Congratulation to Cheng-Yu for his Master thesis
The goal of Cheng-Yu Wu’s Master thesis was to implement a bearing process model to evaluate the effects of the herringbone-grooved journal bearings, spiral groove thrust bearings, as well as other parameters on a compressor-turbine-unit (CTU) for SOFC systems.
Currently in process modeling of small-scale turbomachinery in Solid Oxide Fuel Cell systems, the power losses caused by the shaft and its bearings are often times neglected or underestimated, which leads to inaccuracies and uncertainties limiting the applicability of the simulation results on real systems.
Gas bearing power loss correlations based on previous works have been implemented into Aspen Plus, the established model validated with existing experimental data, and a sensitivity analysis of the key parameters has been conducted. Finally, it has been shown that parameters such as the gas bearing temperature, the compressor inlet temperature, and the type of gas have great impact on the overall efficiency of the CTU, which confirms that the effects of the gas bearings are not neglectable. The established process model enables the evaluation of the effects of different gas bearing parameters on the CTU and the whole system.