Modeling for Organic Rankine Cycle Waste Heat Recovery System Development

This chapter introduces the modeling of organic Rankine cycle waste heat recovery (ORC-WHR) system. The main goal of this chapter is to give an overview of ORC-WHR system modeling, especially focus on the heat exchanger models due to its key role in the ORC-WHR system development. Six heat exchanger models considered in this chapter includes static model, 0D dynamic model, 1D finite volume model, 1D moving boundary model, 2D & 3D model. Model complexity, accuracy, and computation time are analyzed for the six heat exchanger models. More importantly, the heat exchanger model selection is discussed based on different phase of ORC-WHR system development, which facilitates the development of ORC-WHR system, and reduces the system development cost. In addition, a full ORC-WHR system model is presented as a modeling example including heat exchanger model, expander model, valve model and pump model.