SpinOffs

When fluids undergo a phase change (see Phase Change - Make Mine a Double), it typically has a very significant effect of the flow behavior and energy level of the system.  Some examples of this are: cavitation in a pump, condensing near the exit of a steam turbine, even the everyday phenomenon of the weather is basically a never-ending phase change process of water, and its interaction with air. 

It sounds like an opening to a joke, but I wanted to share some creative thinking sparked during a field trip to a local gas turbine cogeneration plant with some undergraduate students I teach. The students were learning about basic thermodynamics, and visiting a power plant was a good way to give them perspective of what a kW is, and how much hardware and floor space is needed to generate 21,000 of them. I scheduled the trip for when the Gas Turbine system was “down for routine maintenance”, so the students could really crawl in and around the “beast” and be able to hear the explanations of the tour guide. 

Our CTO, Mark Anderson, takes a fundamental look at simple stall and its impact on turbochargers stability and range. This is the second video in this 2-part series. Be sure to watch Part 1 first!

Turbomachinery performance is almost always analyzed and tested with a fixed inflow condition. In other words, the assumption is that the inflow fluid temperature and pressure is defined and unchanging over the map of machine performance. Since varying conditions often exist in practice, the performance maps are sometimes normalized, as shown in the figure below. The pressure ratio of a compressor is plotted versus a corrected mass flow range and rotational speed. 

Our CTO, Mark Anderson, takes a fundamental look at simple stall and its impact on turbochargers stability and range. This is the first video in this 2-part series.