TURBOCOMPRESSOR

Description

RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application claims priority to German Patent Application No. 10 2024 102 695.2, filed Jan. 31, 2024, the entire contents of which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.

FIELD

The disclosure relates to a turbocompressor with a diffuser and a clamping ring, which are formed integrally and in a single piece as a unit, wherein axial, radial, and diagonal compressors are understood as turbocompressors.

BACKGROUND

Turbocompressors, which include radial compressors, axial compressors, and diagonal compressors, as well as their basic construction are well-known from the prior art. In this regard, a fluid or gas, respectively, and in particular air is accelerated by an impeller driven by a motor and the motional energy of the fluid is converted into pressure in a diffuser downstream in terms of flow.

In this regard, the impeller, which is usually connected to a shaft, is mounted axially and radially via a mount, wherein the mount may be, depending on the specific application and the boundary conditions prevailing in this regard, for example, an aerodynamic mount, which may also be referred to as a gas mount or an air mount. With regard to a thrust bearing in the prior art, the aerodynamic mount often comprises a dedicated and separate bearing assembly, which determines the cohesion of the individual components of the thrust bearing as well as the installation of the bearing assembly in the compressor.

However, this leads to a plurality of different components which must be matched to one another and assembled.

BRIEF SUMMARY

The present disclosure overcomes the above-mentioned disadvantages and realizes an axial or radial or diagonal, respectively, compressor with a simple and thus cost-effective construction.

A turbocompressor, i.e., an axial, diagonal, or axial compressor, respectively, with an impeller rotatable about an axis of rotation for conveying a fluid, a diffuser downstream of the impeller in terms of flow, and a clamping ring for fixing a thrust bearing axially mounting the impeller in a bearing receptacle, is provided according to the disclosure, wherein in the following, reference is made to the radial compressor/diagonal compressor/axial compressor in general as the compressor. In this regard, the impeller is preferably mounted with a thrust bearing formed as an aerodynamic bearing, which may be combined with a radial bearing, and/or via a shaft rotatable about the axis of rotation to which the impeller is fixed or with which the impeller is formed. The compressor, which in the case of a radial compressor may also be referred to as a centrifugal compressor or a radial compressor, preferably serves for usage in cooling applications in which the fluid conveyed by the compressor or the impeller, respectively, is a coolant. In this regard, it is essential for the disclosure for the diffuser and the clamping ring to be formed integrally and in a single piece with each other as a unit.

Correspondingly, the number of parts and the installation are significantly simplified, also resulting in additional advantageous effects explained in the following.

Within the scope of the present description, the axial direction, the radial direction, and the circumferential direction refer to the axis of rotation, unless otherwise indicated in the specific case.

In this regard, an advantageous development of the compressor provides that it further has an inner housing for receiving a mount formed by the thrust bearing and/or a radial bearing, wherein the unit consisting of the diffuser and the clamping ring forms an end-face housing cover of the inner housing.

Furthermore, the inner housing may have a pot as a bearing receptacle for receiving the mount, wherein the housing cover formed by the unit consisting of the diffuser and the clamping ring is connectable to the pot by at least one fastening element, and the mount is fixable in the pot by the housing cover or an axial clamping force generatable across the housing cover and, as recited in the following, through, e.g., at least one clamping section provided on the housing cover, respectively.

Furthermore, in a variant providing an inner housing, the inner housing may advantageously be embodied to be formed to receive an electric motor driving the impeller, optionally via the shaft, and to form cooling elements for cooling the electric motor, for example in the form of cooling ducts running in the axial direction and furthermore connected in a thermally conductive manner, in particular, to a stator of the motor. In this regard, the inner housing determines the bearing receptacle or provides it, respectively. Herein, the unit consisting of the diffuser and the clamping ring is formed to direct the fluid conveyed by the impeller into and/or onto the cooling elements of the inner housing.

Correspondingly, at least part of the fluid conveyed by the impeller is redirected from the radial direction to the axial direction.

As already explained as an introduction, the thrust bearing may be provided as an aerodynamic thrust bearing with at least one thrust bearing washer, wherein, for such a case, an advantageous development of the disclosure provides for the unit consisting of the diffuser and the clamping ring to form a clamping section protruding in the axial direction for abutting one of the thrust bearing washers, in particular formed by an annular projection extending peripherally in the circumferential direction, so that thus axial clamping or fixing, respectively, of the one thrust bearing washer in particular against the further components of the mount, i.e., via a spacer washer or a spacer ring, respectively, against a second thrust bearing washer and by means of it against, for example, an end-side end of the pot for receiving the mount, is executable in a simple manner and without any intermediate elements.

In order to decouple the aerostatic effects caused by the aerodynamic mounting on the shaft or on a thrust bearing surface, respectively, and to enable pressure equalisation with an ambient pressure prevailing in the bearing pot, the clamping section may also be formed by an annular projection extending peripherally in the circumferential direction which is perforated by channels running in the radial direction for decoupling the flow and, optionally, for homogenization of an ambient pressure in the bearing pot.

Typically, the unit consisting of the diffuser and the clamping ring may also be provided to have a plurality of guide elements and/or cooling elements for cooling and pressure conversion of the fluid conveyed by the impeller, by means of which, on the one hand, the fluid may be cooled or heat may be transferred from the unit consisting of the diffuser and the clamping ring to the fluid, and on the other hand, the motional energy of the fluid may be converted into a pressure.

Also, the unit consisting of the diffuser and the clamping ring preferably has at least one aligning element for concentric alignment with respect to the axis of rotation and/or for concentric alignment of the thrust bearing with respect to the axis of rotation and/or for concentric alignment of an inflow nozzle arranged on an inflow side of the impeller with respect to the axis of rotation.

The features disclosed above can be combined as required, provided this is technically possible and they do not contradict one another.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Other advantageous developments of the disclosure are characterized in the subclaims and/or depicted in greater detail below together with the description of the preferred embodiment of the disclosure with reference to the figure. In the drawings:

FIG. 1 shows a longitudinal section through a compressor.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The figure is schematic by way of example and shows a compressor 1 formed according to the disclosure in a longitudinal section along the axis of rotation A.

In this regard, an impeller 10 rotatable about an axis of rotation A for conveying a fluid and pressurizing, i.e., compressing the fluid, is provided by the compressor 1, wherein an inflow nozzle 60 is upstream and a diffuser 21 is downstream of the impeller 10 with respect to the conveying direction, by means of which kinetic energy may be converted into pressure.

For mounting the impeller 10 or a shaft to which the impeller 10 is fastened, respectively, a thrust bearing 30 and, presently, a combination bearing as a combination of a thrust bearing 30 and a radial bearing are also provided. Furthermore, these are presently formed as aerodynamic bearings.

In order to be able to fix the thrust bearing 30 in a bearing receptacle 41 provided by an inner housing 40 of the compressor 1, specifically as a pot 41, a clamping ring 22 is usually provided, by means of which a clamping force may be applied to the thrust bearing 30 and the latter may be fixed correspondingly in the pot 41.

Presently, in this regard, the diffuser 21 and the clamping ring 22 are provided to be formed integrally with one another, i.e., in a single piece as a unit 20, whereby not only the number of parts of the compressor may be reduced, but also the concentric alignment with respect to the axis of rotation A may be simplified. Stated another way, the diffuser 21 can be unitarily formed with the clamping ring 22 and the combined unit 20 can be a monolithic structure.

In order to fix the thrust bearing 30, which, being an aerodynamic bearing, has a thrust bearing washer 31, the unit 20 forms a clamping section 23 extending annularly peripherally in the circumferential direction U about the axis of rotation A, by means of which the unit 20 directly abuts the thrust bearing washer 31 and applies a clamping force to the latter in the axial direction, i.e., parallel to the axis of rotation A.

In this regard, the clamping section 23 is intersected in the radial direction R by channels 24, through which a radially inner cavity is connected to a radially outer cavity, so that an ambient pressure around the aerodynamic thrust bearing 30 may be homogenised and, optionally, undesired excess pressures arising at the thrust bearing 30 may be discharged.

Furthermore, the unit 20 is connectable and presently screw-mountable to the inner housing 40 via fastening elements 42, wherein a concentric alignment of the unit 20 with the inner housing 40 occurs by means of an aligning element 26 which is formed as a mating surface annularly peripheral around the axis of rotation A.

The diffuser 21 has a plurality of guide elements 25 which are presently formed to direct the fluid between cooling elements 43 provided on the inner housing 40 and formed as cooling fins, so that this enables efficient cooling of the inner housing 40 and of the electric motor 50 received therein for driving the impeller 10.

The disclosure is not limited in its execution to the above-mentioned preferred exemplary embodiments. Rather, a number of variants are conceivable which make use of the illustrated solution even in the form of fundamentally different embodiments.