Design and performance measurements of an organic vapour turbine

The paper presents design assumptions and process with numerical analysis and preliminary experimental results of a small scale turbine. The turbine is an integral part of a hermetic turbogenerator operating in a low temperature, sub-critical ORC system. The working fluid is R227ea. First the selection of the turbine type is discussed along with the design assumptions. The set of applied empirical loss correlations as well as the geometry design methodology are outlined. Next, the results of the stage numerical simulations are briefly described. The last part of the paper contains the description of the experiment with a presentation of the test rig, measuring equipment and comparison of the predicted and measured turbogenerator efficiency. Theoretical and measured values of the efficiency reveal a very good mutual agreement.