Theoretical and Experimental Investigation of a 34 Watt Radial-Inflow Steam Turbine With Partial Admission

Abstract

A microsteam turbine with a tip diameter of 15 mm was designed and experimentally characterized. At the nominal mass flow rate and total-to-total pressure ratio of 2.3 kg h−1 and 2, respectively, the turbine yields a power of 34 W and a total-to-static isentropic efficiency of 37%. The steam turbine is conceived as a radial-inflow, low-reaction (15%), and partial admission (21%) machine. Since the steam is limited in the system (solid oxide fuel cell), a low-reaction and high-power-density design is preferred. The partial-admission design allows for reduced losses: The turbine rotor and stator blades are prismatic, have a radial chord length of 1 mm and a height of 0.59 mm. Since the relative rotor blade tip clearance (0.24) is high, the blade tip leakage losses are significant. Considering a fixed steam supply, this design allows to increase the blade height, and thus reducing the losses. The steam turbine drives a fan, which operates at low Mach numbers. The rotor is supported on dynamic steam-lubricated bearings; the nominal rotational speed is 175 krpm. A numerical simulation of the steam turbine is in good agreement with the experimental results. Furthermore, a novel test rig setup, featuring extremely thin thermocouples (ø0.15 mm) is investigated for an operation with ambient and hot air at 220 °C. Conventional zero- and one-dimensional predesign models correlate well with the experimental results, despite the small size of the turbine blades.