Konstruktion av testrigg för moderna ångexpandrar

Sammanfattning: This report summarize what have been done during the Master of Science Thesis that Klas Schjelderup has written for the company RANOTOR Utvecklings AB. The company is developing modern steam engines and this work should develop a machine to perform tests on a new type of piston seal that hopefully could be used in the future. The steam engines will be both volumetric and energy compact, around 1600 hp/literof cylinder volume, and it will have a lot of practical applications. The new type of piston seal is hydrostatic lubricated which means that a fluid is separating two faces that normally is in contact. In this case pressurized water is used to separate the piston seal from the cylinder wall. RANOTOR have earlier formulated that at least the expander in the modern steam engine have to be oil-free, due to other components functionality in the closed water system. If the faces in contact doesn´t intentionally get separated there is a great risk of a breakdown due to the poor lubrication. At the start of this work, parts of an old testing rig were at hand which originally was designed by SAAB during the 1970´s under management of Ove Platell. Ove continued the research of steam engines within RANOTOR after the project was closed at SAAB. The old parts was restored and then new components was developed to be able to lead the pressurized water from the fixed surrounding up to the oscillating piston with it seals. The water is led thru a piston rod up to the piston, which also connects the old test rig with the new piston. Within this work a foundation was designed and the drive train, electric motor matched with inverter, for the rig was composed and mounted all together on the foundation. All of the parts that were designed during this work were also manufactured by the author. At the end of the thesis work a fully functional testing rig was presented, ready to perform the piston seal tests. If future tests could establish a piston seal concept that works, then you could begin to introduce steam into the piston expander and instead extract mechanical work from the steam. In that way the testing rig will be the first version of steam engines from RANOTOR.