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Small steam turbine

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stanlsimon

Mechanical
Feb 14, 2005
177
Does anyone know where to obtain a small steam turbine,(40 kw output) used or new.
 
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On the surplus market it is unlikely that you will find one that small. Even a 'small' ST is going to be a good few hundred kW because the economics of running one don't add up at low powers because of all the expensive auxiliaries requried for an ST to run safely. You're probably looking at a pricey custom design.

Your post would be better answered if you give some sort of idea on working pressures, required output speed, and turbine type you're looking for. The turbine engineering forum, forum666 (the devil's forum!), would be a much better place to ask the question.

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Thanks for the response, I will check out those sites.

I heard about a Tesla turbine that sounds very simple.

Input would be 15psig going into pressure regulator, so the turbine would see maybe 8 psig, If I go over 15 psig I need to have a licensed operator.

Exhaust pressure would be as close to atmospheric pressure as possible. I'm thinking about doing combined heat and power, so an exhaust steam heat exchanger would use 120 deg F entering water temperature to cool the steam.

Would be trying to make 60 hz AC power, possibly synchronized to the grid. For economic reasons I have to stay under 40 kw output, (PURPA regulations to obtain a decent price for electricity).

The idea is to provide about 10 watt/ft^2 to light a 4000 ft^2 green house while utilizing the heat of rejection for cold climate heat loss. Design heat loss would be 450,000 btuh so if you subtract -40000*3.413=313480 btuh. If turbine was 20 % efficient I would get 546080 btuh rejected heat, a slight excess.

Because the greenhouse doesn't need to be lighted 24hr/day,
the opportunity exists to make electricty to sell to grid, sort of a by product of this hair brained scheme.

This all will require a government grant of course.
 
I know of a few industrial tomato growers in the UK which use a natural gas fuel to run engines for electricity production with waste heat being used to heat the greenhouse and the CO[sub]2[/sub]-rich exhaust being directed into the greenhouse for the benefit of the plants. The electricity is effectively a lucrative by-product.

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Did you find a steam turbine for your application? If so, how much did it cost?

We are looking for something very similar to conduct water erosion experiments that require very high tip speed velocities. We assume we can generate the required tip speeds (750 ft/sec)using a steam turbine similar to the one you spec'd out. Our experiment would involve actually attaching the test sample to the turbine blade and running it through a jet of water to simulate water erosion mechanisms.
 
I didn't get down to pricing but there are turbines available, the pressure range is for higher pressures than what I wanted.
 
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