scholarly journals Waste heat recovery from a heavy-duty natural gas engine by Organic Rankine Cycle

2020 ◽  
Vol 197 ◽  
pp. 06023
Author(s):  
Antonio Mariani ◽  
Biagio Morrone ◽  
Maria Vittoria Prati ◽  
Andrea Unich

Waste heat recovery can be a key solution for improving the efficiency of energy conversion systems. Organic Rankine Cycles (ORC) are a consolidated technology for achieving such target, ensuring good efficiencies and flexibility. ORC systems have been mainly adopted for stationary applications, where the limitations of layout, size and weight are not stringent. In road transportation propulsion systems, the integration between the powertrain and the ORC system is difficult but still possible. The authors investigated an ORC system bottoming a spark ignited internal combustion engine (ICE) powering a public transport bus. The bus, fuelled by natural gas, was tested in real driving conditions. Exhaust gas mass flow rate and temperature have been measured for calculating the thermal power to be recovered in the ORC plant. The waste heat was then used as energy input in a model simulating the performance of an ORC system. The heat transfer between the exhaust gases and the ORC fluid is crucial for the ORC performance. For this reason, attention was paid to considering the interaction between hot fluid temperature and ORC maximum pressure. ORC performance in terms of real cycle efficiency and power produced were calculated considering n-Pentane as working fluid. The fuel consumption was reduced from 271.5 g/km to 261.4 g/km over the driving cycle, corresponding to 3.7% reduction.

Energies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (21) ◽  
pp. 5846
Author(s):  
Fabio Fatigati ◽  
Diego Vittorini ◽  
Yaxiong Wang ◽  
Jian Song ◽  
Christos N. Markides ◽  
...  

The applicability of organic Rankine cycle (ORC) technology to waste heat recovery (WHR) is currently experiencing growing interest and accelerated technological development. The utilization of low-to-medium grade thermal energy sources, especially in the presence of heat source intermittency in applications where the thermal source is characterized by highly variable thermodynamic conditions, requires a control strategy for off-design operation to achieve optimal ORC power-unit performance. This paper presents a validated comprehensive model for off-design analysis of an ORC power-unit, with R236fa as the working fluid, a gear pump, and a 1.5 kW sliding vane rotary expander (SVRE) for WHR from the exhaust gases of a light-duty internal combustion engine. Model validation is performed using data from an extensive experimental campaign on both the rotary equipment (pump, expander) and the remainder components of the plant, namely the heat recovery vapor generator (HRVH), condenser, reservoirs, and piping. Based on the validated computational platform, the benefits on the ORC plant net power output and efficiency of either a variable permeability expander or of sliding vane rotary pump optimization are assessed. The novelty introduced by this optimization strategy is that the evaluations are conducted by a numerical model, which reproduces the real features of the ORC plant. This approach ensures an analysis of the whole system both from a plant and cycle point of view, catching some real aspects that are otherwise undetectable. These optimization strategies are considered as a baseline ORC plant that suffers low expander efficiency (30%) and a large parasitic pumping power, with a backwork ratio (BWR) of up to 60%. It is found that the benefits on the expander power arising from a lower permeability combined with a lower energy demand by the pump (20% of BWR) for circulation of the working fluid allows a better recovery performance for the ORC plant with respect to the baseline case. Adopting the optimization strategies, the average efficiency and maximum generated power increase from 1.5% to 3.5% and from 400 to 1100 W, respectively. These performances are in accordance with the plant efficiencies found in the experimental works in the literature, which vary between 1.6% and 6.5% for similar applications. Nonetheless, there is still room for improvement regarding a proper design of rotary machines, which can be redesigned considering the indications resulting from the developed optimization analysis.


2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (11) ◽  
pp. 397 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco Altosole ◽  
Ugo Campora ◽  
Silvia Donnarumma ◽  
Raphael Zaccone

Waste Heat Recovery (WHR) marine systems represent a valid solution for the ship energy efficiency improvement, especially in Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) propulsion applications. Compared to traditional diesel fuel oil, a better thermal power can be recovered from the exhaust gas produced by a LNG-fueled engine. Therefore, steam surplus production may be used to feed a turbogenerator in order to increase the ship electric energy availability without additional fuel consumption. However, a correct design procedure of the WHR steam plant is fundamental for proper feasibility analysis, and from this point of view, numerical simulation techniques can be a very powerful tool. In this work, the WHR steam plant modeling is presented paying attention to the simulation approach developed for the steam turbine and its governor dynamics. Starting from a nonlinear system representing the whole dynamic behavior, the turbogenerator model is linearized to carry out a proper synthesis analysis of the controller, in order to comply with specific performance requirements of the power grid. For the considered case study, simulation results confirm the validity of the developed approach, aimed to test the correct design of the whole system in proper working dynamic conditions.


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (19) ◽  
pp. 4017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valencia ◽  
Duarte ◽  
Isaza-Roldan

Waste-heat recovery (WHR) systems based on the organic Rankine cycle (ORC) improve the thermal efficiency of natural gas engines because they generate additional electric power without consuming more gas fuel. However, to obtain a cost-effective design, thermoeconomic criteria must be considered to facilitate installation, operation, and penetration into real industrial contexts. Therefore, a thermo-economic analyses of a simple ORC (SORC), ORC with recuperator (RORC) and a double-pressure ORC (DORC) integrated with a 2 MW Jenbacher JMS 612 GS-N. L is presented using toluene as the organic working fluid. In addition, the cost rate balances for each system are presented in detail, with the analysis of some thermoeconomics indicator such as the relative cost difference, the exergoeconomic factor, and the cost rates of exergy destruction and exergy loss. The results reported opportunities to improve the thermoeconomic performance in the condenser and turbine, because the exergoeconomic factor for the condenser and the turbine were in the RORC (0.41 and 0.90), and DORC (0.99 and 0.99) respectively, which implies for the RORC configuration that 59% and 10% of the increase of the total cost of the system is caused by the exergy destruction of these devices. Also, the pumps present the higher values of relative cost difference and exergoeconomic factor for B1 (rk = 8.5, fk = 80%), B2 (rk = 8, fk = 85%).


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlos Cabezas ◽  
José Mendoza ◽  
Iván Ponce ◽  
Rafael Cantorin ◽  
Daniel Gonzales ◽  
...  

This work describes the preliminary design of a lab-scale organic Rankine cycle (ORC) for waste heat recovery based applications. As heat source for the ORC, exhaust gases from an actual internal combustion engine are utilized. The design is primarily carried out accounting for the working fluid path. More specifically, a brief introduction to be subject is initially provided. The details of the ORC preliminary design are discussed next. This includes the selection of the main working fluid, the definition of the ORC plant layout and the design of the main ORC plant components. The specifics of an overall control loop resembling an actual control system that could be used in the designed ORC based plant is also provided. In terms of power output, the results show that up to 1.68 kW can be produced from the waste heat of internal combustion engines like the one accounted for in this work. Compared to the shaft power (25.1 kW) associated with the internal combustion engine providing the heat source, this power output represents about 7%. The preliminary design described here constitutes the first step of a large effort aiming to build, install and test a lab-scale ORC for educational purposes. It is expected that such ORC based plant allows carrying out in future several studies, including the development of different control strategies for maximizing the operational performance of these plants.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 1984
Author(s):  
Ramin Moradi ◽  
Emanuele Habib ◽  
Enrico Bocci ◽  
Luca Cioccolanti

Organic Rankine cycle (ORC) systems are some of the most suitable technologies to produce electricity from low-temperature waste heat. In this study, a non-regenerative, micro-scale ORC system was tested in off-design conditions using R134a as the working fluid. The experimental data were then used to tune the semi-empirical models of the main components of the system. Eventually, the models were used in a component-oriented system solver to map the system electric performance at varying operating conditions. The analysis highlighted the non-negligible impact of the plunger pump on the system performance Indeed, the experimental results showed that the low pump efficiency in the investigated operating range can lead to negative net electric power in some working conditions. For most data points, the expander and the pump isentropic efficiencies are found in the approximate ranges of 35% to 55% and 17% to 34%, respectively. Furthermore, the maximum net electric power was about 200 W with a net electric efficiency of about 1.2%, thus also stressing the importance of a proper selection of the pump for waste heat recovery applications.


Author(s):  
Manuel Jiménez-Arreola ◽  
Fabio Dal Magro ◽  
Alessandro Romagnoli ◽  
Meng Soon Chiong ◽  
Srithar Rajoo ◽  
...  

Waste heat recovery is seen as one of the key enablers in achieving powertrain of high efficiency. The exhaust waste heat from an internal combustion engine (ICE) is known to be nearly equivalent to its brake power. Any energy recovered from the waste heat, which otherwise would be discarded, may directly enhance the overall thermal efficiency of a powertrain. Rankine cycle (indirect-recovery method) has been a favorable mean of waste heat recovery due to its rather high power density yet imposing significantly lesser back pressure to the engine compared to a direct-recovery method. This paper presents the analytical investigation of a thermal-supercharged ICE compounded with Rankine cycle. This system removes the turbocharger turbine to further mitigate the exhaust back pressure to the engine, and the turbocharger compressor is powered by the waste heat recovered from the exhaust stream. Extra caution has been taken when exchanging the in/output parameters between the engine and Rankine cycle model to have a more realistic predictions. Such configuration improves the engine BSFC performance by 2.4–3.9%. Water, Benzene and R245fa are found to be equally good choice of working fluid for the Rankine cycle, and can further advance the BSFC performance by 4.0–4.8% despite running at minimum pressure setting. The off-design analyses suggested the operating pressure of Rankine cycle and its expander efficiency have the largest influence to the gross system performance.


Author(s):  
Fredrik Ahlgren ◽  
Maria E. Mondejar ◽  
Magnus Genrup ◽  
Marcus Thern

Maritime transportation is a significant contributor to SOx, NOx and particle matter emissions, even though it has a quite low CO2 impact. New regulations are being enforced in special areas that limit the amount of emissions from the ships. This fact, together with the high fuel prices, is driving the marine industry towards the improvement of the energy efficiency of current ship engines and the reduction of their energy demand. Although more sophisticated and complex engine designs can improve significantly the efficiency of the energy systems in ships, waste heat recovery arises as the most influent technique for the reduction of the energy consumption. In this sense, it is estimated that around 50% of the total energy from the fuel consumed in a ship is wasted and rejected in fluid and exhaust gas streams. The primary heat sources for waste heat recovery are the engine exhaust and the engine coolant. In this work, we present a study on the integration of an organic Rankine cycle (ORC) in an existing ship, for the recovery of the main and auxiliary engines exhaust heat. Experimental data from the operating conditions of the engines on the M/S Birka Stockholm cruise ship were logged during a port-to-port cruise from Stockholm to Mariehamn over a period of time close to one month. The ship has four main engines Wärtsilä 5850 kW for propulsion, and four auxiliary engines 2760 kW used for electrical consumers. A number of six load conditions were identified depending on the vessel speed. The speed range from 12–14 knots was considered as the design condition, as it was present during more than 34% of the time. In this study, the average values of the engines exhaust temperatures and mass flow rates, for each load case, were used as inputs for a model of an ORC. The main parameters of the ORC, including working fluid and turbine configuration, were optimized based on the criteria of maximum net power output and compactness of the installation components. Results from the study showed that an ORC with internal regeneration using benzene would yield the greatest average net power output over the operating time. For this situation, the power production of the ORC would represent about 22% of the total electricity consumption on board. These data confirmed the ORC as a feasible and promising technology for the reduction of fuel consumption and CO2 emissions of existing ships.


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