Applied Energy 135 (2014) 202211

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Applied Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apenergy

Three-dimensional off-design numerical analysis of an organic Rankine

cycle radial-inow turbine
Emilie Sauret , Yuantong Gu
Queensland University of Technology, 2 George Street, Brisbane, Qld 4000, Australia

h i g h l i g h t s
 This study presents the complete design process of a R143a 400 kW radial-inow turbine in geothermal conditions.
 Three-dimensional viscous simulations are presented and discussed at the nominal and off-design conditions.
 The results show that the nominal point is well-suited to handle variations of rotational speed, inlet temperature and pressure ratio while maintaining a

relatively high efciency.

 The results also highlight the sensitivity of the turbine performance against the real gas thermodynamic properties.

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 6 April 2014
Received in revised form 1 August 2014
Accepted 18 August 2014

Keywords:
Radial-inow turbine
Organic Rankine cycles
Geothermal energy
CFD

a b s t r a c t
Optimisation of organic Rankine cycles (ORCs) for binary cycle applications could play a major role in
determining the competitiveness of low to moderate renewable sources. An important aspect of the optimisation is to maximise the turbine output power for a given resource. This requires careful attention to
the turbine design notably through numerical simulations. Challenges in the numerical modelling of
radial-inow turbines using high-density working uids still need to be addressed in order to improve
the turbine design and better optimise ORCs. This paper presents preliminary 3D numerical simulations
of a high-density radial-inow ORC turbine in sensible geothermal conditions. Following extensive investigation of the operating conditions and thermodynamic cycle analysis, the refrigerant R143a is chosen as
the high-density working uid. The 1D design of the candidate radial-inow turbine is presented in
details. Furthermore, commercially-available software Ansys-CFX is used to perform preliminary
steady-state 3D CFD simulations of the candidate R143a radial-inow turbine for a number of operating
conditions including off-design conditions. The real-gas properties are obtained using the PengRobinson
equations of state. The thermodynamic ORC cycle is presented. The preliminary design created using dedicated radial-inow turbine software Concepts-Rital is discussed and the 3D CFD results are presented
and compared against the meanline analysis.
2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Organic Rankine cycles (ORCs) have been receiving lots of attention for many years [1]. This interest is continuously growing [2]
because of the suitability of ORCs to low-to-mid-temperature
renewable applications. Two key parameters for the optimization
of the ORC performance are the working uid and the turbine
[3]. Extensive literature has been published on the working uid
selection [49] and separately on the preliminary one-dimensional
turbine design [1014]. As underlined by Aungier [15], the
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: emilie.sauret@qut.edu.au (E. Sauret), yuantong.gu@qut.edu.au
(Y. Gu).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2014.08.076
0306-2619/ 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

preliminary design of a radial-inow turbine remains a crucial

step in the design process. Indeed, the objective of the design
phases (preliminary and detailed) is to create an aerodynamic
design that will correctly and completely achieve a design that
delivers the desired outputs. However, Pasquale et al. [16] also
highlighted the need to use more advanced 3D viscous computational simulations to further investigate the proposed turbine
conguration. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) will provide
detailed ow analysis which is required to improve the
aerodynamic performance of the machine [17].
In order to achieve better cycle performances, the organic working uid at the inlet of the turbine is in thermodynamic conditions
close or above to the critical point. This prevents the numerical
simulations to use ideal gas laws and so require the developement

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E. Sauret, Y. Gu / Applied Energy 135 (2014) 202211

Nomenclature
C0
cp0
DRin
h
M
Ns
Nr
Pc
P
Q_ m
R
Re
Tc
T
U
y
w
W
Wc

spouting velocity m s1

1
zero pressure ideal gas specic heat capacity kJ kg K
inlet rotor diameter (m)
1
enthalpy kJ kg
absolute Mach number ()
stator number of blades ()
rotor number of blades ()
absolute pressure at the critical point (kPa)
pressure (kPa)
mass ow rate kg s1
1
ideal gas constant J mol K1
Reynolds number ()
absolute temperature at the critical point (K)
temperature (K)
blade velocity m s1
non-dimensional grid spacing at the wall ()
power (kW)
cycle power (kW)

of codes to calculate the thermodynamic properties of the real gas.

For accurate viscous simulations these codes need to be interfaced
with the CFD solvers [18].
Table 1 gives a summary of the published numerical simulations of expanders working with organic uids.
Since the end of the 90s, CFD solvers capable to handle real gas
have been developed [28,20]. Then, numerical simulations on
expanders and turbine nozzles using high-density uids have been
reported in the literature. In 2002, Hoffren et al. [19] are amongst
the rst to perform two-dimensional numerical simulations of a
real gas ow in a supersonic turbine nozzle using toluene as working uid. Their extension of the NavierStokes solver for real gas
appears to be robust and accurate. Later, Colonna et al. [22] investigated the inuence of three different equations of state (EoS), a
simple polytropic ideal gas law, the PengRobinsonStryjekVera
cubic equation of state (EoS) and the state-of-the-art SpanWagner
EoS, on the aerodynamic performance of a two-dimensional ORC
stator blade working with the siloxane MDM. The two more
sophisticated models (PengRobinsonStryjekVera and Span
Wagner) were shown to produce similar results. Pini et al. [24]
recently performed a 2D throughow simulation on their proposed
centrifugal turbine for an ORC application working with the siloxane MDM. Finally, to the best of the authors knowledge, Boncinelli

Greek symbols
b
blade angle (deg)
g
efciency (%)
x
acentric factor ()
X
rotational speed (rpm)
P
pressure ratio ()
l
dynamic viscosity kg m1 s1
Subscripts
in
turbine inlet
is
isentropic
out
turbine outlet
ref
reference
T
total
S
static
TS
total-to-static
TT
total-to-total

et al. [21] in 2004 were the rst to successfully perform threedimensional viscous simulations of a transonic centrifugal impeller
working with R134a using a tting model from gas databases to
get the thermodynamic properties of the uid. Recently, pseudo3D CFD simulations using equations of state for the real dense
gas are produced by Wheeler and Ong [25] on a turbine vanes.
Finally, Harinck et al. [18] were the rst to perform three-dimensional viscous CFD simulations of a complete radial turbine including the stator, the rotor and the diffuser using toluene as the
working uid.
Pasquale et al. [16] looked at the blade optimisation of expanders using real gas. However, only two-dimensional nozzle simulations have been considered.
Recent studies [26,27] have looked at the whole process including thermodynamic cycle, 1D design and numerical simulations of
the expander. Klonowicz [26] designed and numerically investigated a R227ea impulse turbine at partial admission. However,
they only simulate one stator and rotor pitch and so were not able
to take numerically into account the partial adnmission. Both cases
with and without clearances were run. Cho et al. [27] also numerically studied a partial admission radial impulse turbine with a
vaneless nozzle. The ouput power in this case is 30 kW and the
working uid R245fa.

Table 1
Numerical simulations of turbines working with high-density uids.
Author

Working uid

Simulation

Geometry

Hoffren et al. [19]

Cinnella and Congedo [20]
Boncinelli et al. [21]
Colonna et al. [22]
Harinck et al. [2]
Harinck et al. [23]

Toluene
BZT ows
R134a
Siloxane MDM
Toluene
Steam
R245fa
Toluene
Siloxane MDM

2D
2D
3D
2D
2D
2D

Radial turbine nozzle

NACA airfoil transonic VKI LS-59 linear turbine cascade
Transonic centrifugal impeller
Radial turbine nozzle
Radial turbine nozzle
Radial turbine nozzle

Pini et al. [24]

Pasquale et al. [16]
Harinck et al. [18]
Wheeler and Ong [25]
Klonowicz et al. [26]
Cho et al. [27]

Not mentioned
Toluene
Pentane
R245fa
R227ea
R245fa

viscous
inviscid
viscous
inviscid
inviscid
inviscid

Pseudo-3D
Throughow
2D inviscid
3D viscous
Quasi-3D
Viscous
3D Viscous
3D viscous

3-Stage and 6-stage

Centrifugal turbine
Impulse radial turbine nozzle
Radial-inow turbine
Radial turbine nozzle
Impulse turbine
Impulse radial turbine
Vaneless nozzle

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E. Sauret, Y. Gu / Applied Energy 135 (2014) 202211

Table 2
Thermodynamic data required for the turbine design obtained from the R143a ORC
cycle analysis.
Variables

Fig. 1. Basic organic Rankine cycle (ORC) system.

It is important to note that so far, very few studies including the

whole process for sensible geothermal conditions have been presented in the literature. Furthermore, 3D viscous simulations on
complete turbines working with organic uids are at a pioneering
stage and all the published numerical studies on expanders coupled with ORCs consider small-scale power cycles with output
power less than 50 kW. Most of them are impulse turbines with
partial admission.
This paper will ll that gap by providing a complete ORC analysis including the thermodynamic cycle, the preliminary meanline
design and nally pioneering three-dimensional CFD simulations
of a 400 kW-R143a radial-inow turbine in sensible geothermal
brine and cycle conditions. Off-design conditions are also presented and discussed.
2. Organic Rankine cycle
A thermodynamic model for a binary power cycle was developed using Engineering Equation Solver (EES, F-Chart Software)
based on the basic components of an ORC system: evaporator, turbine, generator, condenser and uid pump (Fig. 1). Simulations for
realistic condensing ORC cycles for geothermal applications were
carried out and analysed leading to the promising cycle for a brine
temperature of 423 K at a sensible ow rate of 15 kg s1 as encountered during the testings at the Habanero pilot plant in Australia.
The condensing temperature was set at 313 K (10 K above ambient,
assumed to be 303 K) while the turbine inlet temperature is xed
to 413 K through a temperature difference of 10 K with the brine
inlet temperature at 423 K. In this analysis, turbine and pump efciencies were assumed to be 85% and 65%, respectively. Promising
cycles were identied by varying the evaporator pressure in order
to optimise the net cycle power. As outlined by Sauret and Rowlands [29] and recently by Toffolo et al. [9] a coupled optimisation
between the thermodynamic cycle and the cycle components such
as the 1D turbine design is required to maximize the net cycle
power. Such a coupled Multi-Objective optimisation has been
developed by Persky et al. [30] and applied to the present study.
Therefore, the optimum turbine inlet total pressure has been optimised to 5 MPa which lead to a performance factor PF W c =D2Rin
of 20.6 compared to PF = 17.2 previoulsy obtained by Sauret and
Rowlands [29].
In this study, the refrigerant R143a is chosen as the working
uid for the turbine based on the study of Sauret and Rowlands
[29]. This study evaluated 5 different uids based on the QGECE
(Queensland Geothermal Energy Center of Excellence) thermodynamic modelling and published results from others [4,7,3133].
It showed that R143a at 413 K gave the best performance factor

P T in (kPa)

P Sout (kPa)

T T in (K)

W (kW)

5000

1835

413

400

based on the cycle net power and the size of the turbine. Thus,
R134a is a suitable uid at 413 K capable to generate a relatively
large turbine power compared to the compactness of the turbine.
The choice of R143a is based not only on its theoretical thermodynamic performance, but a balance of several different desired criteria such as relatively low critical pressure and temperature and low
ammability, low toxicity and relative inert behaviour. Striking an
acceptable balance between the aforementioned criteria, environmental concerns, cost and thermodynamic performance is not an
insignicant challenge for ORC system designers [4].
The selection of the radial-inow turbine is based on numerous
published studies highlighting the suitability of such turbines for
ORC cycles [34,29,35,24]. As mentioned by Clemente et al. [36],
the selection of the best suited machine requires a detailed analysis of the given case.
The thermodynamic data required for the turbine design are
summarized Table 2.
3. One-dimensional design of the radial-inow turbine
In this study, the preliminary design of the turbines was performed using the commercial software RITAL following the design
procedure established by Moustapha et al. [37]. The general procedure implemented was to determine overall dimensions of the
machine for the stator, rotor and diffuser along with blade and ow
angles and isentropic efciency by xing the mass ow rate, inlet
and outlet pressures as calculated by the cycle analysis (Table 2)
and by assuming ow and loading coefcients [37]. From the basic
design specications and the performance analysis, a renement of
the results was performed in order to optimise the geometry. The
renements included: rotational speed adjustments in order to get
closer to the optimum 0.7 value of the U=C 0 ratio [37]; tip outlet
rotor radius modication in order to reduce the swirl as much as
possible at the outlet of the rotor; and, blade span (i.e. changes
to throat area).
3.1. Assumptions and constraints
In the Moustapha et al. procedure [37], the ow and loading
coefcients are assumed in order to give the best efciency. In this
current study, these coefcients were set respectively to 0.215 and
0.918 giving around 90% efciency according to the Flow and Loading Coefcient Correlation Chart proposed by Baines [13]. The rotor
clearances were set using an assumed value of 0.3 mm. The wish to

Table 3
Preliminary R143a turbine design data.
Global variables

PTS ()
PTT ()
Q_ m (kg/s)

gTS (%)
gTT (%)
X (rpm)
W (kW)
U=C 0 ()

Geometric parameters
2.72
2.62
17.24
76.8
79.8
24,250
393.6
0.675

N s ()
N r ()
DRin (mm)

19
16
127.17

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E. Sauret, Y. Gu / Applied Energy 135 (2014) 202211

on the 3D diffuser geometry. The nozzle hub and shroud contours

are dened as straight lines. The nozzle hub and shroud thicknesses, the rotor blade angle and rotor thickness distributions were
iteratively adjusted using Bezier curves in order to achieve reasonnable preliminary results with blade-to-blade and throughow
solvers notably in terms of loading and Mach numbers which were
maintained in the transonic region. The same thickness distribution was used for the stator hub and shroud while two separate
distributions were set for the rotor hub and shroud.
The main 3D geometric parameters are presented in Table 4.
5. Three-dimensional numerical simulations
Viscous turbulent CFD simulation was carried out on the 3D turbine geometry at the nominal condition using commercially-available software ANSYS-CFX.
5.1. Mesh

The results of the preliminary design are presented Table 3. The

power is slightly lower than the expected value from the thermodynamic cycle. However, the total-to-total efciency almost
reached 80% while the total-to-static efciency is close to 77%. This
is in close agreement with the previous study proposed by Sauret
and Rowlands [29]. The size of the turbine is also in close agreement with the previous study [29]. One can also note that because
of a relatively high power compared to a relatively small size, this
turbine achieves a high performance factor PF W c =D2Rin of 20.6
compared to PF = 17.2 obtained by Sauret and Rowlands [29].

The OH three-dimensional computational mesh for the simulation of one blade passage is shown in Fig. 3 for the nozzle and
in Figs. 4 and 5 for the rotor shroud and hub respectively.
An initial grid was created with a total grid number is 1359,907
nodes, 678,389 for the stator, 444,341 for the rotor and 237,177 for
the diffuser. The average non-dimensional grid spacing at the wall
y
w 703 is slightly above the recommended range of up to 500.
With the scalable wall function used in the simulations, recommended y
w values lay between 15 and 100 for machine Reynolds
number of 105 where the transition is likely to affect signicantly
the boundary layer formation and skin friction and up to 500 for
Reynolds number of 2  106 when the boundary layer is mainly turbulent throughout [40]. However, based on Remachine qref U tip
Rin RRin =
lref where lref 1:9  105 kg=m s is the reference dynamic viscosity of R143a and qref 163:2 kg=m3 the reference density at
the inlet of the domain, the present machine Reynolds number at
the inlet is 8:8  107 well above 2  106 . This initial mesh was
found good enough to run pioneering simulations of the 3D candidate R143a radial-inow turbine in sensible geothermal brine and
cycle conditions and establish the complete methodology (thermodynamic cycle, meanline analysis and preliminary viscous CFD
simulations).

4. 3D geometry

5.2. Numerical model

The commercial software Axcent were used to dene the 3D

geometry of the turbine presented in Fig. 2.
The data from the preliminary 1D design were transferred into
Axcent, including amongst the most important parameters, radii
and blade heights. An annular diffuser at the exit of the rotor is
built from the 1D radii values. No optimisation was carried out

The CFD solver ANSYS-CFX has been used to perform steadystate 3D viscous ow simulations. For robustness consideration,
the discretization of the NavierStokes equations is realized using
a rst order Upwind advection scheme. For these preliminary 3D
simulations, the standard k- turbulence model with scalable wall
function was chosen.

Fig. 2. 3D view of the full 3D turbine geometry (stator and rotor blades).

use widely available inverter technology in order to simplify future

experimental rigs led to the shaft speed being limited to a maximum of 25,000 rpm. The default RITAL recommended loss models
were used: the Rodgers stator loss model [38] and the CETI rotor
passage loss model from Concepts [39]. These models were found
to provide a reasonable rst approximation.
3.2. 1D design results

Table 4
Turbine 3D geometric dimensions.
Nozzle
Rin (mm)
Blade height (mm)
TE thickness (mm)
Rout (mm)

Rotor
83.45
8
1
66.76

Rin (mm)
Inlet blade height (mm)
TE thickness (mm)
Axial length (mm)
(deg)
btip
in

Diffuser
63.6

Rtip
(mm)
in

44

Rhub
in (mm)

18.5

Axial length (mm)

45

1.27
38.15
0

bhub
in (deg)

btip
out (deg)

60.4

(deg)
btip
in
Clearances (mm)
Axial
Radial

38.9
0.3
0.3

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E. Sauret, Y. Gu / Applied Energy 135 (2014) 202211

In order to describe the properties of the refrigerant R143a in

the radial-inow turbine, the cubic equation of state (EoS) of
PengRobinson [41] (Eq. (1)) is chosen. This choice was motivated
by the good balance between simplicity and accuracy of this model
to perform preliminary real gas computational simulations. This
EoS is also considered as having reasonable accuracy especially
near the critical point [42].

RT
aa

V m  b V 2m 2bV m  b2

0:457235R2 T 2c
pc
0:077796RT c
b
pc

5.3. Boundary conditions

1
2

a 1 j1  T 0:5
r
j 0:37464 1:54226x  0:26992x2
Tr

temperature and pressure of R143a, V m , the molar volume and R

is the universal gas constant.
To complete the description of the real gas properties, the CFD
solver calculates the enthalpy and the entropy using relationships
which are detailed in [43]. These relationships depend on the zero
pressure ideal gas specic heat capacity cp0 and the derivatives of
the PengRobinson EoS. cp0 is obtained by a fourth-order polynomial whose coefcients are dened by Poling et al. [44].

T
Tc

where x 0:259 is the acentric factor of refrigerant R143a,

T c 346:3 K and Pc 3492 kPa are respectively the critical

An extension of the domain was placed in front of the stator

blades at a distance equivalent to approximately 25% of the axial
stator chord. The nominal rotational speed for this case is dened
from the preliminary design and set to 24,250 rpm (Table 3). The
mass ow rate, total temperature and inlet velocity obtained from
the meanline design analysis were set at the inlet of the domain
(Table 2). The static pressure was specied at the exit of the diffuser (Table 2).
A mixing plane condition was set at the interface between the
stationary (stator) and rotational (rotor) frames and a frozen rotor
interface was set between the rotor and the diffuser. Periodic
boundary conditions are applied as only one blade passage for both
the stator and the rotor is modelled.

Fig. 5. 3D view of the OH grid around the rotor blade at the hub.

Fig. 3. 3D view of the OH grid around the stator blades.

Table 5
Comparison of the meanline analysis and the present 3D CFD simulations.
Variables

Preliminary design

Present CFD

Global variables
PTS ()
PTT ()
gTS (%)
gTT (%)
W (kW)

2.72
2.62
76.8
79.8
393.6

2.64
2.54
83.5
87.6
421.5

499.2

501

4989.6

4849.85

0.88
4886.5
412.2

0.94
4717
411.9

0.363
1961.4
370.2
476.4

0.364
1933.1
367.1
476.3

Stator inlet
1

hT kJ kg
P T (kPa)

Rotor inlet
M ()
P T (kPa)
T T (K)
Rotor outlet
M ()
P T (kPa)
T T (K)
1

Fig. 4. 3D view of the OH grid around the rotor blade at the shroud.

hT kJ kg

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E. Sauret, Y. Gu / Applied Energy 135 (2014) 202211

6. Results and discussion

3.2

6.1. Comparisons of the 3D CFD results against the meanline analysis

at the nominal condition

gTT

hT in  hT out
hT in  hT is out

gTS

hT in  hT out
hT in  hSis out

Thus, any small variations of temperatures can lead to big discrepancy in efcencies. Several studies [46,42] have shown that the
PengRobinson EoS was comparing fairly well against the highaccuracy models implemented in REFPROP [47] and especially near
the critical point. Thus, it is not assured that a more accurate EoS
will dramatically improve the CFD efciencies. Instead, it is highly
recommended here to investigate the sensitivity of the efciency
to the EoS using non-statistical state-of-the-art uncertainty quantication methods such as Stochatic Collocation using Adaptive
Sparse Grid.
Furthermore, compared to the meanline design, the Mach number at the inlet of the rotor (Table 5) is also higher. The Mach number at mid-span is presented Fig. 6.

2.8

P [Mpa]

Due to the lack of experimental data in radial-inow turbines

working with high-density uids, the validation of the present
3D viscous simulation was rstly made against the meanline analysis results.
Table 5 compares the results from both the preliminary 1D
design and the numerical 3D turbulent simulations. It is observed
that the CFD results are in relatively good agreement with the 1D
analysis, especially in terms of temperatures, pressures and
enthalpy. However, the slight difference (less than 0.5%) on the
total enthalpy at the inlet of the nozzle and outlet of the rotor
between the viscous simulation and the 1D analysis leads to
approximately 8% difference in terms of DhT hT in  hT out explaining the difference of power as W Q_ m hT in  hT out .
The CFD results are in fairly good agreements with the meanline
analysis except for efciencies for which a maximum difference of
nearly 9.8% is obtained. The overestimation of the efciency has
already been highlighted in a less extent by Sauret [45] on the simulations of an ideal gas high pressure ratio radial-inow turbine.
The present result can be attributed to the use of real gases which
are extremely sensitive to small temperature variations. As shown
in Table 5, a slight variation of the total temperatures and enthalpies can lead to large variation of the enthalpy and temperature
drops in the turbine. The isentropic efciencies dened below in
Eq. (2) are function of the enthalpy drop:

25% Span
50% Span
75% Span

2.6
2.4
2.2
2
1.8
1.6
0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

Meridional Axis
Fig. 7. Blade loading at three different rotor blade heights for the nominal
condition.

One can note that the exit of the stator is slightly chocked with a
maximum Mach number of approximately 1.05. This, in return,
leads to the higher Mach number at the inlet of the rotor. As a consequence, further 3D shape optimisation is required in order to
improve the blade loading prole shown in Fig. 7 and thus reduce
the Mach number in order to remain in the transonic region. Also
the relatively high loading at the leading edge of the rotor presented Fig. 7 associated with relatively low loading from the
mid-blade to the trailing edge may cause structural issues for the
blade integrity. This will require in the future to also run a structural blade analysis which would need to be linked to the blade
optimisation. Thus, it is very likely that the CFD simulations on a
fully-optimized 3D geometry with a more accurate modelling of
the real gas properties will provide much better agreement with
the meanline design in terms of efciencies.
6.2. Results at off-design conditions
The 3D numerical simulations have also been performed at offdesign conditions for different rotational speeds, inlet total temperatures and pressure ratios. The evolution of the total-to-total
efciency with the total inlet temperature and rotational speed
are presented in Figs. 8 and 9 respectively.
As one can note in Fig. 8, at the nominal rotational speed, the
turbine can effectively handle temperature variations with a
maximum efciency difference of 3.3% over the range of tested

Fig. 6. Mach number at mid-span for the nominal condition.

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E. Sauret, Y. Gu / Applied Energy 135 (2014) 202211

0.9

600

TT =380K
TTin=413K
TTin=450K

550

0.85

in

Power [kW]

500

T-T [-]

0.8
0.75
0.7

450
400
350
300

80% RPM
Nominal RPM
120% RPM

0.65
0.6
380

400

420

440

250
200
460

70

80

90

100

110

120

130

/Nominal [%]

TT [K]
in

Fig. 8. Evolution of the total-to-total efciency with the total inlet temperature at
three different rotational speeds.

Fig. 11. Variation of the turbine power with the rotational speed at three different
inlet temperatures.

0.9

0.9

0.88
0.85
0.86

T-T [-]

T-T [-]

0.8
0.75
0.7

0.84
0.82
0.8

TT =380K
TTin=413K
TTin=450K

0.65

0.76
1.8

in

0.6
70

80

TT =380K
TT in=413K
TTon=450K

0.78

90

100

110

120

130

in

2.2

2.4

temperatures. The maximum efciency is reached at T T in = 405 K,

slightly lower than the nominal temperature of 413 K. At 80%
rpm, the total-to-total efciency continually decreases with the
inlet temperature while at the highest rotational speed, the
efciency increases with the temperature and reaches a plateau
from T T in = 430 K. The total-to-total efciency dramatically drops
at high rotational speed with low temperatures.
Fig. 9 shows that at low temperature, the maximum efciency is
reached at a low rotational speed. After that point, the total-tototal efciency rapidly drops with an increase of the rotational
speed. At the nominal temperature (413 K), the turbine can better

550

0.88

500

0.86

T-T [-]

Power [kW]

3.2

3.4

3.6

handle the variation of rotational speed. In that case, the maximum

efciency is reached at 105% of the nominal rotational speed
(25463.5 rpm), slightly above the nominal rotational speed of
24,250 rpm. At higher temperature, the efciency keeps increasing
with the rotational speed.
Figs. 10 and 11 presents the variation of power with the inlet
temperature and the rotational speed respectively.
For all rotational speeds, the power increases with the inlet turbine temperature as shown in Fig. 10. However, this increase is
more pronounced at the highest rotational speed. It is also

0.9

400

Fig. 12. Variation of the total-to-total efciency with the total-to-static pressure
ratio at three different inlet temperatures for the nominal rotational speed.

600

450

2.8

T-S [-]

/Nominal [%]
Fig. 9. Evolution of the total-to-total efciency with the rotational speed at three
different inlet temperatures.

2.6

80% RPM
Nominal RPM
120% RPM

0.84
0.82

350
0.8

300

80% RPM
Nominal RPM
120% RPM

250
200

380

400

420

440

0.78
460

TT [K]
in

Fig. 10. Variation of the turbine power with the total inlet temperature at three
different rotational speeds.

0.76
1.8

2.2

2.4

2.6

2.8

3.2

3.4

3.6

T-S [-]
Fig. 13. Variation of the total-to-total efciency with the total-to-static pressure
ratio at three different rotational speeds for the nominal inlet temperature.

E. Sauret, Y. Gu / Applied Energy 135 (2014) 202211

3.5e4

-1

dhT [kJ.kg ]

3.0e4
2.5e4
2.0e4

TT =380K
TTin=413K
TTin=450K

1.5e4

in

1.0e4
70

80

90

100

110

120

130

/Nominal [%]
Fig. 14. Evolution of the enthalpy drop with the rotational speed at 3 different inlet
temperatures.

3.5e4

-1

dhT [kJ.kg ]

3.0e4
2.5e4
2.0e4

A variation of the pressure ratio was also performed and the

results at three different inlet temperatures for the nominal rotational speed are presented in Fig. 12. At the lowest temperature,
the maximum efciency is reached at PTS = 2.3. The efciency
rapidly drops on each side of the best efciency point such that
no numerical results were obtained for pressure ratios above 2.9
at 80% of the nominal rotational speed. For the nominal temperature T T in 413 K, the maximum efciency is reached at
PTS 2:1 well below the nominal pressure ratio of 2.65. After this
point, the efciency gradually decreases with an increase of the
pressure ratio. Similar trends are observed at the highest temperature with a faster drop compared to the nominal temperature.
The evolution of the efciency with the pressure ratio was also
plotted at three different rotational speeds as shown in Fig. 13 at
the nominal inlet temperature.
At low rotational speed, the efciency continually decreases
with the total-to-static pressure ratio while at the nominal rotational speed, the maximum efciency is reached at PTS 2:1
and then decreases. At the highest rotational speed, the maximum
efciency is shifted towards higher total-to-static pressure ratio
(2.9). At low total-to-static pressure ratio, the highest rotational
speed gives the lowest efciency while at higher pressure ratios,
it is the lowest rotational speed that provides with the lowest efciency. The highest efciencies are obtained over the range of pressure ratios at the nominal rotational speed.
6.3. Discussion

1.5e4
1.0e4

209

80% RPM
Nominal RPM
120% RPM
380

400

420

440

460

TT [K]
in

Fig. 15. Evolution of the enthalpy drop with the inlet temperature at 3 rotational
speeds.

observed in Fig. 11 that, as the temperature increases, the maximum power tends to move towards higher rotational speeds. Furthermore, the power increases with the temperature for a constant
rotational speed.

We can note that the effects of rotational speed, inlet temperature and pressure ratio are less pronounced at the nominal conditions. Therefore, the nominal point is the most capable of handling
a variation of rotational speed, temperature or pressure ratio while
maintaining a relatively high efciency over the range of variation.
The effect of the rotational speed is also more important at
T T in 380 K than at T T in 450 K. This is explained by the variation
of enthalpy drop through the turbine as shown in Figs. 14 and 15.
We can note that at T T in 380 K, the enthalpy drop dhT at 120%
rpm is 32.1% smaller than at 80% rpm. Thus the efciency at
T T in 380 K is largely higher for the lowest rotational speed. On
the contrary, at T T in 450 K, dhT at 120% rpm is 17.1% larger than

(a) TTin =380K, 80% nominal rpm

(b) TTin =450K, 80% nominal rpm

(c) TTin =380K, 120% nominal rpm

(d) TTin =450K, 120% nominal rpm

Fig. 16. Mach number at mid-span for T T in 380 K and T T in 450 K at 80% and 120% nominal rpm.

210

E. Sauret, Y. Gu / Applied Energy 135 (2014) 202211

0.9
0.8

T-T [-]

0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.4

0.5

0.6

0.7

0.8

0.9

1.1

U/C0 [-]
Fig. 17. Variation of the total-to-total efciency with the blade-to-jet speed ratio.

0.9
0.89
0.88

T-T [-]

0.87
0.86
0.85
0.84
0.83
0.82
0.81
0.8
0.5

0.55

0.6

0.65

0.7

0.75

0.8

0.85

U/C0 [-]
Fig. 18. Variation of the total-to-total efciency with the blade-to-jet speed ratio at
nominal turbine power W 400 kW.

dhT at 80% rpm explaining the lower efciency at T T in 450 K for

the lowest rotational speed. In addition, as shown in Fig. 16,
increasing the rotational speed at the lowest temperature dramatically damage the ow with large separation areas in the rotor
associated with large density values at the exit of the stator. The
effect of the rotational speed at the highest temperature is different as the ow pattern improves with the increase of rotational
speed. At T T in 450 K and 120% rpm no separation is visible at
mid-span. Furthermore, the ow at these conditions is really similar to the ow at T T in 380 K, 80% rpm explaining the similar efciencies obtained for these 2 conditions (Figs. 8 and 9). All these
effects are related to the high-density uid properties associated
with opposite ow behaviours when increasing the temperature
at 80% rpm and 120% rpm or when increasing the rotational speed
at T T in 380 K and T T in 450 K. Thus accurate advanced uncertainty quantication would benet the understanding of the sensitivity of the numerical simulations to the uid properties.
The variation of the power presented in Figs. 10 and 11 is also
linked to the uid properties, enthalpy drop as seen in Figs. 14
Table 6
Comparison of the nominal best efciency points.
Variables

Nominal point

Best efciency
point

Best efciency
point at W = 400 kW

gTT (%)
T T in (K)
X (rpm)
Q_ m kg s1

87.6
2.64
413
24,250
17.24

88.8
2.1
413
24,250
12.56

88.45
2.46
413
24,250
17.24

W (kW)
U/C 0 ()

421.5
0.681

257.2
0.748

390.8
0.711

PTS ()

and 15 and ow modications in the turbine (Fig. 16). The variation of enthalpy drop through the turbine is different according
to the temperature. While dhT keeps increasing with the rotational
speed at 450 K, it starts decreasing for 380 K after 95% rpm due to
the increased separation regions in the rotor with the rotational
speed at the lowest temperature. This low temperature high rotational speed case also corresponds to a very high density bringing
back the question of the sensitivity of the PengRobinson EoS. Thus
further detailed uncertainty quantication is required to accurately quantify this sensitivity.
The nominal point and all the off-design conditions numerically
simulated are gathered in Fig. 17 which shows the variation of efciency with the blade-to-jet speed ratio U/C 0 .
One can note that the maximum efciency of 88.8% is reached
at a blade-to-jet speed ratio of 0.748 well above the optimum value
of 0.7 [11,13]. However, this point corresponds to a turbine output
power of only 257 kW well below the nominal power of around
400 kW. For that reason, the efciency versus the blade-to-jet
speed ratio was plotted only considereing the points with an output power of approximately 400 kW. The resulting graph is shown
in Fig. 18.
While only considering the conditions leading to the nominal
turbine power of 400 kW, one can note that the maximum efciency is now 88.45% and is reached at U/C 0 = 0.711, slightly above
the optimum value of 0.7.
The nominal point is then compared to the best efciency
points in Table 6. The best efciency point is almost the efciency
obtained at a xed turbine power of approximately 400 kW. Furthermore, the nominal efciency is extremely close to the best efciency with a 1.4% difference. We can also note that the best
efciencies are obtained at the nominal inlet temperature and
nominal rotational speed. However, the best efciency is obtained
at a lower pressure ratio due to a lower mass ow rate, In return,
the power is lower. At the nominal turbine power, the best efciency is obtained at the nominal ow rate but also with a reduced
pressure ratio, achieved by varying the outlet static pressure. A
coupled optimisation of the thermodynamic cycle and 1D turbine
design would be then benecial. It would provide the best outlet
pressure for the turbine in order to achieve the the best efciency
at the required turbine power output.

7. Conclusion
This paper is the rst to present the full design process of a
radial-inow turbine working with R143a in sensible geothermal
brine and cycle conditions. The thermodynamic cycle, the preliminary 1D design, the meanline analysis of the turbine and eventually the steady-state 3D viscous simulations of the turbine both
at nominal and off-design conditions are produced.
The CFD simulations provided satisfactory results compared to
the meanline analysis except for the efciencies due to the sensitivity of real gas properties to the temperature variations. Parametric studies were carried out highlighting the relative robustness of
the design point over the variations of temperature, rotational
speed and pressure ratio. The CFD results also conrmed the need
for a coupled optimisation of the thermodynamic cycle and 1D turbine design. Optimising the system parameters will positively
impact the turbine and thus cycle efciencies.
These pioneering 3D CFD simulations conrmed previouslypublished studies for the need of more detailed optimization in
order to improve the blade loading proles of the turbine and
lower the maximum Mach number at the exit of the nozzle. As a
perspective to the presented work, the direct use of the RefProp
database for the real gas properties in the CFD solver instead of
the PengRobinson EoS will be performed in order to improve

E. Sauret, Y. Gu / Applied Energy 135 (2014) 202211

the prediction of the thermodynamic properties and so the power

and turbine efciency. In addition, it is recommended that the sensitivity of the efciency to the EoS will be studied using non-statistical state-of-the-art uncertainty quantication methods such as
Stochatic Collocation using Adaptive Sparse Grid. Finally, a 3D
shape optimization tool coupled with a structural analysis will be
developed and applied to this candidate R143a radial-inow turbine in sensible geothermal conditions.
Acknowledgements
Dr. E. Sauret would like to thank the Australian Research Council for its nancial support (DE130101183).
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