Design and Experimental Study of a 5-kW Organic Rankine Cycle with Axial-Flow Turbine for Low-Temperature Heat Recovery
Publication: Journal of Energy Engineering
Volume 144, Issue 3
Abstract
The microscale organic Rankine cycle (ORC) system is considered a promising technology to recover thermal energy from widely distributed low-temperature heat sources. By using HFC-R225fa as working fluid, a 5-kW low-temperature ORC system with a hermetic axial-flow turbo generator was designed, and performance of the ORC system was analyzed based on the experimental data. During the design period, the actual electric power output of the ORC system was 2.5 kW, and the internal efficiency of the axial turbine was 23.6%. However, it was found that at the turbine rotational speed of 16,000 rotation per minute (rpm), such aforementioned performances are reduced to approximately half of the design values. Hence, the disagreement between the design value and experimental data implies that the conventional axial turbine design model is inaccurate at low turbine rotational speeds, and the thermal energy grade is decreased in the generator coil cooling process of the microscale integrated turbo generator structure. The experimental results also showed that the axial turbine performance is improved at high turbine rotational speed for the microscale ORC system. Finally, a suitable turbine rotational speed is recommended in this research.
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Acknowledgments
The work described in this paper is supported by a project funded by the Program of National Youth Nature Science Foundation of China (51506090). Special acknowledgement is made to the Enogia Company for supplying the main components of the ORC experimental system.
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Published In
Journal of Energy Engineering
Volume 144 • Issue 3 • June 2018
Copyright
©2018 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Aug 3, 2017
Accepted: Dec 21, 2017
Published online: Apr 11, 2018
Published in print: Jun 1, 2018
Discussion open until: Sep 11, 2018
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