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High-efficiency Turbo Chiller (NART Series)

Wataru Seki*1 Kenji Ueda*1 Jyou Masutani*2 Yoichirou Iritani*2
Turbo chillers are widely used for district heating and cooling, heat storage (regeneration) and plant process cooling, in large-capacity air conditioning facilities. The NART series of HFC134a high efficiency turbo chiller targets the worlds highest efficiency with performance 20% or more higher than that of conventional units. Development was extended to aerodynamic performance improvement of the key compressor component, heat exchanger performance, system design, and control to upgrade performance.
anteed stable supply and further, are required to be highly reliable and have noticeable energy-saving performance. H e n c e , n e w l y d e v e l o p e d c h i l l e r s a r e designed to attain the worlds highest efficiency level of COP 6.1.

1. Introduction
The HFC134a refrigerant used in the turbo chiller described here has been used in various chilling equipment as a substitute refrigerant for CFC12, HCFC22, and HCFC123 since about 1994. At present, HFC134a is a refrigerant that has been mostly used since it was adopted for use in car air-conditioners. In addition, because of recent concerns about global warming, improving the efficiency of thermal equipment that consumes large amounts of electric energy is considered as the most important and first priority subject. This is especially the case in the application of such refrigerant to plant process-cooling equipment with a product life cycle of 20 years or longer. In addition, 2001 has seen the introduction of strict statutory requirements for the recovery and destruction of refrigerants in order to control the emission of chlorofluorocarbons. As a result, chillers are now required to use refrigerants that have a guar-

2. Optimized refrigerant cycle

The more compression and expansion stages there are, the closer one can come to achieving to the ideal refrigerant cycle. In the chiller developed at this time, however, a two-stage compression cycle was adopted taking into consideration the characteristics of the HFC134a refrigerant, optimum impeller design, compact equipment design, and cost-savings. For four typical refrigerant cycle systems shown in Fig . 1 , the Fig. coefficients of performance (COPs) were compared. As a result, it was known that, in a two-stage compression cycle, a two-stage expansion could deminish the first stage recirculating flow rate and a subcooling could minimize the second stage recirculating flow

Single stage compressor Electric motor Condenser

Single stage compressor Electric motor

Two-stage compressor Electric motor

Two-stage compressor Electric motor

Evaporator Condenser Subcooler

Evaporator Condenser

Evaporator Condenser Subcooler

Evaporator

Economizer Sub-cooling Economizer (2) (3) (1) (4) (3) (4) (1) (1)

Economizer

Economizer Sub-cooling (2) (3) (3) (4) (1) (1)

(2) (3) (3) (4) (1)

(2)

(1) Compression

(2) Condensation

(3) Expansion

(4) Evaporation

*1 Air-Conditioning & Refrigeration Systems Headquarters *2 Takasago Research & Development Center, Technical Headquarters

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Speed-increasing gear unit Closed electric motor Compressor Second stage impeller First stage impeller Suction vane Refrigerant gas inlet

Ball bearings Diffuser width controller

Refrigerant gas outlet

Flow improvement on negative side surface of the blade

Fig. 4 Integrated flow analysis of impeller and diffuser The flow contours cre-ated by CFD analysis are shown.

Flow improvement between blades Example of improved impeller inside flow

rate. Accordingly, both two-stage expansion and subcooling were added. A two-stage compression, twostage expansion sub-cooling cycle is theoretically about 10% superior to a single stage cycle.

3. Improvement of compressor aerodynamic performance

When a two-stage compression design is adopted, the impeller inlet Mach number becomes subsonic. Therefore, the following aerodynamic designs were taken in order to raise efficiency by improving the flows in the impeller inside and the outlet down-

Fig. stream (1). Fig . 2 shows a cross section of the compressor for the chiller developed this time. (1) Design of high efficiency subsonic impeller Both the first and second stages of the system were designed to have large specific speeds, respectively, taking a discharge coefficient that is larger than that commonly used for conventional two-stage type impellers. In order to minimize secondary flows inside the impeller, the distribution of the blade angle and blade inclination angles were determined by using the newest CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics). Fig. Fig . 3 shows an example taken during this study. It shows the state in which the secondary flows and

. .

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Tip Pressure side surface Negative side surface Hub (a) Open impeller Shroud Pressure side surface Negative side surface Hub (b) Closed impeller

First stage impeller Second stage impeller

boundary layer thickness on the negative-pressure blade surface are declining. Flow distortion in the impeller outlet downstream diffuser could be improved by improving the flows inside the impeller. Fig . 4 shows an example of the Fig. computed fluid distortion analysis based on an integrated analysis of the impeller and diffuser. Since the secondary flows in the impeller could be reduced, the number of blades was optimized, in order to reduce the wetted area, increase the inlet throat area, and reduce the tailing vortex due to the rear edge thickness of the blades. The optimized number of blades was also determined using the results of CFD. (2) Adoption of open impeller A comparison was made between both open and closed impellers during development of the chiller system. Flow analysis and practical unit performance tests showed that they have about the same level of performance. The open impeller was adopted for the practical units in order to permit: precise machining using a five-axis NC machine; excellent surface-finishing at a several micron level; reduction on weight, so that the weight of the compressor shaft and the size of the impeller can be reduced to a compact size in a rotor dynamics design; as well as cost reductions owing to advances in machining technology. Fig. Fig . 5 shows a comparison in the flow analysis results of both open and closed impellers. In the open impeller, both the boundary layer and flow deviation increase due to the influence of the clearance between the blade tip and the shroud. Thus, the shroud form was determined in the practical unit according to the

. .

. . . .

tip shape deformed in the operating state in order to minimize the clearance so as to reduce gas leakage. As mentioned above, very careful attention was paid to this point, so that differences in performance between the open and closed impellers could be successfully eliminated. (3) Shaft system evaluation The impeller shaft is longer than conventional twostage shafts because of designing larger specific speed impellers. As a result, the shaft length extruded from the bearing position also becomes longer. Accordingly, the soundness of the shaft strength was verified by rotor dynamics analysis. Furthermore, the natural frequencies of the rotor blades installed on the shaft were measured to confirm the avoidance of coupled vibration of the rotor blades with the shaft and resonance of the rotor blades with the upstream stator blades. In addition, it was also confirmed in practical unit verification tests that no irregular vibration was generated under various operational states, including surging, with the shaft and casing vibrations monitored. Fig. Fig . 6 shows the two-stage open impeller assembled with the shaft.

4. Design for reducing mechanical loss

The mechanical loss could be reduced to 50% or less of that of conventional units through the use of rolling bearings in place of plane bearings. A bearing life of 50 000 hours or more was ensured (2). A gear power-transferring efficiency of 99% or higher could be achieved by optimizing the pressure angle (2) .

5. Improvement of heat exchanger performance

(1) Evaporator In order to improve the heat transfer performance
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Refrigerant to compressor Demister

Refrigerant liquid surface

Larger heat transfer

Tuberemoved zones

Heat transfer tube bundles

Liquid-distributing plate Refrigerant from economizer

Smaller heat transfer Fig. 8 Example of evaporator fluid analysis An example analyzing the distribution of shell side boiling heat transfer coefficient in the cross section of an evaporator is shown. Refrigerant gas inlet Vcct or

Baffle plate

0.0 2.0 4.1 6.1 8.1 10.2

Result of CFD analysis Refrigerant liquid outlet

12.2 14.2 m/s

of the evaporator, it is essential the overall heat transfer performance be improved by optimizing the tube arrangement, since there is a limit to how much the performance of the heat transfer tubes only can be enhanced. In particular, a zone with a high void ratio is produced in the upper part of the tube bundle due to the accumulation of bubbles generated in the lower heat transfer tubes. This results in nucleate boiling being restrained and a deterioration in heat transfer performance. In order to resolve this problem, tube-removed zones are provided in the tube bundle so as to collect generated bubbles into the zones in order to eliminate them, as shown in Fig . 7 (3). Fig. Furthermore, when many tube bundles are piled up, it is predicted that dry out will occur and the boiling heat transfer coefficient will be reduced since the refrigerant around the upper heat transfer tubes is blown off by bubbles with increased ascending velocities. The horizontal pitch of the heat transfer tubes was increased in order to address this problem (3) . On the basis of such basic data as the correlation between heat transfer coefficients and void ratios, obtained by factor tests, the heat flow-analyzing gen-

eral code was improved. This improvement made it possible to predict the distribution of heat transfer coefficients of an evaporator using HFC134a, and it was applied to a practical design. An example of the results of evaporator heat transfer analysis is shown in Fig . 8 (4). Fig. (2) Condenser In order to improve condenser heat transfer performance, it is necessary to reduce the thickness of the condensate film on the heat transfer tubes and prevent deterioration of condensing performance in the lower tube bundles due to the accumulation of descending condensate. Just as with an evaporator, in order to improve the condensing heat transfer, there is a limit to how much only heat transfer tube performance can be improved. Thus, it was intended to make the liquid film uniform, with the condenser inside flow homogenized according to the results of a single phase gas fluid analysis. Fig . 9 shows an exFig. ample of the results of analysis for a condenser (4) .

6. Control system
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Compressor Running Compressor Running

Basic display

Display showing a real time

Coefficient of performance (COP)

(1) Power for cooling refrigerant (2) Windage loss (3) Bearing loss (4) Gear loss (5) Electric motor loss (6) Piping loss (7) Heat exchanger SD 400
(1)

7 Newly developed unit 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 20 30 80 40 50 60 70 Refrigerant capacity (%) 90 100 Partial load performance At a chilled water temperature of 7oC Cooling water is based on JIS Conventional unit

350
Required power (kW)

(3) (5)

(2) (4) Energy savings of about 20%

300

(7)

(6)

. .

250 Loss due to compressor efficiency Loss due to compressor efficiency

200

Theoretical gas horsepower

6.5 6.0
COP Developed machine

50 Conventional machine

5.5 5.0 4.5

[Condition] Chilled water temperature: 12/7oC Cooling water temperature: 32/37oC 200 400 600 800 1 000 1 200 1 400 1 600 1 800 2 000 Refrigerant capacity (Rt)

crocomputer panels have been used in the control of chillers. However, an assessment of the conventional control functions was carried out with the development of the NART series, and many new functions were added. For the load control, both precise load and cooling water traceabilities were achieved by individual control of the inlet vane, diffuser width, and hot gas bypath valve. Also, control of the expansion mechanism was optimized by internal computation of the recirculating amount of refrigerant. Other additional functions were newly provided as well including scheduled operations, a function to prevent irregular or incorrect operation, BAS communication monitoring function, and operating machine number controlling function so that the equipment control system would be able to meet a wide range of needs. Fig. Fig . 10 shows the liquid crystal display (LCD) of a control panel (5) .

4.0 0

7. Performance of practical unit

Because every individually developed element

. . .

achieved its target, overall performance was improved 20% or more compared with conventional chillers. Fig. Fig . 11 shows a breakdown of the areas in which improvements were realized. In addition, excellent partial load performance was obtained by optimizing both the inlet vane and diffuser width controls. A graph of the partial load performance of the system is shown in Fig . 12 (5) . Fig. In order to evaluate the durability of the equipment, disassembled inspections were carried out after the following continuous operations and testing to verify the soundness of the equipment. Other tests included the following: operation at a rotating stall point, operation under a surging state, and power failure tests. Verification tests of all the types in the series have
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already been carried out over a range of 350 through 1 660 USRt as an overall test of the entire NART series. As a result, it was confirmed that all the types could achieve their design performance levels. Fig . 13 Fig. shows the COP for each capacity type.

8. Conclusion
(1) The commercialization of the turbo chiller NART series with the worlds highest efficiency of COP 6 . 1 ( a t a c h i l l e d w a t e r b a s e o f 1 2 oC / 7 oC ) w a s realized using the HFC134a refrigerant (Fig. 14 Fig. Fig 14). (2) High efficiency operation could be achieved throughout year because of the excellent load traceability and cooling water traceability. (3) The system was shown to have sufficient durability under practical operation states, such that the compressor did not need to be overhauled for 50 000 hours or longer (4) Significant expansion and improvement in control

functions offer excellent operability and communication ability to the control panel (5) Ninety chillers have already been delivered so far, and their high performance and reliability achieved their designed goals as highly evaluated systems by their customers.
References (1) Kawakami, T. et al., Development of Centrifugal Compressor for HFC134a Turbo Chiller, Proceedings of 2000 JSRAE Annual Conference, p.202 (2) Yoshida, Z. et al., Tribological Technology for High Efficient Centrifugal Chiller, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Technical Review Vol.39 No.1 (2002) p.26 (3) Kawada, A. et al., Development of HFC134a Turbo Chiller, Proceeding of 2000 JSRAE Annual Conference, p.205 (4) Ueda, K. et al., Development of High-Efficiency HFC134a Turbo Chiller, Proceedings of 2001 JSRAE Annual Conference, p.205 (5) Seki, W. et al., Worlds Highest Efficient HFC134a Turbo Chiller (NART Series), Heating Piping & Air Conditioning Vol. 39 No.2 (Feb. 2001)

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. Technical Review Vol.39 No.2 (Jun. 2002)