Supercritical-ORC » » SCORC

PROJECT SCOPE

admin — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 21:01:20 +0000

The project scope is to simulate and optimize the design and operation of a heat-to-power engine, operating at supercritical conditions. At the same time, focus will be given on the evaporator and the scroll expander, since such components are not commercially available at such scale. These two key components will be designed from scratch, contributing to the system’s performance increase. Finally, they will be manufactured, tested, and then integrated to the SCORC engine, which will be extensively tested at the NTUA laboratory.

The main technical objectives of the proposed project are:

to optimise SCORC key components (i.e. evaporator and scroll expander) using CFD and evolutionary optimisation software
to develop, manufacture and test these two key components
to develop, manufacture and test a high performance low-temperature SCORC engine

As a result, the overall objective of the project is to open a new market for the participating SMEs, so as to increase their competitiveness and business cycle, by introducing in the unexploited “waste heat-to-power” market competitive products.

SUPERCRITICAL-ORC

admin — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 20:59:05 +0000

The project titled “Development of a small-scale low-temperature Supercritical Organic Rankine Cycle engine with optimised scroll expander and evaporator” [SUPERCRITICAL-ORC] in the framework of the program “SYNERGASIA 2011”, aims to develop and bring into the market a small scale (5-10 kW) low temperature (80-100 ^oC) SuperCritical Organic Rankine Cycle (SCORC) engine, so that the huge potential of low temperature thermal sources (such as waste heat, geothermal energy, solar energy, etc.) to be efficiently and cost effectively exploited for power generation. The main technological innovation concerns the operation of the engine at supercritical conditions, requiring a detailed investigation of the main processes, in order to maximize the system performance.

The main process of a SCORC engine is depicted in the following figure, while during the project focus will be given to the evaporator and the scroll expander.

The project duration is 27 months (start: April 2013) and is partly funded by the General Secretary for Research and Technology (GSRT) (www.gsrt.gr) under contract number 11SYN_7_278.