Machinery
A centrifuge is a piece of equipment, generally driven by a motor, that puts an object in rotation around a fixed axis, applying force perpendicular to the axis. The centrifuge works using the sedimentation principle, where the centripetal acceleration is used to separate substances of greater and less density. There are many different kinds of centrifuges, including those for very specialised purposes.
- Air conditioners, (car, home)
- Air pumps
- Home and industrial refrigeration
- High pressure car washes
- Hydraulic compressors for industrial machines
- Air compressors for industrial manufacturing
A compressor is a mechanical device that takes in a medium and compresses it to a smaller volume. Compressors can either increase or decrease a given mass to a lower or higher pressure. A mechanical or electrical drive is typically connected to a pump that is used to compress the medium.
Compressors have many everyday uses, such as:
Compressors are used by many industries that depend on the power of compressed gas or fluid to power manufacturing processes of all kinds.
A heat exchanger is a device built for efficient heat transfer from one fluid to another, whether the fluids are separated by a solid wall so that they never mix, or the fluids are directly contacted. They are widely used in petroleum refineries, chemical plants, petrochemical plants, natural gas processing, refrigeration, power plants, air conditioning and space heating. One common example of a heat exchanger is the radiator in a car, in which a hot engine-cooling fluid, like antifreeze, transfers heat to air flowing through the radiator.
A pump is a device used to move liquids, or slurries. A pump moves liquids from lower pressure to higher pressure, and overcomes this difference in pressure by adding energy to the system (such as a water system). A gas pump is generally called a compressor, except in very low pressure-rise applications, such as in heating, ventilating, and air-conditioning, the equipment is known as fans or blowers.
A turbine is a rotary engine that extracts energy from a fluid flow. Claude Burdin coined the term from the Latin turbinis, or vortex, during an 1828 engineering competition. The simplest turbines have one moving part, a rotor assembly, which is a shaft with blades attached. Moving fluid acts on the blades, or the blades react to the flow, so that they rotate and impart energy to the rotor. Early turbine examples are windmills and water wheels.
Gas, steam, and water turbines usually have a casing around the blades that focuses and controls the fluid. The casing and blades may have variable geometry that allows efficient operation for a range of fluid-flow conditions.