Performance Investigation Of Stator-Less And Blade-Less Radial ExpanderShow others and affiliations
2023 (English)In: Proc. ASME Turbo Expo, American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) , 2023Conference paper, Published paper (Refereed)
Abstract [en]
Interests in small-scale turbomachinery are gaining momentum, particularly around waste heat recovery using Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC), energy harvesting, pico-hydro, refrigeration and heat pumps and small-scale power generation. These applications demand to have economical, simple construction, and reasonably efficient machines. The performance of bladed turbomachine at a small scale is poor mainly due to viscous losses and relatively large clearances. In some cases, like ORC, it requires a lubrication system, making it complex and costly. Bladeless or Tesla turbomachinery is seen as one of the solutions for these applications due to its simple construction and cost-effectiveness. However, the experimental efficiency of the bladeless turbines/compressors is found in the low region, < 40%. In this article, the performance of a bladeless turbine is investigated using a vaneless volute configuration, making the turbine stator-less (vaneless volute) and bladeless (vaneless rotor). This study presents numerical and experimental performance investigation with a volute as a stator of the bladeless rotor. 3D Numerical results show very promising performance of the turbine with total to static efficiencies calculated above 65%. In the second part of the article, turbine prototype components, assembly and test set-up are discussed. Experimental maximum efficiency of 41.5±0.88% at 3.5 kg/s@5000 rpm and power of 915 W is obtained. This is the highest recorded efficiency for the Tesla turbine in peer-reviewed research. The overall turbine performance from 3D numerical simulation with ventilation and mechanical losses is compared with experimental results. This work demonstrates that the proposed stator-less/volute configuration provides an efficient way for bladeless or Tesla turbines, particularly for low-head applications.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) , 2023.
Keywords [en]
Bladeless turbine, Computational Fluid Dynamics, Energy harvesting, small turbomachinery, Stator less, Tesla expanders, volute, Cost effectiveness, Rankine cycle, Turbine components, Waste heat, Waste heat utilization, Organics, Performance, Simple++, Small scale, Tesla expander, Tesla turbines, Vaneless, Stators
National Category
Energy Engineering
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:mdh:diva-64850DOI: 10.1115/GT2023-101192ISI: 001215335700002Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85177466473ISBN: 9780791887035 (print)OAI: oai:DiVA.org:mdh-64850DiVA, id: diva2:1815504
Conference
Proceedings of the ASME Turbo Expo, Boston, MA, June 26-30, 2023
2023-11-292023-11-292024-06-05Bibliographically approved