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The suitability of microscale compressed air axial turbine for domestic solar powered Brayton cycle

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Abstract

Despite the fact that concentrated solar power technology was first studied about 55 years ago, it is just in recent times that this knowledge has achieved the attention of both investors and researchers all over the world. The turbine is considered to be one of the most important components of any power cycle, and it always needs to be improved to operate at a very high performance. This paper tries to typify the structural and aerodynamic analyses of a microscale axial turbine worked with the “Brayton cycle”, at several working conditions, by means of both the 3D CFD and FEM. First of all, the turbine was proposed to have 0.5–1.5 kW as output power and 83.3% as efficiency. At that time, the rotor’s hub and the blades were geometrically examined at a range of boundary conditions, with the aim of picturing the influence of various operational and geometrical parameters on the stress contours and values as well as the deformations across the rotor’s hub and the blades. The results indicated that the highest maximum principle and von Mises stresses are significantly guided by the “rotor stagger and trailing edge wedge” angles, as well as the rotor’s rotational speed and the working fluid inlet temperature. Moreover, the fatigue life was calculated, as well, and together the “rotor stagger and trailing edge wedge” angles considerably affected its value. Like these, results could open the doors for further analyses and market research to make this (domestic) system applicable.

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Abbreviations

CFD:

Computational fluid dynamics

FEA:

Finite element analysis

MSAT:

Microscale axial turbine

MSTs:

Microscale turbines

SPBC:

Solar powered Brayton cycle

SST:

Small-scale turbines, shear stress transport

TEWA:

Trailing edge wedge angle

A :

Blade area (m2)

b :

Blade width (m)

B :

Axial chord (mm)

c :

Absolute velocity (m/s)

Cp:

Specific heat (J/kg K)

E :

Modulus of elasticity (Pa)

l :

Blade length (M)

m :

Blade mass (kg)

m :

Mass flow rate (kg/s)

p :

Pressure (Pa)

PR:

Pressure ratio

V p :

Poisson’s ratio

∆T :

Temperature gradient

g :

Gravity (kg)

ρ :

Blade material density (kg/m3)

Re:

Reynolds number

U :

Rotor blade velocity (m/s)

w :

Relative velocity (m/s)

W :

Power (W)

x :

Pressure loss coefficient

ω :

Rotor rotational speed (rad/s)

Z :

Blade number in radial turbine

z :

Blade thickness (m)

b:

Blade

r:

Root

t:

Tip

cf:

Centrifugal force

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Acknowledgements

The authors are very grateful to the University of Mosul/College of Petroleum and Mining Engineering for their provided facilities, which helped to improve the quality of this work.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Mining Engineering Department, College of Petroleum and Mining Engineering, The University of Mosul, Almajmoa, Mosul, 41200, Iraq

    Ahmed Daabo, Kasim Rahawi & Adel Mahmood

  2. Mechanical Engineering Department, College of Engineering, The University of Mosul, Almajmoa, Mosul, 41200, Iraq

    Zaha Kreshat & Rana Farhat

  3. School of Engineering, The University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham, B15-2TT, UK

    Tom Lattimore

  4. Department of Engineering, German University of Technology, Halban, Oman

    Tom Lattimore

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  1. Ahmed Daabo
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Correspondence to Ahmed Daabo.

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Appendix

Appendix

Figure 20 presents the density of the elements along the MSAT geometry. The rotor mesh independence is presented in Fig. 21. The contours of flow velocity, temperature and pressure resulted from the CFD aerodynamic analysis are presented in Fig. 22.

Fig. 20
figure 20

Structural mesh and a zoom view on the refined mesh

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Fig. 21
figure 21

Element independence

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Fig. 22
figure 22

Velocity, pressure and temperature contours for the MSAT model

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Table 3 gives some information about the properties of the structural elements that were selected during the solution. Besides, Table 4 emphasizes the boundary conditions for which the blade of the MSAT was designed and optimized.

Table 3 Mesh information
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Table 4 Boundary settings of the MSAT
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Daabo, A., Kreshat, Z., Farhat, R. et al. The suitability of microscale compressed air axial turbine for domestic solar powered Brayton cycle. Int J Energy Environ Eng 11, 351–366 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40095-020-00341-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40095-020-00341-5

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