Thermodynamic Analysis of a Novel Combined Power and Cooling Cycle Driven by the Exhaust Heat Form a Diesel Engine

A novel combined power and cooling cycle based on the Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) and the Compression Refrigeration Cycle (CRC) is proposed. The cycle can be driven by the exhaust heat from a diesel engine. In this combined cycle, ORC will translate the exhaust heat into power, and drive the compressor of CRC. The prime advantage of the combined cycle is that both the ORC and CRC are trans-critical cycles, and using CO₂ as working fluid. Natural, cheap, environmentally friendly, nontoxic and good heat transfer properties are some advantages of CO₂ as working fluid. In this paper, besides the basic combined cycle (ORC-CRC), another three novel cycles: ORC-CRC with an expander (ORC-CRCE), ORC with an internal heat exchanger as heat accumulator combined with CRC (ORCI-CRC), ORCI-CRCE, are analyzed and compared. The cycle parameters, including the coefficient of performance (cop), the cooling capacity (Qro) and expansion power of CRC (We) have been analyzed and optimized as the variation of the high pressure of ORC, the high pressure and the outlet temperature of gas cooler of CRC, and temperature drop of heat source in heat accumulator of ORC. The results indicate that there is an optimal high pressure of CRC (about 8.6 MPa to 8.8 MPa) for the combined cycles, at which the combined cycles achieve the optimal performance. The results also show that both the expander and heat accumulator could improve the system performance. The higher ΔTi could improve the system performance, but also resulting the more insufficiency of waste heat recovery.