Characterising a turbine for application in an organic Rankine cycle

Turbines are critical components of electricity generating low grade WHR&U (waste heat recovery and utilisation) systems, and determining the performance of the turbine is crucial to the successful implementation of these systems. In this paper, an experimental waste heat turbine kit – with the turbine rotor later replaced with an in-house designed and manufactured radial inflow turbine rotor – was sourced, assembled and tested in a designed and built test bench, using air as the working fluid. From the obtained test data, the turbine performance characteristics were determined, and plotted as turbine performance maps. The determined performance characteristics for the turbine working with air were then further used to scale the turbine for a refrigerant-123 application, thus predicting its performance for integration into an organic Rankine cycle low grade WHR&U system.

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