An Instructional Cogeneration Laboratory Using Gas Turbine Technology

The Mechanical Engineering Department at California State University, Sacramento (CSUS) has completed the design and constructed a $250,000 Instructional Cogeneration Laboratory devoted solely to undergraduate education. This facility will serve about 100 students per year in the Department’s Mechanical Engineering (ME) and Mechanical Engineering Technology (MET) programs. The major components are a 75 kW natural gas fired gas turbine-generator connected to a electrical load bank, a waste heat boiler, four heat exchangers, an absorption chiller and an existing cooling tower. Computer based data acquisition will be used to monitor pressures, temperatures, flows and stack emissions. This project has provided an excellent learning experience for ME and MET students in their senior project classes. Initial laboratory exercises will measure performance of the major pieces of equipment; future plans call for developing a series of heat transfer experiments.© 1996 ASME