Abstract

This article describes a new concept of compressed air energy storage system using atmospheric air at ambient temperature as a power source for running zero pollution vehicle (ZPV) such as a motorcycle. The proposed air turbine transforms the energy of the compressed air into shaft work. The mathematical modeling and performance evaluation of a small capacity compressed air driven vaned type novel air turbine is presented here. The effect of isobaric admission and adiabatic expansion of high pressure air for different vane numbers to rotor-casing diameter ratios have been considered and analyzed. It is found that the shaft work output is optimum for some typical values of number of vanes at particular rotor-casing diameter ratios. In this study, the casing diameter is considered 50, 100 and 150 mm and rotor to casing diameter ratios are varied from 0.95 to 0.55 and vane numbers from 4 - 12 and the air turbine is found to develop maximum power to the order of 1.3, 5.3 (7.1 HP) and 11.9 kW respectively where 5.3 kW power developed with casing diameter 100 mm is sufficient to run motorcycles.

Key words: Zero pollution, compressed air, vane turbine, vane angle, rotor / casing diameter ratios.