Centrifugal compressor and method of operating centrifugal compressor to produce uniform inlet flow of process gas

A centrifugal compressor (100) has a housing (110) with two or more compressor inlets (120) for a process gas to be compressed; an impeller (130) located inside the housing (110) to receive an inlet flow of process gas from the two compressor inlets (120) through the plenum chamber (115) and to increase gas pressure as process gas flows into the impeller (130); due to the two or more inlets (120), uniformity of flow at the inlets (120) can be achieved through a short collector tube (121) fluidly connected upstream of the inlets (120); due to less limitations, the piping design of a compressor system including such a compressor becomes easy. 离心式压缩机(100)具有外壳(110)，该外壳具有用于待压缩的工艺气体的两个或更多个压缩机入口(120)；叶轮(130)位于外壳(110)内部，以通过充气室(115)接收来自两个压缩机入口(120)的工艺气体的入口流，并且叶轮在工艺气体流进叶轮(130)中时增加气体压力；由于两个或更多个入口(120)，可以通过流体连接在入口(120)的上游的短收集器管(121)来实现在入口(120)处的流的均匀性；因为受到的限制较少，所以包括此类压缩机的压缩机系统的管道设计就变得容易。