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.
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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