Comparison study of Trilateral Rankine Cycle, Organic Flash Cycle and basic Organic Rankine Cycle for low grade heat recovery

Abstract Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) has been widely used for the recovery of low-grade heat into power such as solar energy and industrial waste heat. The overall thermal efficiency of ORC is affected by large exergy destruction in the evaporator due to the temperature mismatching between the heat source and working fluid. Trilateral Cycle (TLC) and Organic Flash Cycle (OFC) have been recognized as potential solutions because of their better performance on temperature matching between the heat source and working fluid at the evaporator. In this study, thermodynamic models of above three cycles are established in MATLAB/REFPROP. Results indicate that TLC obtains the largest net power output, thermal efficiency and exergy efficiency of 13.6 kW, 14.8% and 40.8% respectively at the evaporation temperature of 152℃, which is 37% higher than that of BORC (9.9 kW) and 58% higher than that of OFC (8.6 kW). BORC is more suitable under the conditions low evaporation temperature is relatively low due to the achieved maximum net power output, thermal efficiency and exergy efficiency. OFC has the minimum net power output, thermal efficiency and exergy efficiency under all the conditions of evaporation temperature compared to TLC and BORC. As for the UA value, TLC has the largest one ranging from 7.9 kW/℃ to 8.8 kW/℃ under all conditions while OFC gains the minimum UA value at low evaporation temperature and BORC gains the minimum UA value at high evaporation temperature.

[1]  Michele Bianchi,et al.  Bottoming cycles for electric energy generation: Parametric investigation of available and innovative solutions for the exploitation of low and medium temperature heat sources , 2011 .

[2]  Madiha Nadri,et al.  Transient performance evaluation of waste heat recovery rankine cycle based system for heavy duty trucks , 2016 .

[3]  Ralph Greif,et al.  Increased power production through enhancements to the Organic Flash Cycle (OFC) , 2012 .

[4]  Jian Song,et al.  Parametric analysis of a dual loop Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) system for engine waste heat recovery , 2015 .

[5]  A. Roskilly,et al.  Experimental study of the gaseous and particulate matter emissions from a gas turbine combustor burning butyl butyrate and ethanol blends , 2017 .

[6]  H. A. Ajimotokan,et al.  Thermodynamic performance simulation and design optimisation of trilateral-cycle engines for waste heat recovery-to-power generation , 2015 .

[7]  Michael Steffen,et al.  Efficiency of a new Triangle Cycle with flash evaporation in a piston engine , 2013 .

[8]  Yaodong Wang,et al.  Design and assessment on a novel integrated system for power and refrigeration using waste heat from diesel engine , 2015 .

[9]  Xiaoli Yu,et al.  Design and Parametric Study of an Organic Rankine Cycle using a Scroll Expander for Engine Waste Heat Recovery , 2017 .

[10]  Ralph Greif,et al.  Comparison of the Organic Flash Cycle (OFC) to other advanced vapor cycles for intermediate and high temperature waste heat reclamation and solar thermal energy , 2012 .

[11]  Anthony Paul Roskilly,et al.  Working fluid selection for a small-scale organic Rankine cycle recovering engine waste heat , 2017 .

[12]  Mortaza Yari,et al.  Thermodynamic analysis and multi-objective optimization of various ORC (organic Rankine cycle) configurations using zeotropic mixtures , 2016 .

[13]  N. Lai,et al.  Working fluids for high-temperature organic Rankine cycles , 2007 .

[14]  Li Zhao,et al.  Thermodynamic analysis of organic Rankine cycle using zeotropic mixtures , 2014 .

[15]  Johann Fischer,et al.  Comparison of trilateral cycles and organic Rankine cycles , 2011 .

[16]  Xiaoli Yu,et al.  Parametric study for small scale engine coolant and exhaust heat recovery system using different Organic Rankine cycle layouts , 2017 .