Volumetric Expanders for Energy Recovery and ORC Cycles

Dear Colleagues,

The need to ensure sustainable development and make electrical production independent from fossil fuels suggests developing other conversion technologies.

Organic Rankine Cycles (ORCs) are attractive since they produce heat and power from renewable energies and waste heat for microgeneration purposes. The expander is a critical component in the ORCs power plant since it is responsible for the power production, and its cost affects the technical feasibility of the whole plant. The isentropic efficiency and the filling factor are the main parameters that characterize the performances of the machine. The expanders can be volumetric or dynamic machines. The choice of one instead of another technology entails some advantages and disadvantages. In both cases, the expander design relies on mechanical, thermal, fluid-dynamic considerations that are related to the operating conditions of the cycle. For these reasons, various developments in the analysis of ORC expanders are expected.

This Special Issue aims to provide an overview focused on the fluid dynamic and thermal aspects that the design of the expanders for ORC applications requires. We expect contributions about numerical and experimental studies.

Dr. Marco Francesconi
Dr. M. Antonelli
Guest Editors

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