Gas Pressure Fluctuation Characteristics inside Pipe Line Passing through a Snubber for Hydrogen Gas Compressor

As increasing demand on non-fossil energy, because of fossil-energy is declining, hydrogen energy for high volume becomes crucial. Consequently requirement of good performance processing equipment for it is getting raise. One of the most important processes is compressing. Technically the appropriate type of the system is by using reciprocating compressor. Because of this, pressure characteristic by using this compressor’s type becomes highly fluctuate. This phenomenon, of course, is very bad not only for hydrogen gas itself, but also for lifetime of equipment used. In order to reduce fluctuation of pressure a component named snubber is used. Construction of a snubber is a tube that is round-end at sides, inlet and outlet ports and tilt plate inside the tube called buffer. So gas flow from inlet will crash the buffer and be distributed to whole part the tube. This experiment measured pressure in two points, those are: before and after the snubber. It used an air compressor as a model of hydrogen one. Snubber with buffer and snubber without buffer were used to get comprehensive comparison between both of that snubber. An analysis by using Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) method was conducted. With this method pure signal of static pressure was filtered from noisy signal. And the frequencies of pressure are determined. The experiment was run for several speeds of piston movement. It was controlled by adjustable frequency regulator that control rotation of actuator motor. This is connected to the piston-reciprocating compressor with V-belt. From result obtained, the fluctuation was increasing proportionally when frequency of driver motor was increased.