Preliminary design and controlling strategies of a small-scale wood waste Rankine Cycle (RC) with a reciprocating steam engine (SE)

In this paper, a small-scale Rankine Cycle (RC) operating as a combined heat and power (CHP) unit and fed by wood waste is studied and the preliminary design and theoretical analysis of the main RC components are presented. A reciprocating single-stage expansion steam engine (SE) was chosen as the expander device: its main characteristics and operative performance are discussed in detail. Finally, the off-design performance is studied with different part-load controlling strategies.