Iterative Approach for the Design of an Organic Rankine Cycle based on Thermodynamic Process Simulations and a Small-Scale Test Rig

Waste heat recovery from industrial processes may be a door opener for market penetration of Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) systems. Within this study, an ORC for industrial waste heat recovery is designed by adopting an iterative approach. Therefore, experiments are performed in a thermal oil heated 1 kW test rig with internal recuperator and a maximum thermal efficiency of 10.6%. The results are iteratively implemented in thermodynamic process simulation. Thus, the simulation results of different stationary operating points can be compared to experimental measurements for different steps of the iterative design process. Results outline the importance of experimental results for the design of ORC systems. The simulation accuracy can be significantly improved with a single reimplementation of experimental data, which enables accurate sensitivity analysis on ORC waste heat recovery system performance. For two different representative operating points, the mean deviations between experiment and simulation decrease from 8.4% to 1.0% and 4.1% to 1.7% respectively, considering the enthalpy and pressure of all thermodynamic state points.