Development of Small-Scale Axial Turbine for solar powered Brayton Cycle

An efficient small scale turbine, which can operate at low mass flowrates, relatively low pressure ratios and moderately high temperatures, is needed for developing a Small Scale Brayton Cycle SSBC to generate power for domestic applications. Although research work was carried out to develop Brayton cycle however the effect of turbine design on the cycle efficiency was not considered. This work aims to develop a Small Scale Axial Turbine (SSAT) using 3D CFD simulations. Different design and operating conditions, for both turbine and cycle were investigated to identify the most efficient turbine for this application. Results showed that a turbine with rotor stagger angel of 30°, and rotor flow angel of -51.5°, pressure ratio of 3, and rotational speed of 17500rpm, a turbine efficiency of 83.89% and power output of 5.25 kW and cycle overall thermal efficiency 9.1%.