If 2S fresh feed is saturated at dewpoint, then there may be some liquid droplets in it. It will take a few seconds for these droplets to vaporise after mixing with 1D superheated gas. This vaporisation time can only be enabled in the 2S drum. Inline mixing in the pipe ( without drum) wont enable sufficent vaporisation time for these droplets.
Excellent piece of input for the OP and as general information well.
Considering single casing solution, mixing would occur inside the compressor (there are lateral or tangential injections designed for such purpose and which are common for refrigerant applications). The question is, would a knock out drum be required on injection line if the side stream is pure Ethylene and it is superheated?
Perry 6th edn says max is about 8-9 impellers per stage, Mach 0.8 max permissible tip speed, and max 10e3 ftlbf/lb (or 30e3Nm/kg) polytropic head per stage.
8-9 impellers can be common but in real life there are plenty of particular situations and I am afraid it has to be case by case. Some manufacturers can routinely fit up to 11 impellers in a casing (e.g., Dresser-Rand); it may happen that 6-impeller casings are border line rotor-dynamically, I've seen it. Many factors enter into play.
The figure of Mach 0.8 refers to peripheral Mach number which is not the real Mach number (the one that refers to absolute exit velocity). So for refrigerant applications in particular, and more generally for heavy gas service (CO2, Propane, Air, etc.), there are special impellers that can exceed a peripheral number of 1.1 ; this is completely normal for these applications. These impellers are usually put at inlet (so it is generally the 1st and even 2nd impeller of the section, afterward the Mach number reduces to more conventional value, that is ~0,8 or less).
All though there are typical figures for polytropic head per stage, and it is always good to have these in mind, polytropic head per stage can here exceed 40~50 kJ/kg ; in fact it depends in particular on the maximum peripheral speed the impeller can spin at and how aggressive we want to be in the design. Anyway, please bear in mind that the above remarks are stated with all due respect to the book of course, in fact these are inputs coming from practical experience.
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