performances of an orc power unit for waste heat recovery on heavy duty engine

Abstract Reciprocating internal combustion engines (ICE) are still the most used in the sector of the on-the-road transportation, both for passengers and freight. CO2 reduction is the actual technological driver, considering the worldwide greenhouse reduction targets committed by most governments. In ICE more than one third of the fuel energy used is rejected to the environment as thermal waste through the exhaust gases. Therefore, a greater fuel economy could be achieved, if this energy was recovered and converted into useful mechanical or electrical power. This recovery appears very interesting, in particular for those engines that run at almost steady working conditions, like marine, agricultural, industrial or long-hauling vehicle applications. In this paper, an ORC-based power unit was tested on a heavy duty diesel engine. Energetic and exergetic analyses have been carried out in order to assess the real performances of the ORC unit and to individuate differences with the theoretical ones. A single stage impulse axial turbine has been tested in this work, complete with an electric variable speed generator and an AC/DC converter. The tests demonstrated that the energy conversion chain is not negligible at all and an overall net efficiency of the power unit was around 2-3 % with respect to a 10% of thermodynamic efficiency

NoWaste: waste heat re-use for greener truck

peer reviewedThe present paper summarizes the key points of the European NoWaste Project, which aims at developing Rankine cycle systems for integration into long-haul trucks with the aim to convert the waste heat of the exhaust gases into useful energy usable in mechanical or electrical form. The first part of the paper describes the ORC system architectures defined for two different truck engines: one with EGR and the other one without EGR. For both engines, different cycle configurations and working fluids are compared in terms of energy performance and technical constraints. For both ORC systems, the paper shows the final technical choices made in terms of main components: boiler, condenser, expander and pump. The second part of the paper presents preliminary experimental results carried out on demonstrators of the two ORC systems. The objectives of these tests were to check the performance announced by the components’ manufacturers. Finally, the last part of the paper compares the cost of both systems