Performance of a 5kWe Organic Rankine Cycle at part-load operation

Mercedes Ibarra, Antonio Rovira, Diego-César Alarcón-Padilla and Julián Blanco

Applied Energy, 2014, vol. 120, issue C, 147-158

Abstract: This paper analyzes the performance of an Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) system at part load operation. The objective is to understand its behavior from a thermodynamic perspective, identifying which elements are the most critical and which are the best operating points for each level of demanded power. This paper also compares two working fluids: R245fa and Solkatherm ES36 (SES36) for the same cycle specifications. The results have shown that the scroll isentropic efficiency has a great influence on the cycle performance and its thermal efficiency and that SES36 arises as a potential better fluid than R245fa. At the given maximum and minimum temperatures, the best operation point was determined. This allows reaching a maximum efficiency for each demanded level of power; depending on the required amount of power, the expander speed and the working pressure are adjusted.

Keywords: Organic Rankine Cycle; Off-design modeling; Scroll expander; Thermal analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (26)

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DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2014.01.057

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