Effect of Mixture R600a/R601a on Performance of Radial Turbine for Low Temperature Waste Heat

Abstract

A 150kW organic working fluid radial turbine designed for the low temperature waste heat with temperature of 150 ∼ 200°C using R600a as working fluid was selected. Under the condition of same inlet temperature and rotational speed, the mixture R600a(iso-butane) / R601a(iso-pentane) with different compositions was adopted for the CFD numerical simulation to obtain the aerodynamic performance and the detailed flow of the organic working fluid radial turbine. The results show that the mixture R600a / R601a can broaden the output power range and increase the efficiency of the radial turbine compared with the pure working fluid. The output power of the organic working fluid radial turbine increases from 54.03kW to 129.6kW as the R600a composition increases from 0.1 to 0.9. The optimal composition of R600a / R601a was obtained for relatively higher efficiency of the organic working fluid radial turbine. The results can provide a reference for the selection of working fluid for radial turbine of the low temperature heat source.