Development of twin piston expander with solenoid valve for organic rankine cycle

This paper presents the progress of development of a new twin-type piston expander, (TPE) to be used as an expansion unit for a low temperature organic Rankine cycle (ORC). The lack of suitable available expander and most of the available expander are commonly limited to a certain range of operation...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Mohamad, Md. Nor Anuar, Manshoor, Bukhari, Hushim, Mohd Faisal, Amirnordin, Shahrin Hisham, Wan Muhammad, Wan Nur Azrina
Format: Conference or Workshop Item
Published: 2015
Subjects:
Online Access:http://eprints.uthm.edu.my/7330/
http://eprints.uthm.edu.my/7330/1/jeas_0916_5051.pdf
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Summary:This paper presents the progress of development of a new twin-type piston expander, (TPE) to be used as an expansion unit for a low temperature organic Rankine cycle (ORC). The lack of suitable available expander and most of the available expander are commonly limited to a certain range of operation. As an initiative to introduce a suitable expander, an existing unused twin piston compressor has been converted into a TPE, with a few modifications on the compressor by replacing the compressor valves with a solenoid valve and its ports condition. The newly developed TPE behavior, functionality and performance were tested at different inlet temperature and pressure. The preliminary results showed that the power produced by the TPE was proportional to the inlet temperature and pressure, and it was recorded that the highest power of 3.4 kW achieved when TPE operated at 7 bars with 153°C inlet temperature. It was also observed that the rotational speed variation depends on the inlet pressure stronger than it does on the inlet temperature. The results also revealed that the TPE is feasible to be used as an expander for the ORC system with several improvements before it is adapted into the system.