Research on performance of micro gas turbine recuperator: A review

Abstract

The distributed energy supply system provides a good scheme for energy supply. The micro gas turbine with a recuperator is a common power device in distributed energy supply systems. In recent years, several achievements have been made in the development of micro gas turbine recuperators. Plate-fin and primary surface recuperators have been used in mature applications. Moreover, the thermodynamic properties of the heat transfer channel have been studied in detail. Among them, the cross wavy primary surface recuperator developed by Capston Company is one of the important achievements. This paper reviews the technical development of thermodynamic performance of micro gas turbine recuperator in recent years. The micro gas turbine recuperators are divided into plate-fin and primary surface recuperators commonly. In this paper, the correlation formula, heat exchange enhancement, optimum design and the influence of recuperator on the overall machine performance are reviewed. It has been found that the plate-fin recuperators have been sufficiently studied by scholars, and the results are more comprehensive. As for the primary surface recuperators, which have just become popular in recent years, the research results are less comprehensive due to their unique structure. In the future development of micro gas turbine recuperators, this will be the future research and development trend due to the high heat exchange efficiency and the lack of comprehensive research on primary surface recuperators.