Preliminary Design Method and Performance Analysis of the Liquid Turbine for Supercritical Compressed Air Energy Storage Systems

Abstract

Liquid turbines can replace throttling valves to recover waste energy and reduce vaporization in various industrial systems, such as liquefied natural gas, air separation, supercritical compressed air energy storage (SC-CAES) systems, et al. However, there were few studies about differences in the preliminary design method between general radial inflow turbines and liquid turbines. In this paper, a preliminary design method of the liquid turbine for the SC-CAES system was presented, mathematical models for correlating geometrical and flow parameters were derived, and the model test method of the liquid turbine was proposed. The experimental performance of the liquid turbine was carried out and the internal flow was analyzed numerically. Ranges of geometrical parameters were also discussed, and modifications were made for the liquid turbine. The results obtained in this paper indicated that the presented preliminary design method could be applied to liquid turbines for various systems with high accuracy and reliability.