A NEW APPROACH TO PERFORMANCE MAPPING OF RADIAL INFLOW TURBINES

The performance of radial inflow turbines, and specifically of turboexpanders for oil & gas applications, has been traditionally described in terms of efficiency versus velocity speed ratio (U/C) and discharge flow coefficient (Q/N). Especially in the testing phase, this latter parameter has been often preferred to the angle setting of moveable inlet guide vanes (IGV), which are standard equipment for most turboexpanders. In practice, the expander U/C has been often considered to give the performance backbone, while the Q/N ratio has been used for secondary corrections. Moreover, although the role of pressure ratio (PR) is recognized, its impact has been experimentally unexplored in those cases where testing facilities had capacity limitations. Eventually, in case of variable nozzles, the inlet flow capacity curve has been rarely included among the output performance variables, being the attention mainly focused on efficiency. In the present paper, beside an overview and an explanation of the physical meaning of traditional performance parameters, an alternative approach based on torque mapping versus U/C is introduced and discussed in detail. As a matter of fact, numerical and experimental data show smooth and regular trends when torque coefficient is used instead of adiabatic efficiency. Moreover, performance based on torque coefficient can be more conveniently extrapolated at extreme off-design conditions such as start-up (locked rotor condition) or full speed no load. The ease of extrapolation is particularly important for machine operability, which often requires accurate modeling of transient missions at very partial loads (as for instance during start-up or shut -down). Examples will be offered to show the advantages of torque coefficient representation and how sensitive this is to IGV setting and pressure.