A Recent Advance on Partial Evaporating Organic Rankine Cycle: Experimental Results on an Axial Turbine

Abstract

The organic Rankine cycle (ORC) technology is an efficient way to convert low-grade heat from renewable sources or waste heat for power generation. The partial evaporating organic Rankine cycle (PEORC) can be considered as a promising alternative as it can offer a higher utilization of the heat source. An experimental investigation of a small ORC system used in full or partial evaporation mode is performed. First characterized in superheated mode, which corresponds to standard ORC behavior, a semi-empirical correlative approach involving traditional non-dimensional turbomachinery parameters (specific speed, pressure ratio) can accurately describe one-phase turbine performance. In a second step, two-phase behavior is experimentally investigated. The efficiency loss caused by the two-phase inlet condition is quantified and considered acceptable. The turbine two-phase operation allows for an increase in the amount of recovered heat source. The ability to operate in two phases provides a new degree of flexibility when designing a PEORC. The semi-empirical correlative approach is then completed to take into account the partially evaporated turbine inlet condition. The qualitative description and the quantitative correlations in the one-phase and two-phase modes were applied to different pure working fluids (Novec649TM, HFE7000 and HFE7100) as well as to a zeotropic mixture (Novec649TM/HFE7000).