Dynamic analysis of the dual-loop Organic Rankine Cycle for waste heat recovery of a natural gas engine

Abstract Natural gas internal combustion engines for electric generating are important primary movers in distributed energy systems. However, more than half of the energy is wasted by exhaust, jacket water and so on. Therefore, it is very meaningful to recover the waste heat, especially the exhaust heat. The DORC (Double loop ORC) is regarded as a suitable way to recover exhaust heat and it can produce electric required by users all the year around. As the waste heat recovery system of the engine, it often works under different working conditions owing to the varying energy demand of users. However, there is few study on the part-load performance of the DORC under different working conditions. Consequently, the dynamic math model of the DORC for waste heat recovery of a natural gas engine with 1000 kW rated power is established by Simulink in this work. With the PID control of the system, the static performance and dynamic behavior of the DORC under five typical engine working conditions are simulated and analyzed. Besides, the effects of the mass flow rate of the HT (high temperature) cooling water which is the connection between the two loops on the DORC performance are researched as well. The results illustrate that the DORC can improve the efficiency of the combined system quite well from 100% to 60% engine working condition, showing good working condition adaptability. Besides, enlarging the mass flow rate of the HT cooling water can enhance the output power of the DORC system, but not very obviously.