Organic Rankine Cycle Analysis: Finding the Best Way to Utilize Waste Heat

An Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) is a type of power cyclethat uses organic substances such as hydrocarbons orrefrigerants as the working fluid. ORC technology is usedto generate electricity in waste heat recovery applications,because the available heat is not at a high enoughtemperature to operate with other types of cycles. Theoptimum amount of working fluid required for the cycle(i.e., optimum charge level) was investigated. Three chargelevels (13, 15, and 18 lbm) were tested, and their effect onefficiency and performance of the system was analyzed.The heat source for the fluid was waste steam from thePurdue Power Plant, which had an average temperatureof 120oC. Regular city tap water at a temperature of 15oCwas used as the heat sink. For each charge level, multipletests were performed by measuring the temperaturesand pressures at all state points in the cycle, in order tounderstand any overarching patterns within the data.An important parameter that was analyzed is the 2nd lawefficiency. This efficiency is a measure of the effectivenessof the energy utilization compared to that of an idealcase. The peak efficiency increased from 24% to 27% asthe charge in the system decreased. Therefore, movingforward, this research suggests that a lower charge levelin the system will increase efficiency. However, testingbelow 13 lbm might cause mechanical complications inthe equipment as there may not be enough fluid to flowaround; thus, a compromise had to be made.