Effect of Waste Heat Utilization on the Performance of Low Temperature Rankine Cycle

Abstract

Low temperature Rankine cycle is a prominent solution for power generation in Waste Heat Recovery (WHR) application. The performance of this cycle is affected by various parameters including characteristics of the heat source, working fluid and constraints in the system. In cases where the heat source has a limited mass flux and therefore variable temperature, the amount of extracted heat affects the performance of the cycle including net power and efficiency which is also related to the working fluid. This is in the paper expressed in terms of a heat utilization factor, ψ, which shows the ratio of extracted heat to the maximum possible extraction rate in the specific case. This factor affects the performance of the cycle by moving the pinch point location in the evaporator. Results indicate that this factor has great impact on the performance of the cycle and the effect varies for different working fluids.