An experimental study on the organic Rankine cycle to determine as to how efficiently utilize fluctuating thermal energy

Abstract

Thermal properties of the available energy such as maximum temperature and thermal energy capacity are greatly influenced to the design of energy conversion system like the organic Rankine cycle (ORC). Useful thermal energy can be obtained from: waste heat energy, geothermal energy, solar heat energy, biomass energy, and so on. However, these cannot usually be supplied at constant levels. Hence, the temperature and flowrate of the thermal energy can vary while the ORC is working. In order to efficiently utilize such fluctuating thermal energy, an experimental study was conducted while adjusting the mass flowrate and the temperature of the working fluid. Three supersonic nozzles and an impulse type turbine were applied. The supersonic nozzle was adopted to increase the spouting velocity for efficient operation of the impulse turbine. The nozzle was designed to reach a velocity of Mach 1.6 at the nozzle exit, and three nozzles were used to control the mass flowrate in this experiment. The experimental results were compared with the predicted results obtained by the cycle analysis.