Preliminary Design of a Lab-Scale Organic Rankine Cycle for Waste Heat Recovery Applications

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.


2013 ◽  
Vol 597 ◽  
pp. 45-50
Author(s):  
Sławomir Smoleń ◽  
Hendrik Boertz

One of the key challenges on the area of energy engineering is the system development for increasing the efficiency of primary energy conversion and use. An effective and important measure suitable for improving efficiencies of existing applications and allowing the extraction of energy from previously unsuitable sources is the Organic Rankine Cycle. Applications based on this cycle allow the use of low temperature energy sources such as waste heat from industrial applications, geothermal sources, biomass, fired power plants and micro combined heat and power systems.Working fluid selection is a major step in designing heat recovery systems based on the Organic Rankine Cycle. Within the framework of the previous original study a special tool has been elaborated in order to compare the influence of different working fluids on performance of an ORC heat recovery power plant installation. A database of a number of organic fluids has been developed. The elaborated tool should create a support by choosing an optimal working fluid for special applications and become a part of a bigger optimization procedure by different frame conditions. The main sorting criterion for the fluids is the system efficiency (resulting from the thermo-physical characteristics) and beyond that the date base contains additional information and criteria, which have to be taken into account, like environmental characteristics for safety and practical considerations.The presented work focuses on the calculation and optimization procedure related to the coupling heat source – ORC cycle. This interface is (or can be) a big source of energy but especially exergy losses. That is why the optimization of the heat transfer between the heat source and the process is (besides the ORC efficiency) of essential importance for the total system efficiency.Within the presented work the general calculation approach and some representative calculation results have been given. This procedure is a part of a complex procedure and program for Working Fluid Selection for Organic Rankine Cycle Applied to Heat Recovery Systems.


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