Proceedings of the 20th National and 9th International

ISHMT-ASME Heat and Mass Transfer Conference

January 4-6, 2010, Mumbai, India

10HMTC055

SIMULATION OF TURBOEXPANDER BASED NITROGEN LIQUEFIER

S.A.Alur Balaji Kumar Choudhury Ranjit K. Sahoo

NIT, Rourkela NIT, Rourkela NIT, Rourkela
Rourkela, Orissa, 769008 Rourkela, Orissa, 769008 Rourkela, Orissa, 769008
India India India
s.alur@rediffmail.com balajichoudhury@gmail.com rksahoo@nitrkl.ac.in

Sunil Kr. Sarangi

NIT, Rourkela
Rourkela, Orissa, 769008
India
sarangiskr@nitrkl.ac.in

ABSTRACT s specific entropy

In spite of nearly half a century of R&D experience, our
country is still dependent on imports for most of its needs in x dryness fraction
cryogenic refrigerators and liquefiers. These products are 1 Compressor inlet
proprietary in nature which makes it very expensive for its 2 Compressor exit and HX 1 inlet (H.P side)
cost and maintenance. So it is imperative that our country 2' Corresponding state at the compressor exit
develops an indigenous nitrogen liquefier to meet the need of
temperature in the low pressure side
liquid nitrogen. With the support from the Department of
Atomic Energy, our institute has initiated a programme on 3 hot outlet of HX 1 & Turboexpander inlet
development and study of a nitrogen liquefier of intermediate 4 hot outlet of HX 2 & J.T Valve inlet
capacity (in the range of 10-50 litres/hr) by using technologies p Pinch point in low pressure stream, inside HX2
already developed in our country. The process is based on a
suitable modified Claude cycle which minimizes the number of 5 J.T Valve out & Phase separator inlet
heat exchangers and also takes care to accommodate the in- 6 Turboexpander exit (actual state)
house developed turboexpander. The process design is carried 6s Turboexpander exit (isentropic state)
out using the standard calculation procedure and is validated
by using process simulation software, Aspen. The 7 Exit of mixer 2 & cold inlet for HX 2
thermodynamic parameters (temperature, pressure, pinch 8 cold outlet of HX 2 & cold inlet to HX 1
point temperature) are evaluated to obtain the optimum mass 9 cold outlet of HX 1 & mixer 1 inlet
fraction through turboexpander for maximum liquid yield. f, g saturated liquid and saturated vapor states
Parametric study is carried out to access the role of different respectively
component efficiencies in predicting overall system efficiency
at the design and off design conditions. efficiency of turboexpander
mass fraction of nitrogen diverted through
NOMENCLATURE turboexpander
1 Effectiveness of HX 1
cp Specific heat 2 Effectiveness of HX 2
HX1 Heat exchanger 1 y yield, kg of liquid nitrogen produced per kg
HX 2a Heat exchanger 2 (non-condensing part) of gas compressed
HX 2b Heat exchanger 2(condensation part) mf mass of liquid nitrogen separated in the phase
Tex Turboexpander Separator, kg/s
m mass of nitrogen delivered from compressor,
T Temperature kg/s
P Pressure mt mass of nitrogen gas diverted through
h specific enthalpy turboexpander, kg/s
INTRODUCTION
Cryogenic refrigerators are becoming increasingly popular
particularly in the areas of superconducting magnet
applications, particle accelerators and medical imaging
systems, etc. It has also got wide applications in preservation
of live biological materials as well as in scientific equipment.
In spite of nearly half a century of R & D experience, our
country is still dependent on imports for most of its needs in
cryogenic refrigerators and liquefiers. These equipments are
enormously expensive to buy and to maintain. The customers
are often forced to buy equipment due to non-availability of
proprietary spares. It is imperative that our country develops
an indigenous nitrogen liquefier of capacity in the range 10 to
50 litre/hour. With the support from the Department of
Atomic Energy, our institute has initiated a programme on
development and study of a nitrogen liquefier of intermediate
capacity (20 litre/hr). The focus of this project is to build a Figure 2.TEMPERATURE ENTROPY DIAGRAM
refrigerator using expertise on components already developed
in different laboratories of our country. It is proposed to Applying the First Law for steady flow process to the
construct a turbine based liquid nitrogen generator of capacity system as shown in figure 1, the liquid yield can be expressed
20 liter/hour using indigenous technology. This technology as,
and expertise will be extended for the liquefaction of helium
in future. mf h9 h2 h h6
y 3 (1)
m h9 h5 f h9 h5 f
PROCESS FLOW DIAGRAM
The process flow diagram and the corresponding
temperature entropy diagram are shown in figure 1. It is a CALCULATION OF PROCESS PARAMETERS
modified Claude cycle comprising of a screw compressor, two The design of process parameters depends on the nodal
heat exchangers, a turboexpander and a JT valve. The temperature across the heat exchangers and turbo-expanders.
compressed nitrogen gas at 8 bars is passed through heat Figure 2 shows the process diagram and given below are the
exchanger-1. A major fraction (about 94 %) of the gas at a set of equations used for the calculation of process parameters.
suitable temperature (so that the gas does not become wet at
the end of expansion) is then diverted from the main stream a. Input Parameters
and is expanded through a turboexpander. i. Effectiveness of heat exchanger 1, 1 0.98
ii. Pinch point for heat exchanger 2 =1 K
The stream (about 6%) to be liquefied continues through iii. Efficiency of turboexpander, = 0.5
the second heat exchanger. In the second heat exchanger, the iv. Compressor discharge temperature, T2=310 K
stream is cooled to saturation temperature (100.2 K) and is v. Mass fraction diverted through turboexpander, =0.94
then condensed to liquid nitrogen. In this heat exchanger, vi. Corresponding property values at saturated liquid and
minimum temperature difference (Pinch point) between saturated vapor states from property table.
forward and return streams is maintained at 1K. The wet
mixture is then finally expanded through a JT valve. The cold b. Assumptions
vapor from the phase separator is allowed to mix with the i. Pressure drop in the heat exchanger= 0.05 bar.
exhaust stream from the turboexpander in the mixer-2 and this ii. No external heat transfer.
returned stream successively passes through the heat
exchanger-2 and heat exchanger-1.The amount of liquid Initial guess to start the iteration process is,
nitrogen yield is compensated in the make-up gas stream. This i. enthalpy of cold fluid at outlet of HX1, h9 1 h2 '
is a modified Claude cycle using two heat exchangers. The last ii. yield, y = 1-
two heat exchangers in the actual Claude cycle is merged as
single heat exchanger. The advantage of this modification is to c. Component Analysis
use a certain length of the second heat exchanger as a heat
exchanger and the remaining length as a condenser. This i. Pinch Point Specification of Heat Exchanger2:
reduces the manufacturing cost. Heat exchanger 2 divided into two parts: First part of heat
exchanger is used to cool the hot nitrogen gas in the high
pressure side up to the saturation temperature of 100.2 K and
this stream is condensed in the second part of heat exchanger.
The minimum temperature difference occurs at the point
where the condensation begins and is called as pinch point.
For the specified pinch value of 1K for heat exchanger 2, we
have

T p T4 g 1 (2)

ii. Heat Exchanger 1: For the specified value of

effectiveness of heat exchanger 1 and the pinch point
Figure 1. PROCESS FLOW DIAGRAM specification for heat exchanger 2, the inlet and outlet
enthalpies of hot and cold fluids at node points 8, 3 and 9 are 1 y h5 g h6 1 y h7
calculated. The enthalpies h8, h3 and h9 are calculated from
equations (5), (6) and (7) respectively. Since the enthalpy at [h6 (1 y )h5 g ]
h7 (12)
node point 8 (h8) requires a prior estimation of y and h9, initial (1 y )
guess values are provided by equations (3) and (4)
respectively. v. Heat Exchanger 2: Enthalpy at outlet of hot fluid is
found out by energy balance between hot and cold fluids as

[h3 (1 ) (1 y )(h8 h7 )]
h4 (13)
(1 )

vi. Throttle Valve: Throttling is an isenthalpic process

which yields,

h5 h4 (14)
vii. Phase Separator: The dryness fraction, x5 of the
stream entering the phase separator is estimated as
Figure 3. PINCH POINT OF HX2
(h5 h f 5 )
y (1 ) (for initial guess) (3) x5 (15)
h9 1h2 ' (for initial guess) (hg 5 h f 5 )
(4)
[h9 (1 y )(1 ) h2 (1 ) h4 g (1 ) h p (1 y )]
h8 (5) viii. Yield: The liquid yield obtained per kg of gas passing
[( )(1 y )] through the throttling valve, is (1-x5). Hence for (1-) kg of
[h4 g (1 ) (1 y )(h8 h p )] gas passing through the throttling valve, the yield is
h3 (6)
(1 )
y (1 )(1 x5 ) (16)
h9 1h2 '(1 1)h8 (7)
To obtain the process parameters the iteration process is
repeated starting from equations (5) to (16) till the tolerance in
The iterations continued until the two subsequent iterative y is less than 10-5.
values of h9 are within a specified limit (10-4 kJ/kg).
PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS
iii. Turbo-expander: In the turboexpander, the process The effect of parametric variation on the liquefaction
3-6s is the isentropic expansion and the process 3-6 is the system gives the optimum performance. This analysis also
actual expansion. The entropy at node point 3 (s3) for specified depicts the off-design performance analysis.
values of h3 and p3 is taken from property chart (Alprops). The
high pressure stream after the expansion through the turbine is a. Effect of Mass Flow Rate through Turbo-expander
always to be dry which ensures that s6 is always greater than
s6g. The enthalpy at the end of expansion is estimated as,

Figure 4. EXPANSION IN TURBOEXPANDER

s 6s s3 (8) Figure 5. VARIATION OF YIELD WITH MASS FRACTION

T6 s T6 g exp [{( s 6 g s 3 ) / c p }] (9) DIVERTED THROUGH TURBOEXPANDER

h6 s h6 g c p (T6 g T6 s ) (10) The values of turbine efficiency, effectiveness of HX-1

h 6 h3 ( h3 h 6 s ) (11) and pinch point temperature of HX-2 are kept constant. The
effect of the variation of mass fraction through turboexpander
on the yield is studied as shown in figure 5. It is found that
iv. Mixer: Applying energy balance equation for the
liquid yield increases with the mass fraction diverted through
mixer, enthalpy at outlet of mixer is,
turboexpander, but when the mass fraction exceeds 0.94, the as shown in figure 7. Thus pinch point temperature of HX-2
liquid nitrogen coming out of heat exchanger 2 becomes sub- has a major role to play.
cooled, which is not desirable. Thus the optimum mass d. Effect of Efficiency of Turboexpander
fraction through turboexpander for maximum yield is 0.94 as For the given effectiveness of heat exchanger, the liquid
shown in the figure 5.Thermodynamic analysis of helium yield increases with the efficiency of turboexpander. The
liquefier [4] shows the existence of an optimum yield of 0.8 effect of turbine efficiency on the liquid yield is shown in the
operating between 1 bar and 15 bars. figure 8 for different expander flow ratios. It is observed that
the turboexpander with high efficiency can provide a better
b. Effect of Variation of Effectiveness of Heat yield with lesser mass flow rate through it. Due to the
Exchanger 1 available technology in our country the efficiency of
For the given efficiency of turbine (), expander flow ratio turboexpander is limited to 50% only.
() and pinch point of heat exchanger 2, the liquid yield
increases in direct proportion with the effectiveness of heat
exchanger1 (1), as shown in figure 6. It is also found that
liquid yield is not possible, when effectiveness of heat
exchanger 1 is below 0.88.

Figure 8. VARIATION OF YIELD WITH EFFICIENCY OF
TURBOEXPANDER

CONCLUSIONS
The thermodynamic simulation of the liquefier is done
Figure 6. VARIATION OF YIELD WITH EFFECTIVENESS OF
HEAT EXCHANGER-1 using both excels programming and Aspen (the process design
software). The simulation can be adopted to bring about any
c. Effect of Variation of Pinch Point over the changes in the configuration of the liquefaction cycle and can
Performance of the Plant be extended for the liquefaction of helium. For the pressure
range considered (1-8 bar), only two heat exchangers would
be sufficient. Parametric study is carried out to access the role
of different component efficiencies in predicting overall
system efficiency. The optimum mass fraction to be diverted
through turboexpander for the maximum yield is estimated to
be 0.94. The heat exchangers and turboexpander have been
designed in our laboratory. After fabrication of all the
components, the system is to be integrated for commissioning
and performance analysis.

REFERENCES
[1] Barron, R.F., 1985. Cryogenic systems, Oxford
University Press.
[2] Flynn, T.M., 1996.Cryogenic Engineering, Marcel-
Dekker Inc.
[3] Timmerhaus, K.D. and Flynn T.M, 1989.Cryogenic
Process Engineering, Plenum Press.
[4] M.D.Atrey, 1998.Thermodynamic analysis of
Collins helium liquefaction cycle, Cryogenics
Figure 7. VARIATION OF YIELD WITH PINCH 38,1199-1206
TEMPERATURE OF HEAT EXCHANGER -2

For the given efficiency of turbine (), expander flow ()

and effectiveness of heat exchanger 1 (1), the liquid yield
decreases with increase in pinch point temperature difference