Grants and Contributions:

Grant or Award spanning more than one fiscal year (2017-2018 to 2019-2020).

It is estimated that 20-50% of the energy consumed by Canadian manufacturing processes is ultimately lost viax000D
waste heat emitted in hot exhaust streams, cooling water, and heat transfer from hot surfaces and products.x000D
Recovering energy from this waste heat is an emission-free substitute for costly purchased fuels or electricity,x000D
and will significantly reduce the energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions of Canadian industry. Thex000D
proposed research project will conduct an analytical and computational analysis of a novel waste heat recoveryx000D
concept that extracts work from a pressurized fluid stream with a relatively low inlet temperature. The device isx000D
a radial turboexpander that recovers waste heat through frictional forces arising from the interaction betweenx000D
the rotating machinery and fluid within the device. The geometrical simplicity of the conceptualizedx000D
turboexpander will make it much cheaper to manufacture and operate compared to existing heat recoveryx000D
technologies, and is expected to achieve a high enough efficiency so as to be economical for extracting powerx000D
from waste heat in oil and gas processing facilities. Through first-principles analytical analysis and in-depthx000D
computational fluid dynamics simulations of the fluid flow within the expander, the research project willx000D
identify the optimum expander configuration for maximum power and efficiency, investigate the sources ofx000D
aerodynamic losses within the device, and improve the expander design based on the knowledge of the lossx000D
sources that are present. The project will lead to a novel device that can extract power from waste heat sourcesx000D
with much higher efficiencies and lower costs than are currently available, bringing significant financial andx000D
environmental savings to Canada's energy, oil and gas, and manufacturing industries.