REPORT ON TURBOCOR TOUR of FRI 7/13/07

Chris Loftis took the tour, and he sent me the following report --

For the first half of the tour, we were herded into a classroom and basically given the sales spiel about these compressors. They started out stating the lofty goals they had when starting to design it, and what they actually managed to reach. Despite them not having not made a compressor that can put out 150 tons, is as large as a matchbox and weighs less than a pound, the result is still quite impressive. Of course, the main innovation of the compressor are the magnetic bearings. This gives it the advantage of not needing lubrication because the shaft is the only moving part and it doesn't come into contact with anything. Comparing it to comparable compressors, it's also smaller, quieter and more efficient at partial loads than the other ones out there. Pretty much the only disadvantage seemed to be that they couldn't make them fast enough.

We went out to the manufacturing floor for the second part of the tour. Most all of the parts are machined elsewhere so there wasn't much actual manufacturing being done. It seemed like the only parts done there were the high precision ones needed because of the incredibly small clearance between the levitated shaft and the walls. The vast majority of the plant was devoted to the testing and running of the machines. They certainly have a great track record so far, only having had three units fail in operation so far.

After coming back to the classroom, they were showing off all the units they had on display. The most impressive of them was the working unit with a cross section taken out of it so you could touch the shaft. With the levitation on the shaft impossible to move in any direction but angularly, showing how the control systems can keep the shaft centered despite having someone pushing on it.

All in all, it was nice to have a more hands on look at this new technology.