the uncertainty determined for the pressure measurement would be 0.15%. These errors estimated are very small and the measurement equipment are concluded to be accurate. Figure 4.8 shows the plot with the scattered data for the two speeds. Each point has 1300
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Figure 4.8: Plot at 16292 rpm to characteristic curve with error bar sample points and notice the data scatter would be small.
4.3.3
Analysis of surge observations
The instability point encountered was further analyzed to determine the type of instability observed on the test rig - whether it could be characterized as a mild surge, classic surge, deep surge or modied surge or even stall. Such an analysis provided better understanding of the characteristics of the instability of this test rig and served as a reference for the design of the future active surge controller. The pressure proles in three locations on the compressor were rst recorded as the throttle valve was closed progressively. Upon rst detection of an audible sound change, pressure and ow data were recorded. The throttle valve was closed further beyond the rst detection low frequency sound. This was mainly to experimentally investigate if the unstable behavior would change and what the change
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may be. Finally the instability test was repeated at different speeds to verify if they are speed dependent or not. Figure 4.9 shows how the pressure changed in the inlet of the compressor, the pressure inside the compressor casing and the pressure in the discharge plenum as the throttle valve was closed. The plot shows the respective pressure plotted versus time. As observed, as the throttle valve was closed, the pressure prole started to uctuate as indicated by the red line. An audible low frequency sound could also be heard distinctly from the compressor at this point. And the pressure prole in all three locations started to uctuate with a frequency of approximately 21 Hz. In this case, this corresponded to 28% valve open position. When the throttle valve is closed further to 27% and even 26%, the pressure prole uctuating frequency started to change to a dominant 7 Hz and noticeably higher pressure amplitudes uctuations, especially noticeable in the discharge plenum. This interesting phenomena was observed in all three locations on the compressor test rig. Figure 4.14 is a water fall plot that plots the discharge pressure, frequency and ow rate on the same plot to illustrate the change in frequency as the throttle valve is closed. As can be observed from the plot, the sound heard corresponded to the start of the 21 Hz frequency. As the throttle valve was closed further, the dominant frequency of pressure oscillations shifts to 7 Hz. Reviewing closer at the magnied pressure prole plots as shown in Figure 4.10 and Figure 4.11, it was clearly observed that the 21 Hz and 7 Hz were related to pressure uctuations. Figure 4.10 shows the pressure prole plotted over a 1 second cycle at throttle valve opening of 28%. There would be 21 peaks over a 1 second period. The same can be shown in Figure 4.11 as the throttle valve was closed further to an opening of only 26%. The pressure prole now changed to a lower frequency of 7 Hz and it was related to seven pressure prole peaks over a 1 second period, with much larger pressure amplitudes uctuations. The compressor running sound was also observed to change to a deeper lower frequency pulsation sound that corresponded to the shift from 21 Hz to 7 Hz. The radial and axial positions of the shaft were recorded and compared between nor-
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Figure 4.9: Pressure prole uctuations at compressor discharge plenum, compressor casing and compressor inlet at 16000 rpm
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Figure 4.10: Magnied pressure prole plots at discharge plenum, casing and inlet at the initiations of instability at 16000 rpm - showing 21 pressure peaks
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Figure 4.11: Magnied pressure prole plots at discharge plenum, casing, inlet at instability at 16000 rpm - showing 7 pressure peaks
CHAPTER 4. TESTING AND EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS Operation descriptions Stable operation Occurrence of 21 Hz (Sound) Occurrence of 7 Hz % of axial position movement 0.8 1% 16%
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Table 4.2: Comparison of amount of axial position uctuations at 16000 rpm mal stable operation, at the occurrence and 21 Hz and the occurrence of 7 Hz at 16000rpm. During stable operation, both radial and axial positions were very stable, with less than 0.8% of uctuations in positions. At the detection of 21 Hz pressure uctuations, both radial and axial positions uctuated around 21 Hz and the uctuations were also very low around 1%. The highest axial position uctuations was observed when the 7 Hz pressure uctuations was reached. The axial positions uctuated by approximately 16% of the impeller tip clearance. The radial positions also uctuated at the same frequency but with a much lower amplitudes. Table 4.2 summarizes the comparison for the axial position uctuations at 16000 rpm. This comparison concluded that the axial positions of the compressor was well maintained by the magnetic bearings controllers. The uctuations of the axial positions at 7 Hz was concluded to be the result of the pressure uctuations within the compression system which directly vibrated the impeller and shaft axially. Experimental tests were also carried out at three different speeds to evaluate the effect on speed change on the observed dominant frequencies of 21 Hz and 7 Hz. The three chosen speeds were 10000 rpm, 15000 rpm and 16000 rpm. Figure 4.12 shows the result at 10000 rpm, Figure 4.13 showed the results at 15000 rpm and Figure 4.14 showed the waterfall plot results at 16000 rpm. As can be observed by comparing the three water fall plots, as the valve is slowly closed, a dominant frequency of 21 Hz occurred rst. In all the three plots, as the valve was closed further from the detection of 21 Hz, the dominant frequency shifted in all three plots from the observed 21 Hz to dominant 7 Hz frequency range. This comparison showed that the dominant frequency were not related to speed. It appeared to be occurring repetitively at almost the same frequency at different speed of operation. This comparison supported that the detected dominant frequencies of 21 Hz
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Figure 4.12: Waterfall plot to show dominant frequency change as throttle valve is closed 10000 rpm and 7 Hz is related to some form of inherent natural frequencies within the test rig. (e.g, Resonance).
4.3.4
Discussions
The 21 Hz frequency observed in all the three different speeds occurred with a distinct audible low frequency sound from the compressor, and pressure measurement started to uctuate when that point was reached. The observed 21 Hz was also near the Helmholtz resonance frequency estimated for this compression system as outlined in Chapter 3. The Helmholtz frequency estimated for this smallest discharge plenum congurations at which the testing was done was estimated to be between 10.54 Hz to 19.167 Hz as outlined in Chapter 3. These three observations on sound, pressure uctuations and Helmholtz frequency strongly suggested that the 21 Hz was what is commonly known as mild surge [20, 15, 6, 30] as it also coincided with the starting of the sound change. The 21 Hz appear-
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Figure 4.13: Waterfall plot to show dominant frequency change as throttle valve is closed 15000 rpm
Figure 4.14: Waterfall plot to show dominant frequency change as throttle valve is closed 16000 rpm
94
ance always occurred with sound change from the compressor, even at different operating speed. It was not a stall phenomena because stall would typically be related to speed and hence would track with speed change [46]. And if stall cells were formed, it is typically that ow has to be increased signicantly in the compression system by opening up the throttle valve quite signicantly in order to ush or wash out the stall cells that has formed either in the impeller or diffuser section. At times, the compression system would also had to be shut down in order to eliminate the stall cells formed[46]. In this test rig, the instability frequency of 21 Hz immediately disappeared when the throttle valve was reopened slightly to allow a slight increase in ow through the compression system. Based on these observations, it did not support that the 21 Hz was a stall phenomena. It was concluded to be mild surge and mild surge would not result in reversal of ow in the compression system [44]. The observed shifting from 21 Hz to 7 Hz as the throttle valve was closed further seemed to indicate a change in the instability phenomena. As outlined in the literature review in Chapter 2, there are typical characteristics known as deep surge, classic surge and mild surge. Though at 7 Hz, the pressure uctuation amplitudes seemed much more as compared to 21 Hz, it was not classied as a deep surge. This was because if the pressure prole was observed more closely for the 7 Hz as shown in Figure 4.11, the oscillations was very sinusoidal and repetitive. From the literature review in Chapter 2, deep surge characteristic is a non linear or non sinusoidal when its pressure oscillations was observed. Based on this comparison, it does not support that the 7 Hz frequency could be classied as a deep surge. Moreover, deep surge required a large discharge plenum volume to occur. In this current congurations, the discharge plenum is very small as the discharge throttle valve is very close the compressor outlet. Finally, a deep surge occurrence could bring about a reduction in speed as ow reversal is always accompanied with deep surge. This was also not observed in the compressor test rig when the 7 Hz occurred. One possible phenomenon to characterize the 7 Hz could be what was known as a
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classic surge. Willems [15] found that classic surge typically occurs at frequencies between deep surge and mild surge. Classic surge also comes with a larger pressure oscillations and no ow reversal [20]. Based on these literatures and comparing the phenomena observed, it could be summarized that the 21 Hz is like a resonance of the system and is commonly known as a mild surge. The 7 Hz that occurred with lower oscillations frequency and larger pressure amplitudes matched to the observations of classic surge.
4.4
Effect of impeller tip clearance
Having established how to detect and observe surge on the compressor, the next experiment conducted was to evaluate the effect of axial movement of the thrust disk on the surge point. The magnetic thrust bearing was used to statically move the impeller either forward or backward from its initial clearance to change its axial clearance while the compressor was in operation. The speed was kept constant during the experiment. Such an experiment served as a static evaluation on the effect of axial impeller tip clearance change on the compressor characteristic curve and evaluate how the results support Sanadgols simulation results. The capability of the test rig to be able to change its impeller tip clearance while the compressor was running, would be the rst of its kind experiment based on the literature review done in Chapter 2. Two readings were used to determine how much is the impeller tip clearance after thrust disk was moved. The rst reading would be the axial movement of the shaft, measured by 2 inductive position sensors (SKF CMSS 65 button style position sensors). These sensors are not located at the impeller or shroud wall. Instead they are located near the thrust bearing location to read a raised shoulder on the shaft, which serves at target for these axial sensors. The magnetic thrust bearing was controlled to move the shaft axially during test runs. This was achieved by changing the axial position of the shaft thrust disk. The desired axial position moved is measured by these two calibrated SKF sensors.
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The second reading was the preset static clearance between the impeller and its stationary shroud wall by shims. This static clearance was set when the compressor was being assembled. The design static clearance recommended by Kobe was 20 mils (0.5 mm). The achieved static clearance in the test rig was at 23 mils (0.6mm). The thrust disk of the shaft was set at its neutral position when this static impeller tip clearance was set. Therefore, if the shaft is moved axially via the thrust magnetic bearings, the difference in the axial movement (1st Reading) and the set static clearance (2nd Reading) would determine the new impeller tip clearance. Example: Shaft is controlled to move forward by 6 mils. So if 23 mils - 6 mils = 17 mils. The impeller tip clearance is now at 17 mils. The amount of movement that the magnetic thrust disk could be moved either way is determined by the auxiliary bearings clearance. The thrust clearance set on this test rig for the auxiliary thrust bearing is total 20 mils, which is therefore 10 mils clearance on each side of the thrust bearing. The effect of static impeller tip adjustment on the compressor characteristic curve was tested near the intended impeller tip design clearance of 23 mils. The experimental results from the testing was compared to simulation results by Sanadgols at the design clearance of 20 mils at 23000 rpm. The experimental tests were conducted at two different xed speeds of 14900 rpm and 16287 rpm. At each of the test speeds, three impeller tip clearances were set by the magnetic thrust bearing and the characteristic curve plotted from the data recorded. The three impeller tip clearances used were 17 mils (tightest clearance), 23 mils (normal clearance) and 29 mils (large clearance) at each speed. Once the impeller tip clearance was adjusted statically, it remained constant throughout the test as the throttle valve was closed and data recorded. Figure 4.16 and Figure 4.17 shows the results of the experiments. As can be observed from the plot, the effect of changing the impeller tip clearance shifted the compressor characteristic curve as predicted by Sanadgols results. The shift was most apparent when comparing the +6 mil (17 mils impeller tip clearance) and the -6
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Figure 4.15: Sanadgols simulated result to show inuence on characteristic curve with impeller clearance adjustment [3] mil (29 mil impeller tip clearance), where the characteristic curve was observed to shift signicantly in both the plots. The shifting in characteristic curve was not so signicant at high ow, but as the ow was reduced, the separation between the curves became very apparent. Such a behavior was also captured in the simulation results of Sanadgol as shown in Figure 4.15. The pressure ratio increase from by decreasing the impeller tip clearance was observed in both gure 4.16 and gure 4.17. The incremental amount of pressure ratio is similar to those predicted in Sanadgols simulation results. The experimental observations and comparisons showed that axial tip clearance did had an effect on the characteristic curve and it also showed that if the thrust disk was able to move dynamically under the control of a surge controller, it would be able to inuence
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Figure 4.16: Characteristic curve at 14900 rpm when thrust disk is statically moved in the axial direction the characteristic curve and surge point on the compressor. The results also showed in both tests that the inuence on the pressure ratio and surge points were highest at the +6 mil and -6 mils position from the initial 23 mil. The effect of dynamically changing the impeller tip clearance to mitigate surge is recommended to be further investigated to observe its dynamic effect on the characteristic curve. Based on this experiment of static changing the impeller tip clearance, it demonstrated the required change in surge points and characteristic curve of the compressor. This static test data supports Sanadgols concept to have a controller to mitigate surge by changing the axial impeller tip clearance of the compressor.
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Figure 4.17: Characteristic curve at 16287 rpm when thrust disk is statically moved in the axial direction
Chapter 5 Conclusions
5.1 Conclusions
To validate the simulation results and demonstrate the effectiveness of the active surge control philosophy using magnetic bearings put forth by Sanadgol [3], a fully functional and operational high speed centrifugal compressor test rig was required for surge testing and experimental work. To achieve such a test rig and carry out surge testing on it safely required the following: Knowledge of various centrifugal compressor instability characteristics in order to develop testing plans for this test rig, mechanical components engineering analysis and upgrades, and experimental testing to evaluate the health of the commissioned machine and identifying the surge behavior on this test rig. This thesis described the characteristics of different forms of compressor instability, mainly mild surge, deep surge and stall. In addition, review of recent surge study work performed by other researchers was also reviewed to conclude on the uniqueness of this test rig. Extensive detailed engineering analysis work was carried out on the test rig to decide on the best engineering solutions and upgrades to be performed on the test rig. These included the upgrade of the motor rolling element bearings to hybrid grease sealed bearings, performing a nite element modal analysis on the piping supports to show that
100
CHAPTER 5. CONCLUSIONS
101
the supports natural frequency did not coincide with the estimated known mild surge frequency that could be generated from the compressor and also performing a rotordynamics and unbalance force analysis that concluded the addition of the axial spacer ring behind the impeller still allowed the compressor to operate smoothly and safely at high speed. Supporting mechanical accessories were selected and implemented to ensure the test rig operated effectively. These included the closed loop chiller unit to cool the high speed motor, the inlet lter selection and orice ow meter selection and installation. The compressor and motor were precision aligned and initial testing were carried out on the fully assembled compressor test rig. One of the draw backs identied from the testing was that the variable frequency drive (VFD) that was controlling the motor speed did not have the sufcient power to allow operation of the compressor to its design high speed of 23,000 rpm. The protection fuses on the VFD tripped and these fuses were rated to allow only 19,000 maximum operating speed. It was concluded the maximum recommended speed to operate the compressor would be 17,000 rpm with the current setup. Orbital plots on both the radial magnetic bearings were reviewed to conclude that the mechanical assembly of the compressor and motor was well assembled and well aligned. The orbits were very small and no abnormal frequencies were detected in the Fast Fourier Analysis of the radial probes vibration signature. Experimental testing was performed at various speeds to develop the compressor characteristic curve. An uncertainty analysis was performed on the data collected and it showed that the uncertainty was minimal in the test data collected. The start of the instability point at each speed was determined by an audible low frequency sound change from the compressor when the throttle valve was progressively closed from full open. Pressure uctuations were noticed to coincide with the occurrence of the sound change. Based on the literature review and Helmholtz frequency estimation, the sound change was concluded as that of a mild surge. The frequency was 21 Hz and it remained constant even as the compressor speed was changed. As outlined in the literature, mild surge is related to the
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Helmholtz resonance frequency. Further closing of the throttle valve from the 21 Hz detection point resulted in larger pressure uctuations at the inlet, casing and discharge plenum of the compressor. The 21 Hz frequency would move to approximately 7 Hz and had much larger amplitude of oscillations. The 7 Hz observed was not concluded to be a deep surge frequency based on the small discharge plenum volume used in the testing and also the oscillations were very sinusoidal and linear. This was not the same observations as seen in the literature that deep surge was typically non linear and had non-sinusoidal pressure oscillations behavior. Finally experimental testing was carried out to evaluate the effect of static adjustment of the impeller tip clearance using both shims and the magnetic thrust bearing. The impeller tip clearance was set to a tight clearance of 23 mils to perform the static actuation testing using the magnetic thrust bearings. The test results showed that the the compressor test rig was sensitive to tip clearance changes. The change in tip clearance the shifted the compressor characteristic curve accordingly. The highest pressure ratio was achieved with the tightest impeller tip clearance to the scroll at 23 mils. The magnetic thrust bearing successfully demonstrated it was able to move the thrust disk forward and backward without any mechanical rubs or abnormality, while the compressor was in operation. The closest clearance achieved was 17 mils. It was observed that the static adjustment of the impeller tip clearance between the 17 mils and 29 mils produced the largest change in pressure ratio developed. This would suggest that in the future dynamic actuation of the magnetic thrust bearing, the actuation may need to oscillate between a large enough delta clearance of around 12 mils to effectively stabilize surge. Based on this, more testing would be required for dynamic testing of the magnetic thrust disk actuation and its dynamic effect on the compressor performance and surge points. It was concluded from these static movement test that the small change in impeller tip clearance would inuence the characteristic curve. These tests showed that changes in impeller tip clearance would inuence the compressor performance curve and the amount of shift in characteristic curve is the same as those pre-
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dicted by Sanadgols simulation results. These comparisons and observations supported Sanadgols simulation results and her mathematical model of the compression system was an accurate model.
5.2
Implications
Having a running test rig and knowing what parameters to observe at the onset of surge serves as a reference point for the surge controller that is to be be implemented eventually on this test rig. Both of these were achieved in this thesis, as outlined in chapter 3 and 4. As explained in Chapter 4, the start of instability on the test rig always occured concurrently with an audible change in the compressor sound and uctuations in the the pressure at the inlet, casing and discharge plenum. This observation was a useful reference as it allows future researchers to implement a active surge controller and validate if the addition of the surge controller would help to operate the compressor smoothly over the previously determined instability point, compared to when the surge controller was not implemented. Knowing how to detect surge on this test rig would also help to determine how much of an improvement was made in terms of ow and discharge pressure stabilization when the surge controller is implemented. These comparisons provided invaluable test data and shed more light on the effectiveness of the implemented surge controller and what types of ne tuning could be required. The test rig also provided a means to test the robustness of the future surge controller. Its throttle valve position could be changed and hence would vary the discharge plenum volume. As illustrated by Tamaki [39], changes in the discharge plenum volume would certainly change the surge line on the compressor characteristic curve. The 3 different discharge throttle valve position (or 3 different discharge plenum) would be useful in assessing the exibility and testing the robustness of the surge controller implemented. This test rig is a rst of its kind based on the literature review performed in Chapter 2. It is the only known industrial size centrifugal compressor rig to date that is high
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speed, fully supported on radial and thrust magnetic bearings, has varying throttle valve positions as a parameter to vary discharge plenum volume and an active control philosophy and simulation results which shows the promising approach to to stabilize surge using axial modulation of the impeller tip clearance. The experimental results that would be obtained and measured on this test rig would certainly generate an immense interest within the compressor surge study community due to its originality. And the results could even potentially elevate application advantage of magnetic bearings to a next level once the surge control is proven to be successfully implemented and operating. If that was achieved, magnetic bearings would not only be known for its advantage of frictionless support of rotating rotors, but it would also be known that it could also be used for stabilizing instability in centrifugal compressors through active magnetic bearing controls.
5.3
Recommendations for future work
The following recommendations serve to enhance the compressor test rig further and provide considerations for future research work. These are based on observations made during the experimental work with the test rig. A detailed feasibility study is still recommended to be carried out by future researchers prior to implementation of these recommendations.
5.3.1
Develop surge controller
The onset of instability at the current smallest discharge plenum volume congurations for the compressor test rig has now been proven to be detected safely. At this stage, it is recommended to design and develop a surge controller that would be aimed at stabilizing surge at this smallest congurations rst. This is because the current surge is still very mild and allows repeated testing of the compressor without any ow reversals into the compressor. No potential damage is expected to the compressor during this testing and it serves as a safe testing zone for the initial surge controller. The test rig is also provided
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with 3 discharge throttle valve positions and hence would give 3 different discharge plenum volume. The current throttle valve position is placed nearest to the compressor discharge, and hence limit the discharge plenum volume to the smallest volume of the three volumes available for testing. It was purposely started at this smallest plenum congurations to limit the instability intensity as the compressor is brought into surge. A surge controller is highly recommended to be rst developed and tested on its effectiveness for this smallest plenum volume setup initially. However, once the controller proves to be capable to stabilize surge as per the simulation results from Sanadgol, it is then recommended to alternate the throttle valve position and veried if the surge controller still works at alternate valve position. This progressive approach in experimental investigation is recommended as the test rig currently do not have any spares for its magnetic bearings, impeller, rotors and couplings, therefore it is not recommended to test it into deeper surge with the higher plenum volume as observed by many researchers [42, 39]. It is recommended to test the compressor into deeper surge with the larger discharge plenum volumes once a eld tested surge controller is available.
5.3.2
Speed tachometer
Currently the speed indication of the compressor test read is based on the input to the VFD, and not an actual speed reading coming from the compressor itself. It is recommended to obtain actual speed indication by using an optical speed tachometer. The optical tachometer would reads at the shaft of the motor or compressor at the coupling end. Having the actual speed would also serve as a parameter to monitor, especially when the test rig is brought into deep surge, since speed reduction could occur when the deep surge would occur.
5.3.3
Accelerometers
Accelerometers are recommended to be installed onto the motor. The current motor monitoring available is only by amperage and temperatures of the stator coil. Having
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accelerometers installed on the motor would help in the health monitoring of the motors during test run. The vibration data obtained could also be used to detect for any developing bearing faults. The accelerometers are recommended to be installed at the drive end and non-drive end of the motor. At each end of measurement, it is ideal to have accelerometers mounted in the vertical and horizontal position. However, if space is a considerations, mounting in the horizontal direction would be given priority over vertical.
5.3.4
Acoustic measurement for surge detection
Acoustic measurement is recommended to be implemented onto the test rig. The acoustic wave measurement data could be helpful in detecting surge and providing real time data collection possible, based on acoustic data. Highlights on the use of acoustic data measurement as a form of surge detection were suggested by industrial partners of ROMAC during the 2009 Romac conference.
5.3.5
Additional pressure tappings in scroll
It is recommended to consider drilling and providing more pressure sensing points in the scroll, in addition to the twelve pressure sensors already provided. The additional holes are recommended to be drilled at a section on the scroll directly opposite to the existing pressure sensing points on the scroll. These additional pressure measurement points could allow visualization of how the pressure change within the scroll during surge and verify if the pressure prole is uniform within the scroll during the occurrence of surge.
5.3.6
Vaned diffusers
Currently the compressor is tted with a vane less diffuser and the compressor. The test rig could be tted with a vaned diffuser and that would allow a new characteristic curve to be obtained for the test rig. Adding vaned diffuser commonly increases the efciency
107
of the compressor and would also result in changes to the surge point on the compressor characteristic curve [55]. A comparative study could be performed on the effectiveness of the surge controller and this control philosophy on both a vaned and vaneless diffuser centrifugal compressor.
5.3.7
Bearing force measurement
Bearing force measurement can be performed using existing thrust bearings and evaluate the forces encountered during surge. Further calibration of the magnetic thrust bearing may be required to ensure force data obtained is close to empirical data that could be calculated based on force balance between the impeller.
5.3.8
New variable speed drive
The existing variable frequency drive (VFD) is limited on its power to allow the compressor to run smoothly up to its maximum design speed of 23000 rpm. This is because the three protection fuses in it are each rated up to a maximum allowable current at 180 Amps. Based on the high speed test performed for this compressor in its current setup, the maximum speed achieved was 20000 rpm at 180 amps with the throttle valve fully open. It was not possible to increase speed further as there is a high risk of tripping on the VFD fuses and damaging the diodes on the protection card in the VFD. Higher rotational speed is desired because as Tamaki [39] demonstrated, higher rotational speed resulted in deeper surge. In addition, this VFD design and brand is already obsolete. It is difcult to purchase spare parts or receive technical supports for this VFD model. Therefore it is recommended to consider in the future, to upgrade to a new VFD that would be capable to provide the required amperage to run this compressor to its higher design speed of 23000 rpm and one that has spare parts available.
108
5.3.9
Hole pattern seals
The compressor test rig currently uses a labyrinth seal to keep the compressed air within its volute casing and minimize compressed air leakage to the atmospheric side. The existing labyrinth seal is a bolted piece inside the compressor back plate and consist of twelve circumferential teeth on the inner diameter of the labyrinth seal stator, over an overall axial length of 41 mm (1.61 inch). It could be possible to replace the existing labyrinth seal with a new seal that has the exact overall dimensions, but instead of having labyrinth teeth as seals, it has hole pattern seal design that Rotating Machinery and Controls Laboratory has been researching over the past years as part of seal coefcients research program. The back plate could have pressure holes drilled in them to allow pressure sensors to measure the pressure within the hole seals. Pressure tappings would have to be made in the middle span of the proposed hole seals to measure the intermediate pressure drop. The experimental pressure data measured could be used as validation results to for the computational ow studies performed on these hole pattern seal design [54].
5.3.10
Spare parts
It has taken alot of effort to develop the test rig to what it is currently and ensuring it would run reliably. However, currently it is running without many spare parts and hence there is always alot of concern when the compressor is tested into its instability region. Spare parts for this running test rig would provide protection against unexpected failures that could happen during testing or running of the rig. Though having a catastrophic failure is unlikely on this intermittently running test rig, the occurrence of one failure could delay the testing schedule on the test rig for extended period. As a minimum, it is recommended that the Thomas coupling be purchased as a spare parts for the test rig. The other critical spare to be obtained should be the VFD protection card that was observed to have slight damage in Figure 4.2 in Chapter 4. The existing test rig already has spare hybrid deep groove ball bearings as spares.
Bibliography
[1] Paul C. Hanlon. Compressor Handbook. 2001. ISBN 0-07-026005-2. [2] Wehrman Joseph, Walder E. Thomas, Haryett J.Nichols. The use of integrally geared compressors based on 2 industrial gas companies experience. Proceedings of the thirty second turbomachinery symposium 2003 [3] Dorsa Sanadgol. Active control of surge in centrifugal compressor, Doctor of Philosophy Thesis. Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, University of Virginia, 2006. [4] Brown, Nathan. High-speed Compressor Facility - Electromechanical Design, Masters Thesis, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, University of Virginia, 2005. [5] Buskirk Eric, Maslen Eric. Improving magnetic actuator force accuracy by reducing the effects of magnetic hysteresis. Masters Thesis, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, University of Virginia, Nov 2007. [6] Corina J Meuleman. Measurement and unsteady ow modeling of centrifugal compressor surge, Doctor of Philosophy Thesis. Eindhoven, Technische Universiteit Eindhoven, 2002. ISBN 90-386-2564-2 [7] Machinerys Handbook 25. Twenty-Fifth Edition. Industrial Press Inc.New York. 1996. 109
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[8] API 610, Centrifugal pumps for petroleum, petrochemical and natural gas industries. Tenth edition, October 2004, American Petroleum Institute, Washington, D.C. [9] API 617, Axial and centrifugal compressors and expander-compressors for petroleum, chemicals and gas industry services. Seventh edition, July 2002, American Petroleum Institute, Washington, D.C. [10] API 671, Special coupling for Petroleum, Chemical, Gas industry services. Third edition, October 1998, American Petroleum Institute, Washington, D.C. [11] Richard G. Budynas and J.Keith Nisbett. Shigleys Mechanical Engineering Design. Eighth edition in SI units. [12] Jan Tommy Gravdahl and Olav Egeland. Centrifugal compressor surge and speed control. IEEE transactions on Controls Systems Technology, Vol.7, No. 5, September 1999. [13] Robert L.Mott. Machine elements in mechanical design. Second edition 1992. ISBN 0-675-22289-3. [14] Thomassen compression systems and Thomassen service far east centrifugal compressors. General trainings course 2004. Singapore. [15] William C. Oakes and John R.Fagan and Sanford Fleeter. High speed centrifugal compressor surge intiation characterization. American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. March 2002. [16] Robert C. White and Rainer Kurz. Surge avoidance for compressor systems. Proceedings of the thrity-fth turbomachinery symposium. 2006. [17] Elliott incorporated. Elliott compressor refresher trainings. 2001.
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[18] Alexander Stein. Computational analysis of stall and separation control in centrifugal compressors. Doctor of philosophy thesis at Georgia Institute of Technology, May 2000. [19] Lawless, P. B. and Fleeter, S., Active Control of Rotating Stall in a Low-Speed Centrifugal Compressor, J. Propulsion and Power, Vol. 15, pp. 38-44, Jan.-Feb. 1999 [20] Bram de Jager. Rotating stall and surge control: A survey. Proceedings of the 34th conference on Decision and Control, New Orleans, LA - December 1995. [21] Siemens AG. Turbomachinery training seminar. Second edition, October 2002. [22] K.K. Bostros and J.F. Henderson. Development in centrifugal compressor surge control - A technology assessment. Transactions of ASME, Journal of turbomachinery, Volume 116, April 1994, page 240-249. [23] Gary J. Skoch. Experimental investigation of centrifugal compressor stabilization techniques. Journal of turbomachinery. Volume 125, October 2003. Page 704-713. [24] C. Rodgers. Centrifugal compressor inlet guide vanes for increased surge margin. Journal of turbomachinery. Volume 113, october 1991, page 696-702. [25] R.Kurz and RC White. Surge avoidance in gas compression systems. Journal of turbomachinery, October 2004, Volume 126, page 501-506. [26] Senoo. Y. and Ishida. M. Deterioration of compressor performance due to tip clearance of centrifugal impellers. Journal of turbomachinery, January 1987, Volume 109, page 55 - 61. [27] Greitzer E. Moore. Surge and rotating stall in axial ow compressors. Part 1: Theoretical compression system model. Journal of Engineering for Power. April 1976, page 190 - 198.
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[28] Greitzer E. Moore. Surge and rotating stall in axial ow compressors. Part II. Experimental results and comparison with theory. April 1976, page 199-217. [29] Spakovszky.Z.S. and Paduano J.D. Tip clearance actuation with magnetic bearings for high speed compressor stall control. Gas turbine laboratory, Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. May 2000. [30] Arnul G.L. Multistage centrifugal compressor surge analysis. Part I:Experimental Investigation. The American society of Mechanical Engineers.98-GT-68. [31] Chiu James. Cooling the high speed induction motor of an air compression system. Bachelor of Science thesis, University of Virginia, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, March 2006. [32] ASME. Performance Test Code on Compressors and Exhausters. PTC 10-1997. American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Seventh Edition, 1998. [33] Wowk Victor. Machinery Vibration: Alignment. McGraw-Hill 2000. ISBN 0-07071939-X. [34] Potter C. Merle and Wiggert C. David. Mechanics of Fluids. Second edition. ISBN 0-13-841313-4. [35] Munson R. Bruce and Young F. Donald and Okiishi H. Theodore. Fundamentals of Fluid Mechanics. Second Edition. ISBN 0-471-57958-0. [36] API 686, Recommended practices for machinery installation and installation design. First edition, April 1996, American Petroleum Institute, Washington, D.C. [37] Thomas coupling Series 71 coupling - installation instructions. [38] Boyce Meherwan P. The Gas Turbine Engineering Handbook. 2nd Edition. ISBN 1397-8075067846-9
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[39] Tamaki Hideaki. Effect of piping systems on surge in centrifugal compressors. The 9th Asia International Conference on Fluid Mechanics. October 16-19, 2007, Jeju, Korea. [40] Willems Franciscus. Modeling and bounded feedback stabilization of a centrifugal compressor surge. Doctor of Philosophy thesis, June 2000. Department of Mechanical Engineering. Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands. [41] Tamaki H. and Nakao H. and Aizawa T. Experimental study on surge inception in a centrifugal compressor. The 7th Asian International Conference on Fluid Machinery. October 7-10, Fuoka, Japan. [42] Mizuki S and Oosawa Y. Unsteady ow within centrifugal compressor channels under rotating stall and surge. ASME Vol. 114, April 1992. Page 312 - 320. [43] Vishwanatha Rao and Ramesh O N. The dynamics of surge in compression systems. Sadhana Vol.32, Parts 1 & 2, April 2007, Page 43-49. [44] Fink D.A and Cumpsty N.A. and Greitzer E.M. Surge dynamics in a Free-Spool Centrifugal Compressor System. Journal of Turbomachinery. April 1992, Vol. 114, Page 321-332. [45] Day I.J and Freeman C. The Unstable Behavior of Low and High Speed Compressors. ASME. Volume 116, April 1994, page 194-201. [46] Sorokes Jim and Soulas Thomas. Aerodynamically induced forces working on centrifugal compressors and resulting vibration characteristic of rotors. Presentation by Dresser Rand Turbo products at Turbo symposium, Houston Texas. 2008. [47] SKF bearings technical information - Website: Http://www.skf.com. [48] Bohagen Bjornar and Gravdahl Jan Tommy. Active surge control of compression system using drive torque. Brief paper. Science Direct. February 2008.
BIBLIOGRAPHY [49] Timken bearings technical information - Website: Http://www/timken.com.
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[50] Fishbane M. Paul and Gasiorowicz G. Stephen and Thornton T. Stephen. Physics for scientists and engineers. Volume 1. 3rd Edition. ISBN 0-13-141883-1. [51] Holman, J.P. Experimental Methods for Engineers, 6th edition, McGraw-Hill, New York 1994. [52] Coleman, H.W. and Steele, W.G. Engineering application of experimental uncertainty analysis, AIAA journal, 1995, Vol. 33, No.10, pp. 1888-1896. [53] Goyne, P. Christopher. Skin friction measurements in high enthalpy ows at high mach number. Doctor of Philosophy thesis, May 1999. Appendix C. Department of Mechanical Engineering. The university of Queensland. Australia. [54] Rotordynamics analysis of seals. Untaroiu Alex & Allaire Paul. Presentation February 17 2009. Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. University of Virginia. [55] Michael M. Cui. Comparative study of unsteady ows in a transonic centrifugal compressor with vaneless and vaned diffusers. International journal of Rotating Machinery 2005:1, page 90-103. [56] Brown Royce. Compressors selection and sizing. Second edition. 1997. ISBN 088415-164-6.
Appendix A Precision alignment procedure

A.1 Prealignment
The rst step was a rough alignment rim alignment between the motor and the compressor. The motor was decided to be the movable equipment and hence the compressor as the xed machine. Previous piping alignment had already been checked between the suction and discharge of the compressor to its piping. The compressor was shimmed to let it sit slightly vertically higher than the motor. Adjustable stands were fabricated to be mounted beside each of the 4 motor legs with a ne thread adjustment bolt. These bolts would allow ne movement of the motor forward, backward, left and right and hence the motor could be moved in a controlled manner to achieve the requirement movement to improve on the alignment [33]. Table A.1 lists the main items required to perform an alignment.
A.2
Alignment
Alignment was performed using the face and rim method due to the very tight space between the motor and the rotor. The coupling spacer was rst removed. The 4 coupling bolts on the motor were secured on the motor shaft but not removed. The 4 coupling bolts on the compressor was removed. The alignment targets were set with considerations to 115
APPENDIX A. PRECISION ALIGNMENT PROCEDURE Quantity 2 1 1 1 4 2 2 1 box 1 1 set 1 set Descriptions 2 precision dial gages set- Starrett (196AlZ) with 1 mil per divisions Alignment chain clamp for odd shape surface - Mcmaster Digital vernier caliper 1 pack of depth Gage - to measure DBSE between couplings hubs Lateral ne adjustment stands for 4 motor legs 2 dial gages - used for horizontal movement and soft foot check 2 magnetic stands - used for horizontal movement and soft foot check Stainless steel shim packs by Mcmaster - 1mil, 2 mil, 3 mil, 20 mil packs Inspection mirror to read dial gages at difcult angles Special tool - Torquing bolt wrench to torque the coupling bolts 6 inch Steel ruler
116
Table A.1: Table of key items required to perform alignment between motor and compressor the high speed of rotation of the compressor but also the non-continuous run nature of the machine (Meaning the test rig would not be run 24-7 continuously, but rather it is to be run at intervals only during the testing itself). This angular alignment target (Face) was set at 0.5 mil (0.0005) per inch of coupling ange diameter. The parallel offset alignment (Rim) target was set at 0.5 mil (0.0005). Alignment steps are as follows: 1. Check the coupling distance between shaft end (DBSE). The compressor shaft was levitated and its thrust disk move all the way towards the motor. Use a depth Gage to set the DBSE at 4 points to be 3.52. This is to preset the DBSE so that when the coupling spacer is installed, its N dimensions can achieve the recommended 0.48-0.49 [37]. 2. Check for soft foot at all the 4 legs of the motor. Start initially with no shims below motor foot. Tighten all the 4 bolts. Place a dial indicator on the leg to be loosened. Loosen the bolt and record rise of leg according to dial Gage, while the other 3 legs are all bolted down. Repeat and perform on all legs and record all the soft foot readings. Acceptable soft foot rise should be less than 2 mils (0.002). Shim accordingly below the motor legs to achieve soft foot target. Figure A.1 shows the soft foot readings and the amount of shims used on each foot to achieve the target
APPENDIX A. PRECISION ALIGNMENT PROCEDURE readings.
117
3. Prepare for the face and rim alignment between the motor and the compressor. The setup of the dial gages and supports should be done in accordance to gure A.2. The 4 supports used for the ne movement of the motor should be set up according to gure A.3. 4. The 2 Starrett precision dial gages are mounted with the pointed tips and both these dial tips should be reading at the same location, one reading the rim and the other reading the face. The compressor of the rotor is levitated and its thrust disk placed at the neutral position. Only the compressor rotor would be rotated, while the motor rotor is stationary. 12, 3, 6 and 9 Oclock positions are marked on the motor coupling hub for reference and repeatability check. Ensure the chain mount on the compressor shaft is secured very tightly to ensure there is no slag in it, as that could result in false readings to start the alignment with, which was experienced during the alignment. 5. The following formula would allow a single correction after each reading - meaning the face and rim readings are taken into considerations by these two formulas to determine how much adjustment would be required on the back and front foot. For the vertical 12 - 6 O clock readings, alignment corrections are done by shimming. For the Horizontal 9-3 Oclock readings, alignment corrections are done by using the ne threaded both on the four silver leg supports. Reference of clock is taken by looking towards the motor from its coupling end. 6. The modied formula to adjust the the front leg FL and back leg BL are as follows: br 2
FL =
(A.1)
BL =
bf br A+ 2
(A.2)
APPENDIX A. PRECISION ALIGNMENT PROCEDURE
118
where br is the bottom rim reading, b f is the bottom face reading, is the diameter of the coupling hub at 3.6 and Ais the axial distance between the front and back leg at 13.312. For the vertical alignment, a positive result of FL or BL would means to raise the motor by shimming while a negative result means the legs need to be lowered. For the horizontal alignment, a positive result would indicate to move motor towards the chiller, while a negative result would mean to pull motor away from the chiller. 7. When alignment adjustment is required to be performed on the motor either by shimming for vertical adjustment or by adjustment bolts for the horizontal adjustment, it is critical to ensure that other bolts are tightened down. For shimming, only the leg to be shimmed with have its leg bolts loosened, while the rest of the other 3 bolts remain tightened. For horizontal adjustment, 3 bolts will have to be loosened while the bolt opposite to the legs to be adjusted should remain bolted down. Dial indicators should be mounted to read leg movement when horizontal movement is performed. It is also advisable to touch other non-adjustment bolts on the motor legs to ensure strictly only movement in the plane of adjustment. 8. Face and rim alignment could take approximately 3 days to achieve the desired target set earlier. Ensure acceptable readings are checked for repeatability and all 4 foundation bolts for the motor legs are bolted to 300 In-Lb to ensure they are genuine to be accepted. For this test rig, the nal alignment readings achieved are shown in table A.2. 9. Measure the DBSE between the 2 coupling hubs. The motor thrust disk should be in its neutral position within the magnetic thrust bearing. Readings taken for this test rig at after its nal alignment is 3.54. Install the coupling spacer between the coupling hubs, by using 2 threaded bolt to pretension it so that it can t between the coupling hubs. The coupling hub is balanced and mark, therefore it is critical to ensure compressor end is tted to compressor end with a star marking to ensure
119
Figure A.1: Final soft foot readings on motor and amount of shims used Location Vertical - Rim Vertical - Face Horizontal - Rim Horizontal - Face Readings + 0.25 mils 0 mils +0.75 mils 0 mils
Table A.2: Final alignment readings between motor and compressor consistency. The coupling spacer shims N dimensions were measured with a depth gage and for the nal alignment of this test rig, it was recorded at 0.491, which is very close to the required range of 0.48-0.49 as specied in the Thomas coupling recommended N values. The 8 coupling bolts are installed and torqued to a required torque value of 115 In-Lbs as specied by coupling manufacturer. 10. Hand turn the aligned compressor and motor to ensure it spins freely after nal alignment. Install coupling guard around the couplings to mark the end of nal alignment on the test rig.
120
Figure A.2: Setup for face and rim alignment on between compressor and the motor
Figure A.3: Alignment xtures for ne adjustment of the motor
Appendix B Procedure to check impeller tip clearance

Impeller tip clearance would need to be checked by placing lead pieces on the impeller. This would involved removing the impeller scroll or shroud to place the lead pieces onto the impeller tip. In order to ensure a consistent measurement, 4 lead pieces should be placed respectively at the 12, 3, 6, 9 Oclock face on the impeller. The steps are as follows: 1. Remove the inlet piping and open up the compressor shroud. 2. Levitate the compressor using the radial magnetic bearings and push the thrust disk all the way towards the motor. Take note that the thrust auxiliary clearance is 10 mils on each side. 3. Cut 4 pieces of lead into strips of approximately 25.4 mm in length and about 1.5mm in thickness. Bend it into like a U shape and stick it at the 4 positions using masking takes securely. The positions of the lead strips should be on the outer diameter of the impeller. 4. Reinstall the shroud carefully and tighten all the bolts tight to achieve a good crush onto all the 4 strips. 121
APPENDIX B. PROCEDURE TO CHECK IMPELLER TIP CLEARANCE
122
5. Reopen the shroud and visually check that the 4 strips should have been attened by the installation of the stationary shroud. 6. Use a vernier caliper to measure the crushed at surface on each lead strip. Take the average of the total readings. 7. The actual impeller tip clearance would be this average reading minus away thrust auxiliary bearing, which is 10 mils or 0.254 mm. 8. The designed clearance of the impeller tip clearance for this machine is at 0.5mm. Shim the compressor accordingly using the shims provided by Kobe Steel to achieve required thickness. 9. For the compressor, it is set with a nal impeller tip clearance of 0.615 mm by using 0.25 mm of bronze shims.
Appendix C Chiller - Model HCV 1500 PR
123
Appendix D Inlet Air Filter Details

The compressor test rig is considered as a test compressor, especially since it is only taking in atmospheric air and discharges back into the atmosphere. PTC 10 [32] requires a minimum of a protective screen at the suction of the compressor. However, the suction pipe of the compressor runs through the test facility roof like a chimney and was surrounded by thick vegetation. Therefore an air inlet lter was chosen over a protective screen mesh. This was to ensure no foreign objects would be able to get into the suction of the compressor and it would also allowed experimental testing to be carried out irregardless of weather. The selected lter model is 9828K88 silencer lter made of durable carbon steel with baked enamel nishing for weather protection with internal polyester lter elements that was ange mounted on the 8 discharge ange.
124
APPENDIX D. INLET AIR FILTER DETAILS
125
Appendix E Orice Flow Meter Details

E.1 Flow meter selection
One of the key parameter to be measured in the test rig was the discharge ow rate of the compressor at different operating conditions. This parameter would indicate the changes in discharge ow volume as the compressors system resistance was changed by throttling the discharge buttery valve. Various types of ow meters could be used to measure the ow of the discharge uid, which in this case is air. Flow rate measurement can be divided into 2 types, direct and indirect measurement. Direct measurement or so called quantity meters would either weigh or measure a volume of uid over a known time increment [?]. Indirect or rate meters typically would consists of 2 components - where the primary components would be in contact with the uid of interest, and the secondary component would measure a reaction parameter as a result on introducing the primary component into the uid ow path. Typical rate meters works on the principle of velocity -area measurements, pressure drop measurements or hydrodynamics drag etc. Rate meters are relatively low in cost and is very commonly used in industry or research laboratory for ow measurement. Differential pressure meters is chosen to be used for measuring the ow from the compressor. Three commonly used types are orice meter, venturi meter and ow nozzle. For this compressor,
126
APPENDIX E. ORIFICE FLOW METER DETAILS
127
Figure E.1: Illustration of a typical setup for an orice ow meter [35] the orice differential pressure ow meter was chosen as the ow measurement setup as it was the most economical and in this case applicable, since the ow was shown to be subsonic next. And there had been previous literature [30]that has successfully employed such a measuring device for an extensive compressor surge analysis. Figure E.1 shows a typical setup for a orice ow meter. The basic principle of an orice ow meter works on the principle that when a uid passes through and orice constriction, it would experience a drop in pressure across the orice. And measuring this pressure drop would be sufcient to indicate the ow of the uid stream across the orice. Bernoullis equation was used to calculate the ow as long as the ow is sufciently subsonic [35]. The maximum ow that was anticipated to be reached in the discharge piping from the compressor at its maximum speed of 23000 rpm would be 3200 m3 /hr and that translate to 0.88m3 /hr. And the ow velocity vs through the eight inch discharge pipe would be 27 m/s. And as the ow medium was air and assuming it was ideal air at atmospheric conditions, the speed of sound c of the air medium would be 340 m/s. Therefore the Mach number, Mm for the maximum air ow in the pipe can be calculated based on: vs c
Mm =
(E.1)
128
where Mm will be 0.08, which is less than Mach number of 0.3. Since the uid speed is sufciently subsonic, an orice ow meter setup could be used and the incompressible Bernoullis equation was used to calculate the ow across the orice ow meter. [35]. Applying the Bernoulli equation across the orice of the horizontal pipe gives, 1 1 p = pu pd = Vd2 Vu2 2 2
(E.2)
where Vu and Vd are the upstream and downstream ow velocity of the orice ow meter respectively, pu and pd are the upstream and downstream pressure respectively, is the density of air and p is the differential pressure across the orice. Equation E.2 can be extended further by continuity relationships and the velocities can be replaced by the cross sectional areas of the ow and the volumetric ow rate. And to account for actual real ow of the air where viscosity and turbulence would be actually present, a discharge ow coefcient Cd is introduced into the volumetric ow equation. Because the actual ow prole downstream of the orice ow meter is very complex, it was a common practice to introduce a ow coefcient C f into the equation as well. The real volumetric ow equation, Q becomes: 2P
Q = C f Ao
(E.3)
where Ao is the area of the orice and the typical value of ow coefcient C f ranges from 0.6 to 0.9. The density of the air used for this thesis calculations is assumed to be dry as the humidity during testing were at highest of around 25% humidity. Therefore no correction was performed on the density as the error is estimated to be within 1%. However, if future testing of the compressors were to be done in high humidity conditions (such as 80-100%), corrections to the density would have to be made because the error can be around 3%-4% when determining the ow due to dry air versus high humidity air. This is because the high amount of water vapor in high humidity air mixture would lower the
129
Figure E.2: An illustration of the orice ow meter by Lamdasquare with ow straighteners upstream overall molecular weight of the air as compared to pure dry air molecular weight. Therefore corrections would have to be done to the molecular weight of the high humidity air mixture by referring to psychometric charts for air, using moles weights between air and water vapor and determine a new gas constant for the air-water mixture. This would then change the gas constant used in the ideal gas equation to determine the density of the air [56]. An orice ow meter with upstream ow straightener was selected to measure the compressor ow. The combination of the upstream ow straightener was to ensure that the ow reaching the orice would have a uniform ow prole and as laminar as possible. This ensured the pressure readings were repeatable and accurate. The orice ow meter was from Lamdasquare and the specications of the orice ow meter details can be found in Appendix E. Figure E.2 shows the Lamdasquare orice ow meter and the ow straighteners upstream of the orice.
130
Appendix F Procedure for testing surge on compressor

This procedure provide the instructions to bring the compressor into instability and what are the parameters to be observed. The example and experience quoted in this procedure is based on the observations done during the surge testing for the shortest discharge plenum. Hence if alternate throttle valve position is used, adjustments would have to be made accordingly to this procedure. 1. Checks - Ensure the compressor is properly levitated. Reference to Sanadgols thesis Appendix D - Instructions to operate the controller for magnetic bearings. 2. Checks - Ensure the air compressor to throttle valve, the chiller and power supply to motor is turned on. 3. The compressor is recommended to always start at a low speed (E.g. 300 rpm) and gradually brought up to speed. In general, when started from cold condition, it is always recommended to go around the test rig and hear for any abnormality. Speed would be around 2000 rpm. Note that the VFD is sensitive and its amperage will uctuate signicantly at low speed. At around 4000 rpm, its rpm would be stable.
131
APPENDIX F. PROCEDURE FOR TESTING SURGE ON COMPRESSOR
132
Check to ensure the throttle valve indicator shows open (Green). The experience is - we have detected a faulty bearing at low speed of around 1500 rpm on the motor. Hence walking around the test rig during initial start up low speed does help in detection. 4. Once test rig is running smoothly at around 3000 - 5000 rpm, proceed to control room to begin testing. No personnel is allowed within the compressor rig for the high speed surge testing. 5. At 5000 rpm, check the orbit plots of the compressor radial bearings using the control computer in the trailer. 6. Once orbit plots is good, proceed to gradually increase speed of compressor to desired testing speed. The experience and practice is the speed is gradually ramp up to desired speed of e.g. 16000 rpm at intervals of 2000 rpm. And typically at each speed, the compressor is allowed to run smoothly. And especially when starting from a cold condition, it is recommended to let the test rig runs at a good speed of e.g. 10000 rpm to allow motor and compressor for 15 minutes to allow all mechanical components to be thermally stable and smooth. 7. Upon reaching desired test speed, data recording would be done using Labview interface with data recording computer at the test rig. Data collected are all the pressure, temperature and ow data. The amperage drawn by the motor and the throttle valve position data is not digitally recorded. The amperage data is read off from the panel of the VFD monitor via the remote video camera. The throttle valve position is recorded from the Labview screen. 8. The throttle valve is progressively closed from its starting position. It could be either at 100 % open or even at some mid opening position of e.g. 50% open. The valve is typically closed progressively by reducing valve opening by 5 %. Base on the testing
APPENDIX F. PROCEDURE FOR TESTING SURGE ON COMPRESSOR
133
so far, the sound change and pressure uctuations typically happen at around 25% to 31 % throttle valve open positions. Therefore when throttle valve opening is within this region, it is recommended to reduce its opening by 1% or 2% opening to detect the sound change. 9. As the throttle valve is closed gradually, an operating point would be reached where a low frequency pulsating sound would be heard from the compressor. At this same point, the pressure signature (real time) of would also starts to uctuate. This is determined as the onset of surge at this point of the testing. 10. All pressure data, ow and temperature and magnetic bearings amperage data is recorded using the Labview control computer. Throttle valve position is also recorded for reference. The experience is - the pressure uctuating frequency would be around 21 Hz at this detection point for this shortest plenum congurations. 11. If the throttle valve is closed further and recorded, it would be noticed the pressure uctuating frequency would move to dominant of 7 Hz. The data is recorded as well at this point. This experience is for the smallest discharge plenum volume. 12. For future testing - When the throttle valve position is moved further away from the compressor discharge, the same procedure could be used but it would be very important during the rst surge test to determine at approximately what throttle valve region the sound may start changing. And it is always recommended when doing the test for the rst time with a new discharge plenum volume, to close the throttle valve slowly and do not stay too long than needed in the instability region. The larger plenum volume could create deeper surge and potentially more damaging to the compressor, if it was operated in that region from too long. Analyze the recorded data rst before rening this procedure and also making adjustments to the testing procedures.

KT Thesis July2009 Final Print

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KT Thesis July2009 Final Print

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Contents

Introduction 1.1 1.2 1.3

Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Objectives and scope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Thesis outline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 19

Literature review 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4

Compressor surge test rig overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 Summary of literature review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 38

Engineering analysis and experimental setup 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4

CONTENTS 3.4.1 3.5

2 Piping supports modal analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

3.6 3.7 3.8 4

Testing and experimental results 4.1 4.2

Effect of impeller tip clearance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95 100

Conclusions 5.1 5.2 5.3

CONTENTS 5.3.5 5.3.6 5.3.7 5.3.8 5.3.9

5.3.10 Spare parts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108 A Precision alignment procedure 115

LIST OF FIGURES 3.6 3.7 3.8 3.9

eners upstream . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129

CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION operate at a wider operating envelop.

Objectives and scope

Chapter 2 Literature review

Compressor characteristic curve

CHAPTER 2. LITERATURE REVIEW

CHAPTER 2. LITERATURE REVIEW

CHAPTER 2. LITERATURE REVIEW

CHAPTER 2. LITERATURE REVIEW

Compressor instability - surge and stall characteristic

CHAPTER 2. LITERATURE REVIEW

Figure 2.2: Illustration of gas particle path across diffuser [1]

CHAPTER 2. LITERATURE REVIEW

CHAPTER 2. LITERATURE REVIEW

CHAPTER 2. LITERATURE REVIEW

CHAPTER 2. LITERATURE REVIEW

Surge control techniques

CHAPTER 2. LITERATURE REVIEW

Active surge control

CHAPTER 2. LITERATURE REVIEW

Figure 2.4: Illustration of inlet guide vanes to suppress surge [24]

CHAPTER 2. LITERATURE REVIEW

CHAPTER 2. LITERATURE REVIEW

Compressor surge test rig overview

CHAPTER 2. LITERATURE REVIEW

CHAPTER 2. LITERATURE REVIEW

Summary of literature review

CHAPTER 2. LITERATURE REVIEW

CHAPTER 2. LITERATURE REVIEW

Chapter 3 Engineering analysis and experimental setup

CHAPTER 3. ENGINEERING ANALYSIS AND EXPERIMENTAL SETUP

Test Rig Overview

CHAPTER 3. ENGINEERING ANALYSIS AND EXPERIMENTAL SETUP

CHAPTER 3. ENGINEERING ANALYSIS AND EXPERIMENTAL SETUP

Motor bearings improvement

CHAPTER 3. ENGINEERING ANALYSIS AND EXPERIMENTAL SETUP

CHAPTER 3. ENGINEERING ANALYSIS AND EXPERIMENTAL SETUP

CHAPTER 3. ENGINEERING ANALYSIS AND EXPERIMENTAL SETUP

CHAPTER 3. ENGINEERING ANALYSIS AND EXPERIMENTAL SETUP

Table 3.4: Descriptions for hybrid bearing 6005-2RSLTN9/HCFC3WT

Piping system design

CHAPTER 3. ENGINEERING ANALYSIS AND EXPERIMENTAL SETUP

CHAPTER 3. ENGINEERING ANALYSIS AND EXPERIMENTAL SETUP

Piping supports modal analysis

CHAPTER 3. ENGINEERING ANALYSIS AND EXPERIMENTAL SETUP

CHAPTER 3. ENGINEERING ANALYSIS AND EXPERIMENTAL SETUP

CHAPTER 3. ENGINEERING ANALYSIS AND EXPERIMENTAL SETUP

Figure 3.6: Schematic of the equivalent model to represent compressor system

Descriptions Vp (m3) Lc (m) Ac (m2 ) a (m/s) fH (Hz)