What is the major advantage and disadvantage of a centrifugal compressor?

Air Compressor Power Plant

1. What is a centrifugal air compressor?

The Centrifugal Air Compressor is also known as Radial Compressor, Centrifugal Turbo Compressor or Turbo Air Compressor. This kind of compressor is a type of dynamic compressor.

Centrifugal air compressor dyanamic displacement

The centrifugal compressor brings the air into the center through a rotating impeller, which pushes forward the air through centrifugal, or outward force. By increasing the velocity of the air using this rotating impeller, the centrifugal air compressor imparts kinetic energy into the air stream and then converts this energy into potential energy in the form of pressure.

Centrifugal Compressor Air Flow

There can be a multi-stage type centrifugal turbo compressor and between each stage of compression, the air is cooled and the excess moisture is removed. This design allows the turbo air compressor can be used to produce large quantities of air in small packages. Besides, this multiple-stage design makes the centrifugal compressor more suitable for applications above 200 total horsepower.

 

2. Is centrifugal air compressor oil-free?

Compared with other types of air compressors, The centrifugal air compressor is featured by an advanced life cycle cost and lower maintenance due to its simple structure, continuous and steady airflow production, and less vibration and noise.

Sollant Centrifugal air compressor inner structure

As it’s mentioned before, the working principle of the centrifugal compressor is transferring the energy from a change to the centrifugal forces. And due to this unique design, the oil lubricant inside the units does come in contact with the air stream, which results in 100% oil-free air downstream. This oil-free air compression doesn’t only mean the purity of production and environmental benefit but also a reduction of overall ownership cost, which is very important.

As a professional centrifugal air compressor manufacturer, Sollant has been dedicated to providing the oil-free centrifugal air compressor of high efficiency. Compared with other centrifugal compressor manufacturers, we offer a wider range of products suitable for many applications.

Sollant Centifugal Air Compressor Sollant Centrifugal Air Compressor

For more information about Sollant Centrifugal Compressors, please check: Centrifugal Air Compressor and Centrifugal Turbo Compressor

 

3. What are centrifugal air compressors used for?

The centrifugal air compressor can be used to compress air of high volume and low compression ratio; it can also be used to compress air of very high flow. However, this turbo air compressor isn’t very suitable for high ratio and low-volume applications.

More specifically, the main applications are the followings:

*Petrochemical Industry:

Sollant centrifugal compressor petrochemical industry

As we mentioned before, the centrifugal air compressor offers an absolutely oil-free compression, which is very important for the chemical medium compression as the purity is essential in the petrochemical industry. Besides, the centrifugal air compressor helps to reduce the emission in the compression process, which makes it environment-friendly.

*Power Plant:

Air Compressor Power Plant

A centrifugal turbo compressor is also a cost option for the power plant: nowadays more and more power plants work on integrating the compression systems for an efficiency optimization, which makes requires a high capacity of the single air compressor. The centrifugal compressor meets this requirement for it can offer an oil-free and high-efficient compression.

*Automobile Industry:

Air Compressor Turbocharger

Many types of air compressors can be used in the automobile industry. Compared with other types, the centrifugal air compressor is a more ideal choice due to its simpler installation, high degree of automation, large volume, and high quality of compressed air.

*Food and beverage industry :

Centrifugal Compressor Food Industry

The centrifugal compressor provides oil-free compressed air for some sensitive applications such as food processing.

 

4. What are the advantages of the centrifugal air compressor?

Low weight, easy to design and manufacture.

Suitable for continuous compressed air supply, such as the cooling unit.

They have fewer rubbing parts and require low maintenance.

It renders a high-flow rate than the positive displacement compressor and offers a higher pressure ratio per stage than the axial flow compressor.