Establishing a methodology to investigate factors that affect Tip Leakage Loss : In a small scale Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) turbine

Abstract: With growing awareness and necessity for the world to move towards more sustainable (energy saving) forms of power generation, focus on the commercial use of Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) turbine systems has subsequently increased in turn. ORC systems with their modular design can thus help in recovering heat, obtained as a byproduct from a variety of industrial processes, and thereby increase their overall system efficiency. As with conventional turbine systems, methods to improve their performance is an avenue that is still being actively researched on today. The various sources of losses in a turbine have thus been looked into, while prioritizing the literature study to factors that result in losses associated with the leakage flow over the blade tip. The purpose of this study is to develop a working methodology to investigate factors that affect the tip leakage loss in a small scale ORC turbine. The model and associated data used for comparison is based on an existing system, whose design has been provided by Againity AB, with the subsequent simulations carried out using Ansys CFX.