Turbines
Barber-Nichols, Inc. (BNI) has extensive turbine design, analysis, fabrication, and testing expertise. BNI has an extremely wide range of turbine experience which includes:
- Inlet Temperatures from cryogenic to 1,370° C
(2,500° F) - Power levels from Watts to megawatts
- Rotational speeds exceeding 400,000 rpm
Applications have varied from commercial power generation applications to rocket engine turbopumps and torpedo drives. BNI has produced hundreds of clean sheet turbines designs with most resulting in tested hardware. Please feel free to either contact Barber-Nichols regarding your application or read on to learn more about the differences between Axial Flow Impulse, Axial Flow Reaction, and Radial Inflow Turbines.
Axial Flow Impulse Turbines are ideally suited for applications where you need to keep the speed of the machine and the tangential velocity of the rotor low. In other words, they are often used in a lower specific speed range. For power generation systems, it is advantageous to operate at 3,600 rpm in order to drive a synchronous generator. In aerospace or high density power systems where the driving fluid is extremely energetic resulting in a high enthalpy drop across the turbine, the impulse turbine can operate efficiently at a lower tangential velocity than reaction turbines. Finally, the impulse turbine can operate with partial admission without significant losses as compared to reaction turbines.
Axial Flow Reaction Turbines are typically used for expanding hydrocarbon gases or fluorinated refrigerants where a high molecular weight results in a low enthalpy drop across the turbine. When air or steam is used, the head drop across a single turbine is usually too high; therefore, multi-stage turbines can be used to reduce the head across each stage. Additionally, the power and resulting flow rates should be high enough to result in specific speed values of 60 or higher. Where specific speeds are low, an Axial Flow Impulse Turbine may be better suited for the application.
Radial Inlfow Turbines have high efficiencies when applied in the proper operating conditions. The most common application for the Radial Inflow Turbine is the exhaust driven turbocharger used on internal combustion engines. Millions of these units are used in automobiles, aircraft, and industrial engines. Other applications include power generation by gas turbines or by expanding organic fluids in a Rankine cycle. Finally, Radial Inflow Turbines are also used in process plants to recover heavy hydrocarbons from gas streams.