A New Criterion to Optimize ORC Design Performance using Efficiency Correlations for Axial and Radial Turbines

Several studies on Organic Rankine Cycles (ORCs) in the literature search for the optimal cycle parameters and working fluids that maximize the net power output. Only few studies carry out a preliminary turbine design to calculate an accurate value of turbine efficiency, but this is done only after the cycle thermodynamic optimization is performed assuming a fixed and somewhat arbitrary value of turbine efficiency. Instead, a new design optimization procedure of ORCs is proposed here which embeds correlations for the design efficiency of both axial and radial turbines. The correlations are obtained from published data in the literature and use the volumetric expansion ratio (VR) and the size parameter (VH) as performance predictors. While been applied to a selected number of working fluids and single stage turbines, the procedure has a general validity being the correlations applicable to any fluid and turbine type. Results show how the turbine efficiency, and in turn the optimum cycle parameters, are influenced by the fluid properties through the turbine VH and VR values, highlighting that the procedure for working fluid selection cannot ignore the real turbine behaviour. So, the optimum design that is obtained is expected to give a behaviour much closer to reality.