Integration of Fluid Thermodynamic and Transport Properties in Conceptual Turbomachinery Design

The interest in designing gas turbine cycles that use unconventional working fluids is increasing. To be able to design the turbomachinery for these cycles the design programs need to be modified. This paper describes how a streamline curvature compressor design program, a one-dimensional compressor design program and a cycle performance program are linked to a thermodynamic properties program. A case study is described where the streamline curvature program is used to design a three stage compressor that has air as a working fluid. The design is completed both using a semi-perfect gas assumption and the new modification using a state of the art real gas data thermodynamic properties program. If not properly implemented real gas data retrieval may completely dominate calculation times. An algorithm targeting high numerical efficiency intended for through-flow multi-dimensional optimization is outlined. Various implementation recommendations associated with the integration of the real gas data program into the one-dimensional compressor design program and the cycle program are described.