Barber-Nichols (BN) specializes in the design and production of high-performance turbocompressors. Products include turbine-compressor-generator assemblies for gas turbine engines and turbocompressors for the process and energy industries. For some applications, it is possible to economically modify automotive turbochargers. For other more demanding applications, BN develops clean-sheet turbocompressor designs.
Turbocompressors
Supercritical CO2 Turbocompressor Motor/Generator
Barber-Nichols designs and produces turbocompressors that remove Non-Condensable Gas (NCG) from the condensers at flash steam geothermal power plants. In geothermal power plants, NCG enters the process equipment along with the steam. NCG then collects in the sub-atmospheric pressure steam condensers and it must be pressurized before it can be vented to the atmosphere. In some cases, compression of NCG requires up to 20% of the power produced by the plant. High-efficiency turbocompressors produced by Barber-Nichols dramatically reduce these power requirements. Typically, motor-driven liquid-ring vacuum pumps or steam-jet ejectors are used to pressurize the non-condensable gas stream. BN’s turbocompressors are nearly 30% more efficient than liquid-ring pumps and 250% more efficient than steam-jet ejectors.
Innovative Cooling System Turbocompressor
Billions of gallons of water are evaporated each year at electric power plants in the U.S. for cooling purposes. As freshwater resources become strained in the U.S. and the rest of the world it is of great interest to find alternative dry air cooling approaches. Standard dry air cooling requires equipment that is very large, expensive, and has poor efficiency. Barber-Nichols (BN), Colorado State University (CSU), and Modine Manufacturing Co. won a DOE ARPA-e award in 2016 to design, build and test a highly efficient supplemental cooling system that uses low-grade waste heat at power plants. This technology promises to significantly reduce the size and cost of dry air heat exchangers in power plants while increasing overall efficiency and reducing water footprint.
For this innovative system, BN will design, build and test a magnetically coupled turbine-driven compressor. To optimize efficiency in the system it is advantageous to use different fluids for the expansion and compression systems. The magnetic coupling allows for a single machine operating between these two systems to be hermetically sealed and optimizes transmission efficiency. This particular design will push the limits of current magnetic coupling technology as the machine will rotate at a target speed of 30,000 rpm while transmitting power of approximately 12 kW. A non-metallic barrier can is used between the magnetic half couplings to minimize losses from operating at this extremely high speed.
BN has finished manufacturing all of the parts for this turbocompressor and is currently assembling these components to get ready for initial spin testing at its Arvada, CO facility in December 2017 before shipment to CSU by the end of the year. Full-up system testing will take place at CSU in Fort Collins, CO in early 2017.
