Thermodynamic analysis and multi-objective optimization of various ORC (organic Rankine cycle) configurations using zeotropic mixtures

In this paper, the performance of the ORC (organic Rankine cycle) powered by geothermal water, in three different configurations, including the simple ORC, PTORC (parallel two-stage ORC) and STORC (series two-stage ORC), using zeotrpoic working fluids is investigated from the viewpoints of the energy and exergy. In addition, considering the net power output and TSP (turbine size parameter) as the two objective functions, the multi-objective optimization with the aim of maximizing the first function and minimizing the second one, is performed to determine the optimal values of decision variables including evaporators 1 and 2 pressure, the pinch point temperature difference and the superheating degree. The results show that using zeotropic mixtures as the working fluid instead of a pure fluid such as R245fa, leads to 27.76%, 24.98% and 24.79% improvement in power generation in the simple ORC, PTORC and STORC, respectively and also lower values of TSP. Moreover, it is observed that STORC has the highest amount of net power output and R407A can be selected as the most appropriate working fluid. The optimization results demonstrate that at the final optimum point achieved by Pareto frontier, the values of the objective functions are gained 877 kW and 0.08218 m, respectively. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.