Investigations on a Two Stage ORC Installation

A. Pîslă, D.C. Bândean,

Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, Machine Building Faculty,
Department of Machine Tools and Industrial Robots

Abstract-This paper focuses on the steps that need to be taken Expansion machine 2
Expansion machine 1
in investigating an ORC – Organic Rankine Cycle installation in Cooling
order to improve its efficiency. An important step is choosing the
working fluid (an organic fluid). There are many parameters that Exhaust gas Condenser
influence the thermodynamic performance of the process. These
parameters as well as some environmental characteristics are Boiler
shown in the first part of the paper. The second part focuses on a Exhaust gas power

small program developed for the optimization of a proposed ener-

gy recuperative installation. The program is divided in three sub-
programs. Each sub-program focuses on the optimization of a
different pressure region of the process. The paper describes the Biogas
engine Boiler
program and the calculation procedure behind it. Cooling water power
Storage tank

I. INTRODUCTION
Pump

In today’s global environment, our attention turns more and

more towards renewable and sustainable energy sources. Figure 1 The general layout of the proposed installation
New energy conversion technologies are required in order to
insure the production of electricity without generating envi- II. THE WORKING FLUID
ronmental pollution. Among them, low-grade heat sources are According to the T-s (temperature-entropy) diagram, the
considered as appropriate candidates for the new energy working fluids can be categorized into three groups [4]:
sources. Candidates for this kind of improvement are industrial - Wet fluids, having a negative slope on their vapor satu-
applications where a lot of waste heat is generated and in gen- ration curve, and have a low molecular mass, such as
eral lost. water or R22 - organic fluid (figure 2):
For this we intend to build an energy recuperative system
based on the organic Rankine cycle (ORC). Electrical energy
is usually produced using a process based on the Rankine cy-
cle, with water as a working agent. The ORC process uses an
organic working fluid instead of water. The properties of or-
ganic fluids make them ideal candidates for use in low grade
heat applications. Sources of heat for this kind of process can
be industrial sites, as stated above, or others like solar panels,
geothermal energy or biomass. A high level of efficiency for
this type of process can be achieved by properly selecting the
working agent and the working conditions.
The proposed installation (figure 1) is based on the usual wa-
ter-steam cycle Rankine installation and it has the following
main components:
- storage tank Figure 2 T-s diagram of a wet fluid
- pump - Dry fluids, having a positive slope on their vapor satura-
- preheater tion curve and a high molecular mass, such as R113 or
- evaporator isopentane – organic fluids (figure 3):
- one or two expansion modules
- condenser
 and thus reduce the required flow rate, the size of the fa-
cility, and the pump consumption [2];
- The fluid should be safe, meaning it should be noncor-
rosive, nonflammable, and nontoxic. The ASHRAE
safety classification of the refrigerant is a good indicator
of the dangerousness level of the fluid (table 2);
- It should have a low environmental impact; the main pa-
rameters defining these types of characteristics are the
“ozone depleting potential” (ODP) and the “greenhouse
warming potential” (GWP) [6];
- The fluid should be commercially available and it
shouldn’t be too expensive.

Figure32 T-s diagram of a dry fluid TABLE I

THERMODYNAMIC PROPERTIES OF ORGANIC FLUIDS [5]
- Isentropic fluids, almost having a vertical slope on their Shape of
M
vapor saturation curve, such as R11 or R245fa – organic Fluid
[g/mol]
saturation Critical point Safety
fluids (figure 4) vapor curve
198ºC –
R11 137.37 Isentropic
4.41MPa
96.1ºC –
R22 86.47 Wet
4.99MPa
214ºC –
R113 187.38 Dry
3.44MPa Non-
184ºC – flamable
R123 152.93 Isentropic
3.67MPa
101ºC –
R134a 102.03 Wet
4.06MPa
154ºC –
R245fa 134.05 isentropic
3.64MPa

TABLE II
ENVIRONMENTAL PROPERTIES OF ORGANIC FLUIDS [5]
Figure 4 T-s diagram of an isentropic fluid ASHARE Atmospheric
Fluid ODP GWP
classification lifetime
Because the ORC process is used with low temperature heat R11 1 3360 A1 45
sources, making overheating problematic, wet fluids are ex- R22 0.034 1710 A1 12
cluded from the beginning. This is due to the fact that that dur- R113 0.9 5330 A1 85
ing the isentropic transformation in the expansion machine, the R123 0.012 120 B1 1.3
fluid enters the wet vapor phase. This is potentially harmful for R134a 0 1320 A1 14
the installation, as the liquid droplets can damage the machine R245fa 0 950 B1 7.2
[3].
Although the dry fluids are suitable for low grade heat pro- The above two tables (table 1 and table 2) show some organ-
cesses, because after the isentropic transformation they remain ic fluids with some of their properties. Based on these proper-
into the overheated vapor phase, they are eliminated in this ties and on other specific requirements regarding practical ap-
case. Because of this the fluid has to be cooled down at the plications, a fluid assessment procedure can be developed, fa-
exhaust of the expander before entering the two-phase state. cilitating the fluid selection phase. Generally, the chosen work-
This can be done by the use of a regenerator between the ex- ing fluid should be non-flammable, non-corrosive with favora-
haust of the pump and the exhaust of the expander. This adds ble heat transfer and transport properties (high heat exchanger
to the costs and size of the installation. efficiency and low pump power requirements).
There are other parameters to be taken into consideration For this particular application, the chosen working fluid is
when choosing a working fluid. Some of these are: R245fa.
- Low freezing point, so that the fluid will not solidify
when it’s in the low-temperature area of the process; II. THE CALCULATION PROGAM
- The critical pressure and temperature should be well In order to theoretically improve the efficiency of the pro-
above the highest values of these parameters in the pro- posed installation, a database and a calculation procedure have
cess (table 1); been developed. The software used for this development was
- The heat of vaporization and the density of the fluid MS Excel. It has been chosen for various reasons, some of
should be high, as a fluid with these characteristics will them being the ease of correlation between the database, the
absorb more energy from the source in the evaporator
calculation procedure and the interface, all of which were basi-
cally integrated in the same window.
The program developed for the calculation and optimization
of the different points of the installation is composed out of
three major parts.
The algorithm for the calculation procedure is presented in
figure 5 [1].
The starting point for the calculations is the entrance of the
first expansion machine. The known parameters are the heat
power, the expansion machines’ internal efficiency and the
mass flow rates (obtained using the heat powers). For the opti-
mization of the whole process the major varying parameters are
the pressure and the temperature. There are three pressure lev-
els:
1. Low pressure – in the condenser;
2. Medium pressure – at the inlet of the first expansion
machine;
3. High pressure – at the inlet of the second expansion
machine.
The three parts of the program are built on these pressures.
In the part the main focus is on the turbine inlet pressure
value. It represents the main variable, while the temperature is
set on the saturation curve with the possibility of later increas-
ing it to be able to see the influence of overheating on the over-
all results.
One can select the pressure value form the first page. This ac-
tion will display a window which contains information boxes
about every process point, and some other data.
The menu buttons contain the pressure values (16 – 19 bar with
a 0.5 bar increment in this case) and the “back” button which
displays the first menu page.
The data table contains on the left the process points with the
pressure, temperature, enthalpy and entropy values. On the
right there are some variables as well as some known parame-
ters (figure 6) [1].

Fuel data

Circuit diagram
Database
Expander characteristics

Pressure range

Boundary conditions
Part 1 Figure 6 The program interface

Pressure and
The variables are:
temperature for - The enthalpy
the first point
- The entropy
No
- The total energy input
Efficiency =
max? - The energy absorbed as heat in the condenser
- The transformed energy in the expansion machines
- The cycle efficiency
Yes The global variables are:
- The pressure
- The pressure ratio
Part 2
- The temperature
The known parameters are:
- The turbine efficiency
Part 3 - The screw engine efficiency
- The mass flow rates
If a change is made to the global variables or to the known pa-
rameters, the values of the local variables change as well.
Results The expansion in the turbine is theoretically isentropic, but
in reality it is not. The program first does the isentropic trans-
Figure 5 The algorithm for the calculation and optimization progam formation from the high pressure to the medium pressure state,
matching the data according to the entropy values. So for 8 bar
There is a simple first page of the program where one can se- with this entropy value (1.8199 [kJ/kgK] in this case) it returns
lect any of these three parts by clicking on one of the buttons the temperature and the enthalpy values at point 3’. This is
marked “part 2”, “part 3” or for the first part by clicking one of done by a matching procedure as shown in figure 7 [1]:
the high pressure values (in this case, from 16 bar to 19 bar
with a 0.5 bar increment).

Figure 7 The matching procedure
These are not true because of the internal efficiency of the
turbine. Figure 8 shows the difference between the isentropic
and the real transformation [1].
Figure 8 The difference between the isentropic and the real transformation in
the turbine
The real entropy value can be obtained (only by knowing the
internal efficiency η value) from (1).
(1)
By knowing the internal efficiency of the expansion ma-
chines, the mass flow rates and the enthalpy values (which are
obtained from the database) for each process point, the power
output can be calculated (2):
(2)
where is the power output, is the mass flow rate, is the
enthalpy value at the expansion machines’ inlet and is the
enthalpy value at the expansion machines’ outlet.
The power consumption of the pump considered for this ap-
plication is 3[kW].
Knowing the above parameters, the system efficiency can be
obtained using (3):
(3)
where is the overall efficiency, is the power output,
is the power used by the pump and is the power input in the
system.
This particular study was made taking into account the use
of two expansion machines, one for high pressure values and
one for medium pressure values.
The second and the third parts of the program use the same
procedures as the first part and they focus on the second ex-
pander, in the mid-pressure range and the low pressure area (at
the condenser). The basic functions and the approach are the
same in these parts.
The program is structured on these three parts, and the opti-
mization is made in steps, starting from the high pressure and
ending with the low pressure.
III THE RESULTS
In order to have a good interpretation of the results, the data
obtained was plotted in different diagrams. These show the
influence of some parameters on the overall efficiency of the
process. Figure 9 shows the influence of the high pressure vari-
ation on the overall efficiency [1].
Efficiency [%]
Pressure [bar]
Figure 9 Pressure variation influence on efficiency
The pressure varies with a 0.5 bar increment.
Another plot (figure 10) is on the influence of overheating
on the overall efficiency [1].
 should rise with overheating, but, as the figure shows, there are
some exceptions. These errors can be related to the database
and the rather large increments of pressure (0.5 bar) and tem-
Efficiency [%]

perature (1K) chosen.

The overall results show an increase of the process efficien-
cy with the increase of the internal efficiencies of the expan-
sion machines.

V. CONCLUSIONS
Low grade heat sources are becoming more and more attrac-
tive as new energy sources (biomass, geothermal or solar ener-
gy) or as possible areas of efficiency improvement. This is due
emperature C]
Figure 10 The influence of overheating on efficiency to the developments in the organic fluid area of research and in
the development of new expansion machines (turbines, en-
The overheating is made before the first expander, at a pres- gines).
sure of 19 bar. An important step in any development process of an ORC
Figure 11 shows the influence of the internal efficiencies of application is the working agent selection. This has to be done
the expansion machines over the overall efficiency of the pro- taking into account the many factors that influence the thermo-
cess [1]. dynamic performance as well as the environmental impact of
the fluid.
The developed program is to be used as a starting point for
the investigation, regulation and optimization of this type of
installation. The model can be improved by extending the study
on different working fluids, different models of the installation
Efficiency [%]

(different layouts and components), by extending the existing

database to better suit the required investigation and by choos-
ing a different software package to develop the database and
the calculation program.

REFERENCES
[1] A. Pîslă, S. Smolen, D.C. Bândean ”Theoretical investigation of the ORC
– installation (Organic Rankine Cycle) for heat use on different
temperature levels with two expansion machines”, Technical University
of Cluj-Napoca, Hochschule Bremen, 2008.
Internal efficiency [2] B. Saleh, G. Koglbauer, M. Wendland, J. Fischer, “Working fluids for
low-temperature organic Rankine cycles”, Institut fur Verfahrens - und
Figure 11 The influence of the internal efficiencies on the overall efficiency
Energietechnik, Universitat fur Bodenkultur, Wien, Austria, 2005.
[3] T.C. Hung “Waste heat recovery of organic Rankine cycle using dry
Series 1 represents the process efficiency variation for an in- fluids”, Department of Mechanical Engineering, I-Shou University, Ta-
ternal efficiency of 90% for the second expander and variation Hsu Hsiang, Kaohsiung County, Taiwan, 1999.
of the internal efficiency of the first expander (from 60% to [4] U. Drescher, D. Bruggemann, “Fluid selection for the Organic Rankine
Cycle (ORC) in biomass power and heat plants”, Lehrstuhl fur Tech-
90%). nische Thermodynamik und Transportprozesse (LTTT), Universitat Bay-
Series 2 represents the process efficiency variation at an in- reuth, Bayreuth, Germany, 2006.
ternal efficiency of 80% for the first expander and variation of [5] http://www51.honeywell.com/sm/genetron/common/documents/Genetron
the internal efficiency of the second expander (from 60% to -245fa-ApplicationsGuide.pdf.
[6] http://untreaty.un.org/unts/60001_120000/21/19/00040907.pdf.
90%).
From this last chart we can conclude that the second expand-
er has a greater influence on the performance of the entire pro-
cess. This is due to the fact that the mass flow rate through the
second expander is greater than in the first expander.
These are just some of the interpretations made with this
program. Generally, the focus has been on the efficiency of the
process, as it is the decisive factor in the investment in such an
energy recuperative system.
Because this is a theoretical approach to a practical installa-
tion, the results can have some errors. These can be seen in
figure 10, where common sense dictates that the efficiency