Thermo-economic optimization of Regenerative Organic Rankine Cycle for Low grade Waste Heat Recovery using Genetic algorithm

The waste heat management in heavy industry significantly increase productivity in this sector. Organic Rankine cycles (ORCs) are appropriate technology for the conversion of low quality thermal energy to electrical power. The Organic Rankine Cycle(ORC) applies the principle of the steam Rankine cycle, but uses organic working fluids with low boiling points can be used to recover heat from lower temperature heat sources. In this study the performances of three different organic Rankine cycles (ORCs) systems including the basic ORC (BORC) system, the single-stage regenerative ORC (SRORC) system and the double-stage regenerative ORC (DRORC) system using five different working fluids under the same waste heat condition are optimized by thermo-economic method using genetic algorithm. The results indicate that the R113 has the best performance between fluids. The optimized turbine inlet temperature and pressure in comparison with when exergy efficiency uses only, decreases. By changing basic Rankine cycle to the single-stage regenerative and the double-stage regenerative cycles, 12.5% and 18.75% change in specific power cost occurs respectively. Also results indicate that, as superheat degree in turbine inlet increases, the specific power cost increase and the exergy efficiency of system decreases.