Study on Mixed Working Fluids with Different Compositions in Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) Systems for Vehicle Diesel Engines

One way to increase the thermal efficiency of vehicle diesel engines is to recover waste heat by using an organic Rankine cycle (ORC) system. Tests were conducted to study the running performances of diesel engines in the whole operating range. The law of variation of the exhaust energy rate under various engine operating conditions was also analyzed. A diesel engine-ORC combined system was designed, and relevant evaluation indexes proposed. The variation of the running performances of the combined system under various engine operating conditions was investigated. R245fa and R152a were selected as the components of the mixed working fluid. Thereafter, six kinds of mixed working fluids with different compositions were presented. The effects of mixed working fluids with different compositions on the running performances of the combined system were revealed. Results show that the running performances of the combined system can be improved effectively when mass fraction R152a in the mixed working fluid is high and the engine operates with high power. For the mixed working fluid M1 (R245fa/R152a, 0.1/0.9, by mass fraction), the net power output of the combined system reaches the maximum of 34.61 kW. Output energy density of working fluid (OEDWF), waste heat recovery efficiency (WHRE), and engine thermal efficiency increasing ratio (ETEIR) all reach their maximum values at 42.7 kJ/kg, 10.90%, and 11.29%, respectively

A review of recent research on the use of zeotropic mixtures in power generation systems

The use of zeotropic fluid mixtures in refrigeration cycles and heat pumps has been widely studied in the last three decades or so. However it is only in the past few years that the use of zeotropic mixtures in power generation applications has been analysed in a large number of studies, mostly with low grade heat as the energy source. This paper presents a review of the recent research on power cycles with zeotropic mixtures as the working fluid. The available literature primarily discusses the thermodynamic performance of the mixture power cycles through energy and exergy analyses but there are some studies which also consider the economic aspects through the investigation of capital investment costs or through a thermoeconomic analysis. The reviewed literature in this paper is divided based on the various applications such as solar energy based power systems, geothermal heat based power systems, waste heat recovery power systems, or generic studies. The fluid Mixtures used in the Various studies are listed along with the key operation parameters and the scale of the power plant. In order to limit the scope of the review, only the studies with system level analysis of various power cycles are considered. An overview of the key trends and general conclusions from the various studies and some possible directions for future research are also presented. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved