This month I have been extremely pleased to be able to officially announce that I have been awarded one of this year’s round of Royal Academy of Engineering Research Fellowships.

This scheme provides five years of funding and mentorship for early-career researchers, and will help me to advance my research career by enabling me to concentrate on conducting fundamental research in my chosen research area for a substantial period of time. Specifically, during my fellowship, I will be devoting my efforts to developing next generation waste-heat recovery systems based on two-phase expansion.

Waste-heat recovery technologies, such as the organic Rankine cycle (ORC), have an important role in significantly enhancing the energy efficiency of many energy-intensive industrial processes, and can also be coupled to stationary and automotive engines. It has been suggested that the power generated from an ORC could be enhanced by up to 30% by allowing the expansion process within the cycle to occur under two-phase conditions. In this state, the fluid entering the expander (see: ORC components) is a mixture of two phases, namely liquid and vapour. This is in contrast to conventional power plants which expand only vapour.

However, to date there are limited expander technologies suitable for two-phase operation. To date, volumetric expanders have been considered, but may be limited in their volume ratio. In comparison, turbines are widely used for expansion of vapour, offering high efficiency and compact designs, but for two-phase expansion significant challenges exist surrounding turbine design and concerns over blade erosion due to the presence of liquid droplets.

Thus, the aim of my research is to focus on the development of two-phase expanders for application within ORC systems for waste-heat recovery applications, using a combination of system optimisation, numerical simulation and experimental studies.

Watch this space for updates on my progress in the coming months (and years)!

Further details of this news story can be found below:

Academy supports engineering excellence with 18 new Research Fellowships

Dr Martin White awarded prestigious Royal Academy of Engineering Research Fellowship