Experimental and Numerical Analyses on the Rotary Vane Expander Operating Conditions in a Micro Organic Rankine Cycle System

Micro (0.5–10 kW) organic Rankine cycle (ORC) power systems are nowadays considered for domestic power generation. Selection of a suitable expander is one of the most important problems connected with the domestic ORC system design. Volumetric machines or micro-turbines can be adopted as an expander in domestic ORC systems. Scroll and screw expanders are a common choice and were successfully applied in different small- and micro-power applications. However, micro-turbines as well as scroll and screw expanders are mechanically complicated and expensive. An alternative are rotary-vane machines, which are simple and cheap compared to micro-turbines. This paper documents a study providing the experimental and numerical analyses on the rotary vane expander operating conditions in a micro-ORC system. A test-stand was designed and set up and a series of experiments was performed using the test-stand. Results of these experiments were further used as an input to numerical simulations of an expander operation. In order to simulate the expander operating conditions, a three-dimensional numerical model has been prepared. The analysis presented in this paper indicates that a properly designed multi-vane expander is a cheap and mechanically simple alternative to other expansion devices proposed for domestic ORC systems.