Loss Analysis in Radial Inflow Turbines for Supercritical CO<inf>2</inf> Mixtures

Abstract

Recent studies suggest that CO2 mixtures can reduce the costs of concentrated solar power plants. Radial inflow turbines (RIT) are considered suitable for small to medium-sized CO2 power plants (100 kW to 10 MW) due to aerodynamic and cost factors. This paper quantifies the impact of CO2 doping on RIT design by comparing 1D mean-line designs and aerodynamic losses of pure CO2 RITs with three CO2 mixtures: titanium tetrachloride (TiCl4), sulfur dioxide (SO2), and hexafluorobenzene (C6F6). Results show that turbine designs share similar rotor shapes and velocity diagrams for all working fluids. However, factors like clearance-to-blade height ratio, turbine pressure ratio, and fluid viscosity cause differences in turbine efficiency. When normalized for these factors, differences in total-to-static efficiency become less than 0.1%. However, imposing rotational speed limits reveals greater differences in turbine designs and efficiencies. The imposition of rotational speed limits reduces total-to-static efficiency across all fluids, with a maximum 15% reduction in 0.1 MW CO2 compared to a 3% reduction in CO2/TiCl4 turbines of the same power. Among the studied mixtures, CO2/TiCl4 turbines achieve the highest efficiency, followed by CO2/C6F6 and CO2/SO2. For example, 100 kW turbines achieve total-to-static efficiencies of 80.0%, 77.4%, 78.1%, and 75.5% for CO2/TiCl4, CO2/C6F6, CO2/SO2, and pure CO2, respectively. In 10 MW turbines, efficiencies are 87.8%, 87.3%, 87.5%, and 87.2% in the same order.