The Thermofluids Design of a 100 KW, Single-Shaft Prototype Microturbine as a New Distributed Generation Method in Iran

AbstractConsidering the increasing role of microturbines in distributed generation of combined heat and power (CHP), the localization of microturbine design and manufacturing technology has received great importance in Iran. Providing a complete and comprehensive algorithm can be a major step in reaching the goal. In this paper, we present the cycle for the thermofluids design of a 100 KW microturbine which is carried out at the Niroo Research Institute of Iran to simultaneously generate both electricity and useful heat. The characteristics of this system are as follows: revolution speed of 47750rpm, single shaft, natural gas as fuel, single stage radial turbine/compressor and annular combustion chamber. Based on the thermodynamic characteristics of the cycle, the characteristics of different components of microturbine are determined throughout the study. According to the determined values, we expect the cycle to achieve an efficiency of approximately 13% without the recuperator and 25% with the recuperator. It must be noted that the designed microturbine is going through the final assembly stages at the time and the performance test has not been conducted yet. Therefore, the over-all characteristics curve of the system was not available at the time of preparing this article