Experimental and Potential Analysis of a Single-Valve Expander for Waste Heat Recovery of a Gasoline Engine

Wenzhi Gao, Wangbo He, Lifeng Wei, Guanghua Li and Ziqi Liu
Additional contact information
Wenzhi Gao: State Key Laboratory of Engines, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China
Wangbo He: State Key Laboratory of Engines, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China
Lifeng Wei: State Key Laboratory of Engines, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China
Guanghua Li: School of Automotive Engineering, Changshu Institute of Technology, Changshu 215500, China
Ziqi Liu: State Key Laboratory of Engines, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China

Energies, 2016, vol. 9, issue 12, 1-15

Abstract: In this paper, a Rankine cycle test system is established to recover exhaust energy from a 2.0 L gasoline engine. Experiments on the system’s performance are carried out under various working conditions. The experimental results indicate that the recovery power of the expander is strongly related to the load and speed of the gasoline engine. It is found that when the output power of the gasoline engine is 39.8–76.6 kW, the net power of the expander is 1.8–2.97 kW, which is equivalent to 3.9%–4.9% of the engine power. The performance simulation shows that the mass flow rate, power output, and isentropic efficiency of the piston expander are directly determined by the intake valve timing. Selecting a suitable intake valve timing can optimize the performance of the expander. The simulation results show that a 1 kW increment in power can be obtained only by selecting an optimum intake open timing. The experimental results further verify that the single-valve piston expander, because of its small dimensions, simple structure, and high speed, is appropriate, and has great potential for energy recovery of gasoline engine exhaust and has good prospects for engineering applications.

Keywords: waste heat recovery; gasoline engine; Rankine cycle; piston expander; intake valve timing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/9/12/1001/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/9/12/1001/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:9:y:2016:i:12:p:1001-:d:84015

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().