Substantiating promising technical solutions for turbo- expander power plants based on the research into working processes and states

One of the most rational methods of energy utilization of compressed gas in pipelines is to use turbo-expander installations. In particular, these are autonomous turbo-expander power stations. A fundamentally new concept has been devised to improve the technical and economic performance of this type of machines. This concept is not focused on a separate aspect of the plant's operation but on their entire set. In particular, physical principles, structures, and technologies were considered as an object of research. First, effective parameters of gas-dynamic flows and heat-mass transfer were determined based on the modeling of work processes. Secondly, progressive designs of turbo-expander units have been created. Thirdly, technologies for the production of parts and assemblies of turbo-expander units have been developed, which combine, unlike the traditional ones, different types of strengthening for contacting parts in their pair. A method of parametric modeling was used to substantiate the technical solutions of the elements of turbo-expander power plants. This makes it possible to determine the technical characteristics of these installations under a certain set of parameters. By purposeful variation, a recommended set of their parameters was determined, which ensure the improvement of the most important technical characteristics. A specialized database was built, which contains an array of information about the regularities of the influence of variation of significant parameters on various characteristics of turbo-expander power plants. Already on this basis, the problems of synthesis of successful technical solutions of turbo-expander power plants are solved. As a result, their high energy efficiency is ensured. Thus, the efficiency of the expander was achieved at the level of 86 % while the resource increased by 20–25 %. All these solutions were implemented in a number of unique turbo-expander units. Their effectiveness has been demonstrated during operatio