Why We Custom Design Every Turbocharger

Turbochargers are simple machines but represent a daunting hydraulic design challenge:

  • Design the turbine end to create a pressure differential to match the brine flow and pressure duty point;
  • Design the turbine with a best efficiency point (BEP) that matches duty brine flow;
  • Design the pump end with the BEP matching the duty point feed flow;
  • Make sure that the pump impeller absorbs exactly the correct amount of power provided by the turbine at exactly same rate of shaft rotation.

Figure 1 shows a turbo with great component BEP efficiency (92% pump and 89% turbine) but with poor alignment between BEP flows and duty flows. In addition, the turbine differential pressure is different from the required brine backpressure. The pressure mismatch represents up to a 10% loss of available energy recovery.

Figure 2 shows the same duty conditions but with performance curves that match the design requirements resulting in greater feed pressure boost.

The Power of FEDCO Customization
Given enough testing and redesigns, a given turbocharger can obtain good balance of high component efficiencies that hydraulically match the RO system requirements.
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The challenge is getting it right the first time every time.

FEDO has met the challenge through the development of a suite of proprietary design and manufacturing computer programs. A customer’s RO duty point conditions are transformed into detailed hydraulic designs and then into machine program downloaded to the shop floor within a matter of hours.
And that is why FEDCO can have a fully customized turbocharger tested to duty conditions on the loading dock faster than other suppliers can ship a pump picked from a catalog.

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