Abstract
When modeling low capacity energy systems, such as a small size (5–150 kWel) organic Rankine cycle unit, the governing dynamics are mainly concentrated in the heat exchangers. As a consequence, the accuracy and simulation speed of the higher level system model mainly depend on the heat exchanger model formulation. In particular, the modeling of thermo-flow systems characterized by evaporation or condensation requires heat exchanger models capable of handling phase transitions. To this aim, the finite volume (FV) and the moving boundary (MB) approaches are the most widely used. The two models are developed and included in the open-source ThermoCycle Modelica library. In this contribution, a comparison between the two approaches is presented. An integrity and accuracy test is designed to evaluate the performance of the FV and MB models during transient conditions. In order to analyze how the two modeling approaches perform when integrated at a system level, two organic Rankine cycle (ORC) system models are built using the FV and the MB evaporator model, and their responses are compared against experimental data collected on an 11 kWel ORC power unit. Additionally, the effect of the void fraction value in the MB evaporator model and of the number of control volumes (CVs) in the FV one is investigated. The results allow drawing general guidelines for the development of heat exchanger dynamic models involving two-phase flows.
Highlights
The crucial role of dynamic modeling tools in tackling the challenges arising from the unsteady operation of complex physical systems has been generally accepted by the scientific community for the simulation of energy systems [1]
A recent work from [20] reports a clear review of the major MB heat exchanger models capable of handling two-phase flows and presents a moving boundary library developed in the Modelica language for the modeling of direct steam generation parabolic through solar collectors
In order to further investigate the effect of the mean void fraction on the MB evaporator model performance, a parametric analysis is performed by replacing the endogenously-computed value of the mean void fraction, γ (see Equation (A5)), by six different constant values ranging from 0.2 to 0.99
Summary
The crucial role of dynamic modeling tools in tackling the challenges arising from the unsteady operation of complex physical systems has been generally accepted by the scientific community for the simulation of energy systems [1]. A recent work from [20] reports a clear review of the major MB heat exchanger models capable of handling two-phase flows and presents a moving boundary library developed in the Modelica language for the modeling of direct steam generation parabolic through solar collectors. This contribution proposes a comparison between the MB and the FV modeling approaches.
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