Thermodynamic Design of Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) Based on Petroleum Coke Combustion

• Main Author: Alon Davidy
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2021-07-01
• Series: ChemEngineering
• Subjects: CFD; Large Eddy Simulation (LES); pet-coke; Fire Dynamic Simulation (FDS); Artificial Intelligence (AI); Auto-Regressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA)
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2305-7084/5/3/37

Thermodynamic analysis of Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) was performed in this work. The Petroleum Coke burner provided the required heat flux for the Butane Boiler. The simulation of pet-coke combustion was carried out by using Fire Dynamics Simulator software (FDS) version 5.0. Validation of the FDS calculation results was carried out by comparing the temperature of the gaseous mixture and CO₂ mole fractions to the literature. It was discovered that they are similar to those reported in the literature. An Artificial Intelligence (AI) time forecasting analysis was performed on this work. The AI algorithm was applied to the temperature and soot sensor readings. Two Python libraries were applied in order to forecast the time behaviour of the thermocouple readings: Statistical model—ARIMA (Auto-Regressive Integrated Moving Average) and KERAS—deep learning library. ARIMA is a class of model that captures a suite of different standard temporal structures in time series data. Keras is a python library applied for deep learning and runs on top of Tensor-Flow. It has been developed in order to perform deep learning models as fast and easily as possible for research and development. The model accuracy and model loss plot shows comparable performance (train and test). Butane has been employed as a working fluid in the ORC. Butane is considered one of the best pure fluids in terms of exergy efficiency. It has low specific radiative forcing (RF) compared to Ethane and Propane. Moreover, it has zero ozone depletion potential and low Global Warming Potential. It is considered flammable, highly stable and non-corrosive. The thermodynamic properties of Butane needed to evaluate the heat rate and the power were calculated by applying the ASIMPTOTE online thermodynamic calculator. It was shown that the calculated net power of the ORC cycle is similar to the net power reported in the literature (relative error of 4.8%). The proposed ORC energetic system obeys the first and second laws of thermodynamics. The thermal efficiency of the cycle is 20.4%.