In 2020, Arts et Métiers research teams Arts et Métiers around ten applications to the French National Research Agency's (ANR) 2020 Generic Call for Projects (AAPG 2020). The success rate was high, with six applications accepted, including the Regal ORC collaborative research project!
The REGAL-ORC (REal-GAs effects on loss mechanisms of ORC turbine flows) project is led by Xavier Gloerfelt, professor at the Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (DynFluid) on the Paris campus. This Franco-German project, funded by the French (Agence Nationale de la Recherche) and German (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) research agencies, officially began on January 15, 2021, and will run for 36 months.
The aim of this bilateral collaboration is to carry out, for the first time, a detailed characterization of real gas flows representative of Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) turbines. This characterization will be achieved through the complementary nature of the experimental measurements (carried out by the German partners) and the numerical simulations (carried out by the French partners). Indeed, with the wind tunnel developed by the German partners and Dynfluid's contribution in terms of numerical simulations with complex thermodynamics, a unique synergy is being achieved in the process of characterizing flows representative of ORC turbines. Each party will work together to produce the first detailed data enabling better calibration of industrial tools.
The design of ORC turbines, as well as other machines using working fluids with complex thermodynamics (such as supercritical CO2, for example), will benefit from these results, which will reduce energy consumption by recovering heat lost in industrial processes.
In France, the project is led by Paola Cinnella, professor at the Jean Le Rond D'Alembert Institute of Sorbonne University, in collaboration with Arts et Métiers.
For the institution, the funding allocated (approximately €200,000 on the French side and €300,000 on the German side) is mainly for the completion of a thesis on the numerical simulation of turbulent flows of real gases.
