Framework Convention on Climate Change

How to effectively utilize low and medium temperature energy is one of the solutions to alleviate the energy shortage and environmental pollution problems. In the past twenty years, because of its feasibility and reliability, organic Rankine cycle has received widespread attentions and researches. In this paper, it reviews the selections of working fluids and expanders for organic Rankine cycle, including an analysis of the influence of working fluids' category and their thermodynamic and physical properties on the organic Rankine cycle's performance, a summary of pure and mixed working fluids' screening researches for organic Rankine cycle, a comparison of pure and mixture working fluids' applications and a discussion of all types of expansion machines' operating characteristics, which would be beneficial to select the optimal working fluid and suitable expansion machine for an effective organic Rankine cycle system.

A review of working fluid and expander selections for organic Rankine cycle

Performance comparison and parametric optimization of subcritical Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) and transcritical power cycle system for low-temperature geothermal power generation

Energy storage components improve the energy efficiency of systems by reducing the mismatch between supply and demand. For this purpose, phase-change materials are particularly attractive since they provide a high-energy storage density at a constant temperature which corresponds to the phase transition temperature of the material. Nevertheless, the incorporation of phase-change materials (PCMs) in a particular application calls for an analysis that will enable the researcher to optimize performances of systems. Due to the non-linear nature of the problem, numerical analysis is generally required to obtain appropriate solutions for the thermal behavior of systems. Therefore, a large amount of research has been carried out on PCMs behavior predictions. The review will present models based on the first law and on the second law of thermodynamics. It shows selected results for several configurations, from numerous authors so as to enable one to start his/her research with an exhaustive overview of the subject. This overview stresses the need to match experimental investigations with recent numerical analyses since in recent years, models mostly rely on other models in their validation stages.

A review on phase-change materials: Mathematical modeling and simulations

The organic Rankine cycle (ORC) is commonly accepted as a viable technology to convert low temperature heat into electricity. Furthermore, ORCs are designed for unmanned operation with little maintenance. Because of these excellent characteristics, several ORC waste heat recovery plants are already in operation. Although the basic ORC is gradually adopted into industry, the need of increased cost-effectiveness persists. Therefore, a next logical step is the development of new ORC architectures. Even though there has been a strong renaissance towards ORC research in the last decade, ORC architectures have received relatively little attention. Several barriers can be listed. First, there is the difficulty in assessing the additional complexity of the system. While several advanced cycle designs appear promising from a thermodynamic viewpoint, it is not clear that these represent viable economic solutions. Secondly, there is a lack of experimental data from open literature. Additionally, there is the challenge of coping with various boundary conditions from literature, which makes an objective comparison difficult. In this article an overview is presented of ORC architectures. The performance evaluation criteria and boundary conditions are clearly stated. As well, an overview of the available experimental data is given.

Review of organic Rankine cycle (ORC) architectures for waste heat recovery

A procedure to select working fluids for Solar Organic Rankine Cycles (ORCs)

A mathematical model for predicting the densification and growth of frost on a flat plate

A model is developed for simulation of the laminar hydrodynamic and heat transfer characteristics of suspension flow with micro-nano-size phase-change material (PCM) particles in a microchannel ( D / d p  = 12.2–500). The demonstrated simultaneous solutions for the two-phase conservation equations of mass, momentum, and energy allow the investigation of heat transfer enhancement mechanisms and their limits, due to nonthermal equilibrium melting of PCM suspension particles in a flow, such as the existence of a particle-depleted layer, particle–wall interaction, phase-change (melting) region propagation, and local heat transfer coefficients for both constant wall heat flux and constant wall temperature boundary conditions.

A numerical model for phase-change suspension flow in microchannels

Thermal analysis on a segmented thermoelectric generator

A two-phase, non thermal equilibrium-based model is applied to the numerical simulation of laminar flow and heat transfer characteristics of suspension with microsize phase-change material (PCM) particles in a microchannel. The model solves the conservation of mass, momentum, and thermal energy equations for liquid and particle phases separately. The study focuses on the parametric study of optimal conditions where heat transfer is enhanced with an increase in fluid power necessary for pumping the two-phase flow

Yong X. Tao

Papers

A procedure to select working fluids for Solar Organic Rankine Cycles (ORCs)

A mathematical model for predicting the densification and growth of frost on a flat plate

A numerical model for phase-change suspension flow in microchannels

Thermal analysis on a segmented thermoelectric generator

Performance Evaluation of Liquid Flow With PCM Particles in Microchannels