Thermal management, in particular, heat recovery and utilisation in internal combustion engines result in improved fuel economy, reduced emissions, fast warm up and optimized cylinder head temperatures. Turbocompounding is a heat recovery technique that has been successfully used in medium and large scale engines. Heat recovery to a secondary fluid and expansion is used in large scale engines, such as in power plants in the form of heat recovery steam generators(HRSG) [1]. The present paper presents a thermodynamic analysis of turbocompounding and heat recovery and utilisation through a fluid power cycle, a technique that is also applicable to medium and small scale engines. In a fluid power cycle, the working fluid is stored in a reservoir and expanded subsequently. The reservoir acts as an energy buffer that improves the overall efficiency, significantly. This paper highlights the relative advantage of exhaust heat secondary power cycles over turbocompounding with the aid of MATLAB based QSS Toolbox [2] simulation results. Steam has been selected as the working fluid in this work for its superior heat capacity over organic fluids and gases.
Heat recovery bottoming cycles for internal combustion engines have opened new avenues for research into small steam expanders (Stobart and Weerasinghe, 2006). Dependable data for small steam expanders will allow us to predict their suitability as bottoming cycle engines and the fuel economy achieved by using them as bottoming cycles. Present paper is based on results of experiments carried out on small scale Wankel and two-stroke reciprocating engines as air expanders and as steam expanders. A test facility developed at Sussex used for measurements is comprised of a torque, power and speed measurements, electronic actuation of valves, synchronized data acquisition of pressure, and temperatures of steam and inside of the engines for steam and internal combustion cycles. Results are presented for four engine modes, namely, reciprocating engine in uniflow steam expansion mode and air expansion mode and rotary Wankel engine in steam expansion mode and air expansion mode. The air tests will provide base data for friction and motoring effects whereas steam tests will tell how effective the engines will be in this mode. Results for power, torque, and p-V diagrams are compared to determine the change in performance from air expansion mode to steam expansion mode.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.