• Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.122-129
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• 2014

In order to extract shaft power from thermal energy in a R134a Rankine cycle as waste heat recovery system of a passenger car, a scroll expander has been designed. Algebraic spiral is adopted as the base curve for scroll wrap profile in the compact scroll design. About 19% reduction in scroll diameter is accomplished when compared to the conventional involute scroll. Performance analysis on the designed scroll expander shows that the expander efficiency is 85.5% at the vehicle speed of 120 km/hr and it decreases to 67.2% at 60 km/hr, provided that the scroll clearance is kept at 10 ${\mu}m$. The expander can produce shaft power equivalent to about 13~14% of the driving power within the speed range of 60~120 km/hr.

• Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.151-157
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• 2014

An algebraic scroll expander has been fabricated and tested in a R134a Rankine cycle with heat source of 20 kW. For the operating conditions of 20~26 bar and $90{\sim}93^{\circ}C$ at the expander inlet and 8~9 bar at the outlet, the expander produced the shaft output power of about 0.6~0.7 kW in the operating speed range of 1500~2000 rpm. These correspond to the expander efficiency of 40~45%. The volumetric efficiency increased with increasing of the expander speed, reaching to 80% at 2000 rpm. Comparing to numerical simulation results, mechanical efficiency from the test data was found to be considerably low by as much as 30%, indicating that reduction in the frictional loss should be made to improve the scroll expander efficiency.