IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jeners/v18y2025i6p1458-d1613668.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Experimental Study on the Organic Rankine Cycle for the Recovery of the Periodic Waste Heat Source

Author

Listed:
  • Zhengzhao Gu

    (Department of Mechanical Engineering, Taiyuan Institute of Technology, Taiyuan 030008, China)

  • Yan Shi

    (Department of Mechanical Engineering, Taiyuan Institute of Technology, Taiyuan 030008, China)

  • Pu Wu

    (Department of Mechanical Engineering, Taiyuan Institute of Technology, Taiyuan 030008, China)

Abstract

The traditional oil radiator is substituted with the organic Rankine cycle for the recovery of the abundant waste heat in the hydraulic system to improve the overall system efficiency. A prototype of the proposed system is developed to analyze both steady-state and dynamic performance. The effects of oil flow rate and connected load on system performance are studied under steady-state conditions. When the electrical load increases from 60 W to 320 W, the output power of the generator rises from nearly 42 W to 85 W, with the expander–generator efficiency between 15% and 35%. The dynamic experiment is conducted to analyze the variation characteristics of the system performance under the periodic variations in the oil flow. With the oil flow rate changes in the range of 40~80 L/min, the evaporator experiences an oil pressure drop ranging from 3.6 kPa to 18.6 kPa, while the heat transfer rate varies from approximately 2 kW to 5 kW. The influence of different flow frequencies on pressure drop and heat transfer of heat exchangers is also analyzed. The experimental findings can guide the control of operating parameters and enhance the system’s performance.

Suggested Citation

  • Zhengzhao Gu & Yan Shi & Pu Wu, 2025. "Experimental Study on the Organic Rankine Cycle for the Recovery of the Periodic Waste Heat Source," Energies, MDPI, vol. 18(6), pages 1-20, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jeners:v:18:y:2025:i:6:p:1458-:d:1613668
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/18/6/1458/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/18/6/1458/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Daniarta, Sindu & Nemś, Magdalena & Kolasiński, Piotr, 2023. "A review on thermal energy storage applicable for low- and medium-temperature organic Rankine cycle," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 278(PA).
    2. Zhehao Hu & Wenbin Wu & Yang Si, 2024. "Optimization of Organic Rankine Cycle for Hot Dry Rock Power System: A Stackelberg Game Approach," Energies, MDPI, vol. 17(20), pages 1-20, October.
    3. Cao, Shuang & Xu, Jinliang & Miao, Zheng & Liu, Xiulong & Zhang, Ming & Xie, Xuewang & Li, Zhi & Zhao, Xiaoli & Tang, Guihua, 2019. "Steady and transient operation of an organic Rankine cycle power system," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 133(C), pages 284-294.
    4. Zhang, Hong-Hu & Xi, Huan & He, Ya-Ling & Zhang, Yu-Wen & Ning, Bo, 2019. "Experimental study of the organic rankine cycle under different heat and cooling conditions," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 180(C), pages 678-688.
    5. Ni, Jiaxin & Zhao, Li & Zhang, Zhengtao & Zhang, Ying & Zhang, Jianyuan & Deng, Shuai & Ma, Minglu, 2018. "Dynamic performance investigation of organic Rankine cycle driven by solar energy under cloudy condition," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 147(C), pages 122-141.
    6. Igor Maksimov & Vladimir Kindra & Andrey Vegera & Andrey Rogalev & Nikolay Rogalev, 2024. "Thermodynamic Analysis and Optimization of Power Cycles for Waste Heat Recovery," Energies, MDPI, vol. 17(24), pages 1-27, December.
    7. Xu, Bin & Rathod, Dhruvang & Kulkarni, Shreyas & Yebi, Adamu & Filipi, Zoran & Onori, Simona & Hoffman, Mark, 2017. "Transient dynamic modeling and validation of an organic Rankine cycle waste heat recovery system for heavy duty diesel engine applications," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 205(C), pages 260-279.
    8. Zhang, Yifan & Tsai, Yu-Chun & Ren, Xiao & Tuo, Zhaodong & Wang, Wei & Gong, Liang & Hung, Tzu-Chen, 2024. "Experimental study of the external load characteristics on a micro-scale organic Rankine cycle system," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 306(C).
    9. Wang, Zhiqi & Zhang, Sifeng & Xia, Xiaoxia & Zhao, Yabin & Yi, Qianghui & Zhang, Xiaoyue, 2024. "Experimental study on dynamic characteristics of organic Rankine cycle coupled vapor compression refrigeration system with a zeotropic mixture," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 307(C).
    10. Apostolos Pesyridis & Muhammad Suleman Asif & Sadegh Mehranfar & Amin Mahmoudzadeh Andwari & Ayat Gharehghani & Thanos Megaritis, 2023. "Design of the Organic Rankine Cycle for High-Efficiency Diesel Engines in Marine Applications," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(11), pages 1-17, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Imran, Muhammad & Pili, Roberto & Usman, Muhammad & Haglind, Fredrik, 2020. "Dynamic modeling and control strategies of organic Rankine cycle systems: Methods and challenges," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 276(C).
    2. Li, Deming & Fan, Chengcheng & Zhang, Chengbin & Chen, Yongping, 2022. "Control strategy of load following for ocean thermal energy conversion," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 193(C), pages 595-607.
    3. Cai, Jinwen & Tian, Hua & Wang, Xuan & Wang, Rui & Shu, Gequn & Wang, Mingtao, 2021. "A calibrated organic Rankine cycle dynamic model applying to subcritical system and transcritical system," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 237(C).
    4. Du, Yang & Liu, Tingting & Wang, Yaxiong & Chen, Kang & Zhao, Pan & Wang, Jiangfeng & Dai, Yiping, 2021. "Transient behavior investigation of a regenerative dual-evaporator organic Rankine cycle with different forms of disturbances: Towards coordinated feedback control realization," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 235(C).
    5. Cai, Jinwen & Shu, Gequn & Tian, Hua & Wang, Xuan & Wang, Rui & Shi, Xiaolei, 2020. "Validation and analysis of organic Rankine cycle dynamic model using zeotropic mixture," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 197(C).
    6. Jiménez-Arreola, Manuel & Pili, Roberto & Wieland, Christoph & Romagnoli, Alessandro, 2018. "Analysis and comparison of dynamic behavior of heat exchangers for direct evaporation in ORC waste heat recovery applications from fluctuating sources," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 216(C), pages 724-740.
    7. Jiménez-Arreola, Manuel & Wieland, Christoph & Romagnoli, Alessandro, 2019. "Direct vs indirect evaporation in Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) systems: A comparison of the dynamic behavior for waste heat recovery of engine exhaust," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 242(C), pages 439-452.
    8. Yasmine Lalau & Sacha Rigal & Jean-Pierre Bédécarrats & Didier Haillot, 2024. "Latent Thermal Energy Storage System for Heat Recovery between 120 and 150 °C: Material Stability and Corrosion," Energies, MDPI, vol. 17(4), pages 1-17, February.
    9. Huster, Wolfgang R. & Vaupel, Yannic & Mhamdi, Adel & Mitsos, Alexander, 2018. "Validated dynamic model of an organic Rankine cycle (ORC) for waste heat recovery in a diesel truck," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 151(C), pages 647-661.
    10. Huang, Xinyu & Du, Zhao & Li, Yuanji & Li, Ze & Yang, Xiaohu & Li, Ming-Jia, 2024. "Optimal design on fin-metal foam hybrid structure for melting and solidification phase change storage: An experimental and numerical study," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 302(C).
    11. Ping, Xu & Yang, Fubin & Zhang, Hongguang & Xing, Chengda & Yao, Baofeng & Wang, Yan, 2022. "An outlier removal and feature dimensionality reduction framework with unsupervised learning and information theory intervention for organic Rankine cycle (ORC)," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 254(PB).
    12. Mikielewicz, Jarosław & Ochrymiuk, Tomasz & Cenian, Adam, 2022. "Comparison of traditional with low temperature district heating systems based on organic Rankine cycle," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 245(C).
    13. Li, Yang & Xu, Sheng-Zhi, 2022. "Thermodynamic analysis of subcritical/transcritical ORCs with metal–organic heat carriers for efficient power generation from low-grade thermal energy," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 255(C).
    14. Hajialigol, Najmeh & Fattahi, Abolfazl & Karimi, Nader & Jamali, Mostafa & Keighobadi, Shervin, 2024. "Hybridized power-hydrogen generation using various configurations of Brayton-organic flash Rankine cycles fed by a sustainable fuel: Exergy and exergoeconomic analyses with ANN prediction," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 290(C).
    15. Ying Zhang & Li Zhao & Shuai Deng & Ming Li & Yali Liu & Qiongfen Yu & Mengxing Li, 2022. "Novel Off-Design Operation Maps Showing Functionality Limitations of Organic Rankine Cycle Validated by Experiments," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(21), pages 1-19, November.
    16. Li, Xiaoya & Xu, Bin & Tian, Hua & Shu, Gequn, 2021. "Towards a novel holistic design of organic Rankine cycle (ORC) systems operating under heat source fluctuations and intermittency," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 147(C).
    17. Tim Eller & Florian Heberle & Dieter Brüggemann, 2019. "Transient Simulation of Geothermal Combined Heat and Power Generation for a Resilient Energetic and Economic Evaluation," Energies, MDPI, vol. 12(5), pages 1-16, March.
    18. Chintala, Venkateswarlu & Kumar, Suresh & Pandey, Jitendra K., 2018. "A technical review on waste heat recovery from compression ignition engines using organic Rankine cycle," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 81(P1), pages 493-509.
    19. Ma, Xiaofeng & Jiang, Peixue & Zhu, Yinhai, 2022. "Dynamic simulation model with virtual interfaces of supercritical working fluid heat exchanger based on moving boundary method," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 254(PB).
    20. Jin, Yunli & Gao, Naiping & Zhu, Tong, 2022. "Effect of resistive load characteristics on the performance of Organic Rankine cycle (ORC)," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 246(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jeners:v:18:y:2025:i:6:p:1458-:d:1613668. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.