This paper presents a design strategy for very low flow coefficient multistage compressors operating with supercritical CO2 for carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) and enhanced oil recovery (EOR). At flow coefficients less than 0.01, the stage efficiency is much reduced due to dissipation in the gas-path and more prominent leakage and windage losses. Instead of using a vaneless diffuser as is standard design practice in such applications, the current design employs a vaned diffuser to decrease the meridional velocity and to widen the gas path. The aim is to achieve a step change in performance. The impeller exit width is increased in a systematic parameter study to explore the limitations of this design strategy and to define the upper limit in efficiency gain. The design strategy is applied to a full-scale reinjection compressor currently in service. Three-dimensional, steady, supercritical CO2 computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations of the full stage with leakage flows are carried out with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) real gas model. The design study suggests that a nondimensional impeller exit width parameter = (b2/R)ϕ of six yields a 3.5 point increase in adiabatic efficiency relative to that of a conventional compressor design with vaneless diffuser. Furthermore, it is shown that in such stages the vaned diffuser limits the overall stability and that the onset of rotating stall is likely caused by vortex shedding near the diffuser leading edge. The inverse of the nondimensional impeller exit width parameter b2* can be interpreted as the Rossby number. The investigation shows that, for very low flow coefficient designs, the Coriolis accelerations dominate the relative flow accelerations, which leads to inverted swirl angle distributions at impeller exit. Combined with the two-orders-of-magnitude higher Reynolds number for supercritical CO2, the leading edge vortex shedding occurs at lower flow coefficients than in air suggesting an improved stall margin.
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Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
e-mail: lettieri@mit.edu
Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
e-mail: nikola@mit.edu
Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
e-mail: zolti@mit.edu
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August 2014
Research-Article
Low-Flow-Coefficient Centrifugal Compressor Design for Supercritical CO2
C. Lettieri,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
e-mail: lettieri@mit.edu
C. Lettieri
MIT Gas Turbine Laboratory
,Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
Cambridge, MA 02139
e-mail: lettieri@mit.edu
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N. Baltadjiev,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
e-mail: nikola@mit.edu
N. Baltadjiev
MIT Gas Turbine Laboratory
,Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
Cambridge, MA 02139
e-mail: nikola@mit.edu
Search for other works by this author on:
Z. Spakovszky
Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
e-mail: zolti@mit.edu
Z. Spakovszky
MIT Gas Turbine Laboratory
,Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
Cambridge, MA 02139
e-mail: zolti@mit.edu
Search for other works by this author on:
C. Lettieri
MIT Gas Turbine Laboratory
,Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
Cambridge, MA 02139
e-mail: lettieri@mit.edu
N. Baltadjiev
MIT Gas Turbine Laboratory
,Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
Cambridge, MA 02139
e-mail: nikola@mit.edu
M. Casey
Z. Spakovszky
MIT Gas Turbine Laboratory
,Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
Cambridge, MA 02139
e-mail: zolti@mit.edu
Contributed by the International Gas Turbine Institute (IGTI) of ASME for publication in the JOURNAL OF TURBOMACHINERY. Manuscript received October 14, 2013; final manuscript received November 5, 2013; published online January 31, 2014. Editor: Ronald Bunker.
J. Turbomach. Aug 2014, 136(8): 081008 (9 pages)
Published Online: January 31, 2014
Article history
Received:
October 14, 2013
Revision Received:
November 5, 2013
Citation
Lettieri, C., Baltadjiev, N., Casey, M., and Spakovszky, Z. (January 31, 2014). "Low-Flow-Coefficient Centrifugal Compressor Design for Supercritical CO2." ASME. J. Turbomach. August 2014; 136(8): 081008. https://doi.org/10.1115/1.4026322
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