Development and experimental validation of an Organic Rankine cycle model

This paper presents both a numerical model of an Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) and an experimental study carried out on a prototype of such a cycle working with refrigerant HCFC-123, and whose heat sources consist in two hot air flows. The ORC model s built by connecting different sub-models: the heat exchanger models, a volumetric pump model and a scroll expander model. Measured performances of the ORC prototype are presented and allow the validation of the ORC model. This model is finally used to investigate potential improvements of the prototype.