Multi operating point aerodynamic optimization of a radial compressor impeller for an application in high temperature heat pump

Abstract

The decarbonization of production processes plays an important role on the way to environmentally friendly economy. Especially, the implementation of high temperature heat pumps (HTHP) offers a great potential to replace fossil fuel-based energy infrastructure. A major issue for the introduction of HTHP is the initial cost and regarding the payback period. However, there is still potential in increasing the coefficient of performance (COP) of HTHP for the economic integration in existing industrial processes. One important possibility is the dedicated development and design of turbocompressors for this application and the planned heat transfer medium including the aerodynamic optimization of compressor geometry. Against this background an automated aerodynamic optimization method for radial compressor blade geometry for superheated steam is presented. The optimization refers to two different operating points of the HTHP and focuses on maximizing the isentropic efficiency of the impeller geometry as well as the pressure ratio. The algorithm is accelerated by data-driven metamodels and is implemented in a high-performance cluster environment. The boundary condition of the inherent computational fluid dynamics (CFD) calculation comes from the thermodynamic cycle calculation of the whole HTHP system. A two-stage compression with intercooling between the compressor stages are foreseen. Our approach shows an increment of both objective functions in both operating points and the satisfaction of further side conditions for the low pressure compressor (LPC). Furthermore, it results in an increment of 5 percent points of isentropic efficiency and 13 percent points of static to total pressure ratio in comparison to our initial geometry. These impeller optimizations result in a COP increment of 5 percent. The resulting geometry will be interpreted in the context of aerodynamic behavior. Based on that results additionally, a flow-cut optimization for the high pressure compressor (HPC) is given and evaluated. The results are comparable to aerodynamic optimization in different research fields like aircraft engines or stationary gas turbines and contribute to optimized multistage compressor design for HTHP.