Model-based design and validation of waste heat recovery systems

The use of thermal energy dissipated from technical processes is an important step on the way towards a more sustainable society. Due to new working fluids and materials, available technologies like the thermal Organic Rankine Cycle or the Thermoelectric Generator are reaching efficiency levels making them also feasible economically. Currently, the decision on one of the existing technologies, the system design, and the applied control strategy is mainly based on rules-of-thumb. To foster an unbiased approach, in this contribution scalable dynamic simulation models described with the component-based modeling language Modelica are proposed. A realistic example shows how these models can be used to comparatively evaluate different system layouts for efficiency and profitability.