Abstract

Hydraulic Air Compressor (HAC) is a device which converts hydraulic energy to energy of compressed air. A better exploitation of this hydraulic resource is currently investigated. The aim of the current work is to analyze a low head open type HAC in terms of compression ratio and HAC efficiency. The performance of HAC is both experimentally and theoretically investigated for various air admission system parameters (air tube length and diameter), downcomer length and hydraulic head. The results are both presented and discussed. Variation of the mean diameter of air bubbles in the downward flow in the downcomer is both determined and investigated. The losses in the whole system are classified, investigated and its impact on HAC is discussed.

Highlights

  • A Hydraulic Air Compressor is a device that uses the energy of a descending flow of water to compress air by entraining the air in the water flow as shown in the work by Widden et al, [1].Shapiro [2] described a thermodynamic analysis of hydraulic air compressor-gas turbine plant

  • An analytical and experimental investigation of a low head open type Hydraulic Air Compressor (HAC) is reported to analyze the performance of the system and to investigate the effect of various non-dimensional parameters

  • The presented results suggest that the mean air bubbles diameter decreases along the downcomer, increases with both increasing air tube diameter and decreasing air tube length and not appreciably affected by the downcomer length, Hdc or hydraulic head; Hy

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Summary

Introduction

Shapiro [2] described a thermodynamic analysis of hydraulic air compressor-gas turbine plant. He conducted a comparison between HAC-GT system and reference conventional gas turbine and hydroelectric power plants. Bidini et al, [3] presented a numerical model of a HAC to perform both an energy analysis of the system and to study its capability of exploiting natural hydraulic sites. They suggested using of isothermal compression in HAC's for an efficient energy conversion in combination with widely regenerated GT plants

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