STUDY OF RECIPROCATING PUMP FOR SUPERCRITICAL ORC AT FULL AND PART LOAD OPERATION

asme-orc2015 Tracking Number 9

Recovery of waste heat in industrial processes is an important component of energy savings worldwide. At low temperature levels, thermodynamics preventss any high efficiency in the heat-to-electricity conversion; such dedicated systems have to be optimized and should achieve a maximum heat recovery, at partial and full load. These technical and technological problematic are also common with renewable natural resources use (solar, geothermal, biomass). Supercritical organic Rankine cycle is quite well investigated in the scientific community, but rarely experimentally studied, especially off-design and dynamic behaviors of such systems. The CEA/LITEN is developing a 10kWe prototypes of supercritical ORC to investigate experimental potential of such technology for low grade power generation. The first task is to characterize various components behavior in supercritical regimes. In such cycles, the pump plays a strategic role, as for supercritical operations the back work ratio is a key parameter to consider. Performance data of a reciprocating pump drive by an induction motor with variable speed drive are measured. Losses are evaluated and a power model is proposed and compared with experimental data. Results of this work aim to give a better knowledge for ORC pump design and optimization.