Tag: compressor power calculation

In this post I want to share you how to calculate centrifugal compressor power since there are so many process engineers are looking for it (and I also don’t know how).

To calculate centrifugal compressor power, we need these gas properties: compressibility factor (Z), molecular weight (MW), inlet gas temperature, inlet gas pressure, outlet gas pressure, adiabatic component (Cp/Cv), and mass flow rate.

Let’s start with an example while I show you step-by-step of the calculation method. In this example, we have these gas properties (I use US units).

Compressibility factor (Z) = 0.9972

Molecular weight (MW) = 18.15

Gas constant (R) = 1544/molecular weight

Inlet temperature (T1)  = 546 deg R

Inlet pressure (P1) = 15 psia (don’t forget to use absolute pressure)

Outlet pressure (P2) = 60 psia

K (Cp/Cv) = 1,274

Flow (W) = 0,184 lb/min

The required data to calculate centrifugal compressor power is head. We can use either adiabatic head or polytropic head as long as we use adiabatic efficiency and polytropic efficiency in companion. Read More