Jürg Alexander Schiffmann

Modeling and Experimental Investigation of an Oil-Free Microcompressor-Turbine Unit for an Organic Rankine Cycle Driven Heat Pump

Domestic heating and cooling will more and more have to rely on heat pumps (HPs) in order to support a more rational use of primary energy consumption. The HP market is mainly dominated by electrically driven vapor compression cycles and by thermally driven sorption processes. The drawback of electrically driven vapor compression cycle is their dependence on an electrical grid and the fact that they increase the winter or summer electricity peak demands. Hence, a thermally driven vapor compression cycle would offer substantial advantages and flexibility to the end user for heating and cooling applications. This paper presents the investigation of an oil-free compressor-turbine unit (CTU) used for a thermally driven HP (TDHP) based on the combination of a HP compression cycle and an organic Rankine cycle (ORC). The CTU consists of a radial inflow turbine and a centrifugal compressor of the order of 2 kW each, directly coupled through a shaft supported on gas lubricated bearings. The CTU has been tested at rotor speeds in excess of 200 krpm, reaching compressor and turbine pressure ratios up to 2.8 and 4.4, respectively, and isentropic efficiencies around 70%. Comparisons between the experimental data and predictions of models, that are briefly described here, have been carried out. A sensitivity analysis based on the experimentally validated models shows that tip clearance, for both compressor and turbine, and surface roughness of the compressor are key parameters for further improving performance.

Enhanced Groove Geometry for Herringbone Grooved Journal Bearings

Although gas-lubricated herringbone grooved journal bearings (HGJB) are known for high rotordynamic stability thresholds, small clearance to diameter ratios are required for stable rotor operation. Tight clearances not only increase bearing losses but also yield challenging manufacturing and assembly tolerances, which ultimately translate into cost. Traditionally, the grooves of HGJB are of helical nature with constant cross section and pitch. The current paper aims at increasing the clearance to diameter ratio and the stability threshold of grooved bearings by introducing enhanced groove geometries. The axial evolution of groove width, depth, and local pitch are described by individual third order polynomials with four interpolation points. The expression for the smooth pressure distribution resulting from the narrow groove theory is modified to enable the calculation of bearing properties with modified groove patterns. The reduced order bearing model is coupled to a linear rigid body rotordynamic model for predicting the whirl speed map and the corresponding stability. By introducing a critical mass parameter as a measure for stability, a criterion for the instability onset is proposed. The optimum groove geometry is found by coupling the gas bearing supported rotor model with a multiobjective optimizer. By maximizing both the clearance to diameter ratio and the rotordynamic stability it is shown that with optimal groove geometry, which deviates from helicoids with constant pitch and cross section, the critical mass parameter can be improved by more than one order of magnitude compared to traditional HGJB geometries. The clearance to diameter ratio can be increased by up to 80% while keeping the same stability margin, thus reducing both losses and manufacturing constraints. The optimum groove pattern distributions (width ratio, angle, and depth) are summarized for a variety of L/D ratios and for different compressibility numbers in a first attempt to set up general design guidelines for enhanced gas-lubricated HGJB.

Integrated Design and Optimization of Gas Bearing Supported Rotors

The design of direct driven turbomachinery is an interdisciplinary task. Standard design procedures propose to split such systems into subcomponents and to design each one individually. This common procedure, however, tends to neglect the interactions between the different components leading to suboptimal solutions. The authors propose an approach based on the integrated philosophy for designing and optimizing gas bearing supported rotors. Based on the choice for herringbone grooved journal and spiral groove thrust bearings, the modeling procedure for predicting their properties and the linking to the rotordynamic behavior of a generic rotor supported on gas lubricated bearings is provided. The global model for gas bearing supported rotors is linked to a multiobjective optimizer for maximizing the dynamic stability and for minimizing the windage losses of the rotor and of the bearings. Two typical rotor layouts have been included in the optimization. The geometry of a proof of concept system, that has been designed previously using the fragmented component view, is represented as a comparison to the proposed integrated approach. It is shown that the integrated solution allows to reduce the windage losses by 25% or to increase the stability margin by 35%, emphasizing the advantage of the proposed integrated design tool. [DOI: 10.1115/1.4001381]

Integrated Design and Multi-objective Optimization of a Single Stage Heat-Pump Turbocompressor

Small-scale turbomachines in domestic heat pumps reach high efficiency and provide oil-free solutions, which improve heat-exchanger performance and offer major advantages in the design of advanced thermodynamic cycles. An appropriate turbocompressor for domestic air based heat pumps requires the ability to operate on a wide range of inlet pressure, pressure ratios, and mass flows, confronting the designer with the necessity to compromise between range and efficiency. Further, the design of small-scale direct driven turbomachines is a complex and interdisciplinary task. Textbook design procedures propose to split such systems into subcomponents and to design and optimize each element individually. This common procedure, however, tends to neglect the interactions between the different components leading to suboptimal solutions. The author proposes an approach based on the integrated philosophy for designing and optimizing gas bearing supported, direct driven turbocompressors for applications with challenging requirements with regards to operation range and efficiency. Using experimentally validated reduced order models for the different components an integrated model of the compressor is implemented and the optimum system found via multi-objective optimization. It is shown that compared to standard design procedures, the integrated approach yields an increase of the seasonal compressor efficiency of more than 12 points. Further, a design optimization based sensitivity analysis allows to investigate the influence of design constraints determined prior to optimization such as impeller surface roughness, rotor material, and impeller force. A relaxation of these constrains yields additional room for improvement. Reduced impeller force improves efficiency due to a smaller thrust bearing mainly, whereas a lighter rotor material improves rotordynamic performance. A hydraulically smoother impeller surface improves the overall efficiency considerably by reducing aerodynamic losses. A combination of the relaxation of the three design constraints yields an additional improvement of six points compared to the original optimization process. The integrated design and optimization procedure implemented in the case of a complex design problem thus clearly shows its advantages compared to traditional design methods by allowing a truly exhaustive search for optimum solutions throughout the complete design space. It can be used for both design optimization and for design analysis.

Foil Bearing Design Guidelines for Improved Stability

Experimental evidence in the literature suggests that foil bearing-supported rotors can suffer from subsynchronous vibration. While dry friction between top foil and bump foil is thought to provide structural damping, subsynchronous vibration is still an unresolved issue. The current paper aims to shed new light onto this matter and discusses the impact of various design variables on stable foil bearing-supported rotor operation. It is shown that, while a time domain integration of the equations of motion of the rotor coupled with the Reynolds equation for the fluid film is necessary to quantify the evolution of the rotor orbit, the underlying mechanism and the onset speed of instability can be predicted by coupling a reduced order foil bearing model with a rigid-body, linear, rotordynamic model. A sensitivity analysis suggests that structural damping has limited effect on stability. Further, it is shown that the location of the axial feed line of the top foil significantly influences the bearing load capacity and stability. The analysis indicates that the static fluid film pressure distribution governs rotordynamic stability. Therefore, selective shimming is introduced to tailor the unperturbed pressure distribution for improved stability. The required pattern is found via multiobjective optimization using the foil bearing-supported rotor model. A critical mass parameter is introduced as a measure for stability, and a criterion for whirl instability onset is proposed. It is shown that, with an optimally shimmed foil bearing, the critical mass parameter can be improved by more than two orders of magnitude. The optimum shim patterns are summarized for a variety of foil bearing geometries with different L/D ratios and different degrees of foil compliance in a first attempt to establish more general guidelines for stable foil bearing design. At low compressibility (λ < 2), the optimum shim patterns vary little with bearing geometry; thus, a generalized shim pattern is proposed for low compressibility numbers.

The Role of Impeller Outflow Conditions on the Performance of Vaned Diffusers

Highly loaded impellers, typically used in turbocharger and gas turbine applications, exhaust an unsteady, transonic flow that is nonuniform across the span and pitch and swirling at angles approaching tangential. With the exception of the flow angle, conflicting data exist regarding whether these attributes have substantial influence on the performance of the downstream diffuser. This paper quantifies the relative importance of the flow angle, Mach number, nonuniformity, and unsteadiness on diffuser performance, through diffuser experiments in a compressor stage and in a rotating swirling flow test rig. This is combined with steady and unsteady Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) computations. The test article is a pressure ratio 5 turbocharger compressor with an airfoil vaned diffuser. The swirling flow rig is able to generate rotor outflow conditions representative of the compressor except for the periodic pitchwise unsteadiness and fits a 0.86 scale diffuser and volute. In both rigs, the time-mean impeller outflow is mapped across a diffuser pitch using miniaturized traversing probes developed for the purpose. Across approximately two-thirds of the stage operating range, diffuser performance is well correlated to the average impeller outflow angle when the metric used is effectiveness, which describes the pressure recovery obtained relative to the maximum possible given the average inflow angle and Mach number and the vane exit metal angle. Utilizing effectiveness captures density changes through the diffuser at higher Mach numbers; a 10% increase in pressure recovery is observed as the inlet Mach number is increased from 0.5 to 1. Further, effectiveness is shown to be largely independent of the time-averaged spanwise and unsteady pitchwise nonuniformity from the rotor; this independence is reflective of the strong mixing processes that occur in the diffuser inlet region. The observed exception is for operating points with high time-averaged vane incidence. Here, it is hypothesized that temporary excursions into high-loss flow regimes cause a nonlinear increase in loss as large unsteady angle variations pass by from the rotor. Given that straight-channel diffuser design charts typically used in preliminary radial vaned diffuser design capture neither streamtube area changes from impeller exit to the diffuser throat nor vane incidence effects, their utility is limited. An alternative approach, utilizing effectiveness and vane leading edge incidence, is proposed.

Modeling and Designing of a Radial Anode Off-Gas Recirculation Fan for Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Systems

To improve the industry benchmark of solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) systems, we consider anode off-gas recirculation (AOR) using a small-scale fan. Evolutionary algorithms compare different system design alternatives with hot or cold recirculation. The system performance is evaluated through multi-objective optimization (MOO) criteria, i.e., maximization of electrical efficiency and cogeneration efficiency. The aerodynamic efficiency and rotordynamic stability of the high-speed recirculation fan is investigated in detail. The results obtained suggest that improvements to the best SOFC systems, in terms of net electrical efficiency, are achievable, including for small power scale (10 kWe).

Modeling and Experimental Investigation of an Oil-Free Micro Compressor-Turbine Unit for an ORC Driven Heat Pump

Keywords: Micro-Turbomachinery ; Organic Rankine Cycle ; Heat Pump ; Gas Bearings Reference EPFL-CONF-200393 Record created on 2014-07-25, modified on 2017-05-10

Spatially Sampled Pressure Profile Measurements in Externally Pressurized Gas Journal Bearings

Abstract Externally pressurized gas journal bearings (EPGJBs) are widely adopted to support high-speed rotors. This article presents novel experimental benchmark test data that enable EPGJB model validation. Axial and circumferential pressure profile measurements are presented for a 40-mm-diameter annular restrictor EPGJB operating at speeds up to 25 krpm. The corresponding rotor position, air mass flow rate, and load capacity are also measured. The effects of supply pressure, rotational speed, and load on the measured variables are presented. The measurements are in good agreement with numerical model computations. The cases in which the model deviates from the measured data are discussed in terms of compressible flow theory.

Comparative Evaluation of Foil Bearings with Different Compliant Structures for Improved Manufacturability

Potential geometrical deviations in bump foil bearings due to manufacturing uncertainty can have significant effects on both the local stiffness and clearance, and hence, affecting the overall bearing performance. The manufacturing uncertainty of bump type foil bearings was investigated, showing large geometrical deviations, using a developed measurement tool for the formed bump foils. A reduced order foil bearing model was used in a Monte Carlo simulation studying the effect of manufacturing noise on the onset of instability, highlighting the sensitivity of the rotor-bearing system to such manufacturing deviations. It was found that 30% of the simulated cases resulted improvements in stability, the remaining cases underperformed. Attempting to increase the robustness of the bearing, two other compliant structures replacing the classical gen-II bump foils were investigated from a manufacturing perspective. The first is a modified bump type Sinusoidal foil, and the second is the Cantilever beam foil. Consequently, quasi-static load-displacement tests were executed showing deviations in local clearance and stiffness for the classical bump type compliant structure compared to the other designs. It was found that the Cantilever beam foils yield more robustness compared to the bump type foils. Finally, an analytical model for the sequential engagement of the compliant structure is presented and validated with experimental measurements for both bump type and Cantilever structures.