An ejector based Transcritical Regenerative Series Two-Stage Organic Rankine Cycle for dual/multi-source heat recovery applications

Abstract

The Transcritical Regenerative Series Two-stage Organic Rankine Cycle (TR-STORC) was shown to deliver improved performance than Series Two-stage ORC (STORC) and single-stage ORC for dual-source heat recovery applications. However, TR-STORC utilizes partial evaporation for regeneration which requires precise control of two-phase flows. In real-time operations involving dual/multiple heat sources, this is difficult to achieve due to fluctuating heat inputs, leading to liquid carryover and subsequent corrosion of turbine blades. This study explores a novel Transcritical Ejector Regenerative STORC (TER-STORC), which replaces the need for two phase flows with a avapor-vapor regeneration via an ejector operating entirely with fully evaporated vapor (FE mode). Partial evaporation (PE) mode of TER-STORC requiring two-phase flows is also analyzed for comparison. Results indicate that the FE mode of TER-STORC can achieve performance comparable to PE mode and TR-STORC. FE mode of ejector operation is less sensitive to variations in ejector pressure drop than PE mode while delivering 0.2–4% lower power outputs with lower heat exchanger requirements than TR-STORC by up to 18%.At the engine design point, only a 2% drop in power output is seen for FE mode compared to TR-STORC. TER-STORC presents a robust system with reduced complexity for multisource heat recovery.