Unidimensional and 3D Analyses of a Radial Inflow Turbine for an Organic Rankine Cycle under Design and Off-Design Conditions

Gaylord Carrillo Caballero, Yulineth Cardenas Escorcia, Osvaldo José Venturini, Electo Eduardo Silva Lora, Anibal Alviz Meza () and Luis Sebastián Mendoza Castellanos
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Gaylord Carrillo Caballero: Research Group en Energías Alternativas y Fluidos (EOLITO), Universidad Tecnológica de Bolívar (UTB), Cartagena 130002, Colombia
Yulineth Cardenas Escorcia: Research Group GIOPEN, Energy Department, Universidad de la Costa (CUC), Barranquilla 080016, Colombia
Osvaldo José Venturini: Excellence Group in Thermal Power and Distributed Generation-NEST, Institute of Mechanical Engineering, Universidade Federal de Itajubá, Itajubá 37500-000, Brazil
Electo Eduardo Silva Lora: Excellence Group in Thermal Power and Distributed Generation-NEST, Institute of Mechanical Engineering, Universidade Federal de Itajubá, Itajubá 37500-000, Brazil
Anibal Alviz Meza: Research Group Deterioro de Materiales, Transición Energética y Ciencia de Datos DANT3, Facultad de Ingeniería, Arquitectura y Urbanismo, Universidad Señor de Sipán, Chiclayo 14002, Peru
Luis Sebastián Mendoza Castellanos: Research Group in Resources, Energy and Sustainability (GIRES), Faculty of Energy Engineering, Universidad Autónoma de Bucaramanga (UNAB), Bucaramanga 680008, Colombia

Energies, 2023, vol. 16, issue 8, 1-31

Abstract: The organic Rankine cycle (ORC) is an efficient technology for electricity generation from low- and medium-temperature heat sources. In this type of power cycle, the radial inflow turbine is the option usually selected for electricity generation. As a critical ORC component, turbine performance markedly affects the efficiency of the system. Therefore, the challenge is to model the behavior of the radial inflow turbine operating with organic fluids for heat recovery applications. In this context, various groups of fluids are highlighted in the scientific literature, including R-123, R-245fa, and R-141b, which are the fluids used in this research. Since little research has focused on the turbine efficiency effect on the power cycle design and analysis, this study presents an analysis of a radial inflow turbine based on a mathematical model of a one-dimensional design of the turbine. From this analysis, geometric, thermal, and operating parameters were determined, as well as volute, stator, and rotor losses. For this purpose, an algorithm was implemented in MATLAB to calculate the one-dimensional parameters of the turbine. Using these parameters, a 3D model of the turbine was designed in ANSYS-CFX, with performance curves of each projected turbine under design and off-design conditions. The numerical results suggest that the isentropic efficiency of all the proposed turbines under design conditions can surpass 75%. Additionally, the findings indicate that different design conditions, such as specific speed, pressure ratio, and turbine size, can affect the efficiency of radial inflow turbines in ORC systems.

Keywords: radial turbine; organic Rankine cycle; off-design conditions; turbine design; three-dimensional analysis (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: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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