Development of a 300 HP Class Turbo Blower with Air Foil Bearings

공기 포일 베어링을 사용하는 300마력급 터보송풍기 개발

Air foil bearings have been attempted for application to industrial turbo machines, since they have several advantages over oil bearings in terms of endurance, simplicity, environment-friendliness, efficiency, sound and vibration, and small turbo machines with air foil bearings are in the market as the result. Recently, researches on widening the application spectrum of air foil bearings are in progress worldwide. In this paper, a 300 HP class turbo blower using air foil bearings is introduced. The turbo blower has a high speed PMSM(Permanent Magnet Synchronous Motor) driving a compressor, and air flow rate is designed to be $180\;m^3/min$ at pressure ratio of 1.6. The maximum rotational speed is set to 17,000 RPM to maximize the total efficiency with the result that the weight of rotor assembly is 26kg, which is expected to be the largest turbo machine with air foil bearings ever developed in the world.