Studies on Hard Chrome Plating on Cylinder Liner of Air Compressor and Numerical Analysis of Cascade Cooler for an Air Separation Unit

Abstract

This present work is to investigate the effects of chrome plating in reciprocating air compressors that result in reduction of power consumption. Reciprocating air compressors are the most commonly used compressors for domestic and industrial purposes to give required air output in terms of free air delivery, delivery temperature and maximum working pressure. The objective of this study is to develop a better understanding on the effects of chrome plating in the cylinder to build a lesser power consumed compressor with greater air output. Cylinders are made of graded cast iron that is then honed and hard chrome plated. The adequacy of this model can be verified using thermal image analysis, which includes the various temperature distribution plots around the compressor components. Further delivery temperature, actual displacement and free air delivery pressure are the parameters that conclude the deviation in actual and experimental values. This paper suggests the need of hard chrome plating to the compressor cylinder that resulted in annual power savings of about 25%. The increase in volumetric efficiency was about 20 -30% from the actual conditions. A cascade system for reducing the temperature of compressed air for processing the feed air in a cryogenic air separation plant whereindry nitrogen vapor from the bottom column of the plant is made to bubble with water. The feed air for the air compressor is cooled to about 310 –330 K which is highly recommended and efficient when the feed air enters the Air purification unit. The cascade cooling system eliminates the need of Freon cooler that results in economy. The numerical simulation have been conducted on single tube copper channel and copper coil bundles with two phase and multi-phase flow and temperature contours are displayed that indicates the compressed feed air temperature reduced to 380K in single copper tube channel and 313 K in copper coil bundle case which
was the most effective respectively