Centrifugal compressors, sometimes called impeller compressors or radial compressors, are a sub-class of dynamic axisymmetric work-absorbing turbomachinery.
The Francis turbine is a type of water turbine. It is an inward-flow reaction turbine that combines radial and axial flow concepts. Francis turbines are the most common water turbine in use today, and can achieve over 95% efficiency.
Turbomachinery, in mechanical engineering, describes machines that transfer energy between a rotor and a fluid, including both turbines and compressors. While a turbine transfers energy from a fluid to a rotor, a compressor transfers energy from a rotor to a fluid.
Centrifugal pumps are used to transport fluids by the conversion of rotational kinetic energy to the hydrodynamic energy of the fluid flow. The rotational energy typically comes from an engine or electric motor. They are a sub-class of dynamic axisymmetric work-absorbing turbomachinery. The fluid enters the pump impeller along or near to the rotating axis and is accelerated by the impeller, flowing radially outward into a diffuser or volute chamber (casing), from which it exits.
An axial-flow pump, or AFP, is a common type of pump that essentially consists of a propeller in a pipe. The propeller can be driven directly by a sealed motor in the pipe or by electric motor or petrol/diesel engines mounted to the pipe from the outside or by a right-angle drive shaft that pierces the pipe.
In a hydraulic circuit, net positive suction head (NPSH) may refer to one of two quantities in the analysis of cavitation:
- The Available NPSH (NPSHA): a measure of how close the fluid at a given point is to flashing, and so to cavitation. Technically it is the absolute pressure head minus the vapour pressure of the liquid.
- The Required NPSH (NPSHR): the head value at the suction side required to keep the fluid away from cavitating.
Specific speedNs, is used to characterize turbomachinery speed. Common commercial and industrial practices use dimensioned versions which are of equal utility. Specific speed is most commonly used in pump applications to define the suction specific speed —a quasi non-dimensional number that categorizes pump impellers as to their type and proportions. In Imperial units it is defined as the speed in revolutions per minute at which a geometrically similar impeller would operate if it were of such a size as to deliver one gallon per minute against one foot of hydraulic head. In metric units flow may be in l/s or m³/s and head in m, and care must be taken to state the units used.
In fluid dynamics, eddy diffusion, eddy dispersion, or turbulent diffusion is a process by which fluid substances mix together due to eddy motion. These eddies can vary widely in size, from subtropical ocean gyres down to the small Kolmogorov microscales, and occur as a result of turbulence. The theory of eddy diffusion was first developed by Sir Geoffrey Ingram Taylor.
A centrifugal fan is a mechanical device for moving air or other gases in a direction at an angle to the incoming fluid. Centrifugal fans often contain a ducted housing to direct outgoing air in a specific direction or across a heat sink; such a fan is also called a blower, blower fan, or squirrel-cage fan. Tiny ones used in computers are sometimes called biscuit blowers. These fans move air from the rotating inlet of the fan to an outlet. They are typically used in ducted applications to either draw air through ductwork/heat exchanger, or push air through similar impellers. Compared to standard axial fans, they can provide similar air movement from a smaller fan package, and overcome higher resistance in air streams.
A radial turbine is a turbine in which the flow of the working fluid is radial to the shaft. The difference between axial and radial turbines consists in the way the fluid flows through the components. Whereas for an axial turbine the rotor is 'impacted' by the fluid flow, for a radial turbine, the flow is smoothly orientated perpendicular to the rotation axis, and it drives the turbine in the same way water drives a watermill. The result is less mechanical stress which enables a radial turbine to be simpler, more robust, and more efficient when compared to axial turbines. When it comes to high power ranges the radial turbine is no longer competitive and the efficiency becomes similar to that of the axial turbines.
In fluid dynamics, flow can be decomposed into primary flow plus secondary flow, a relatively weaker flow pattern superimposed on the stronger primary flow pattern. The primary flow is often chosen to be an exact solution to simplified or approximated governing equations, such as potential flow around a wing or geostrophic current or wind on the rotating Earth. In that case, the secondary flow usefully spotlights the effects of complicated real-world terms neglected in those approximated equations. For instance, the consequences of viscosity are spotlighted by secondary flow in the viscous boundary layer, resolving the tea leaf paradox. As another example, if the primary flow is taken to be a balanced flow approximation with net force equated to zero, then the secondary circulation helps spotlight acceleration due to the mild imbalance of forces. A smallness assumption about secondary flow also facilitates linearization.
The primary application of wind turbines is to generate energy using the wind. Hence, the aerodynamics is a very important aspect of wind turbines. Like most machines, wind turbines come in many different types, all of them based on different energy extraction concepts.
In turbomachinery, degree of reaction or reaction ratio (R) is defined as the ratio of the static pressure rise in the rotating blades of a compressor (or drop in turbine blades) to the static pressure rise in the compressor stage (or drop in a turbine stage). Alternatively it is the ratio of static enthalpy change in the rotor to the static enthalpy change in the stage.
Compressor characteristic is a mathematical curve that shows the behaviour of a fluid going through a dynamic compressor. It shows changes in fluid pressure, temperature, entropy, flow rate etc.) with the compressor operating at different speeds.
Blade element momentum theory is a theory that combines both blade element theory and momentum theory. It is used to calculate the local forces on a propeller or wind-turbine blade. Blade element theory is combined with momentum theory to alleviate some of the difficulties in calculating the induced velocities at the rotor.
Francis turbine converts energy at high pressure heads which are not easily available and hence a turbine was required to convert the energy at low pressure heads, given that the quantity of water was large enough. It was easy to convert high pressure heads to power easily but difficult to do so for low pressure heads. Therefore, an evolution took place that converted the Francis turbine to Kaplan turbine, which generated power at even low pressure heads efficiently.
An axial turbine is a turbine in which the flow of the working fluid is parallel to the shaft, as opposed to radial turbines, where the fluid runs around a shaft, as in a watermill. An axial turbine has a similar construction as an axial compressor, but it operates in the reverse, converting flow of the fluid into rotating mechanical energy.
Three-dimension losses and correlation in turbomachinery refers to the measurement of flow-fields in three dimensions, where measuring the loss of smoothness of flow, and resulting inefficiencies, becomes difficult, unlike two-dimensional losses where mathematical complexity is substantially less.
Blade solidity is an important design parameter for the axial flow impeller and is defined as the ratio of blade chord length to spacing.
Propeller theory is the science governing the design of efficient propellers. A propeller is the most common propulsor on ships, and on small aircraft.
