A comparison of advanced heat recovery power cycles in a combined cycle for large ships
Journal article, 2014

Strong motivation exists within the marine sector to reduce fuel expenses and to comply with ever stricter emission regulations. Heat recovery can address both of these issues. The ORC (organic Rankine cycle), the Kalina cycle and the steam Rankine cycle have received the majority of the focus in the literature. In the present work we compare these cycles in a combined cycle application with a large marine two-stroke diesel engine. We present an evaluation of the efficiency and the environmental impact, safety concerns and practical aspects of each of the cycles. A previously validated numerical engine model is combined with a turbocharger model and bottoming cycle models written in Matlab. Genetic algorithm optimisation results suggest that the Kalina cycle possess no significant advantages compared to the ORC or the steam cycle. While contributing to very high efficiencies, the organic working fluids possess high global warming potentials and hazard levels. It is concluded that the ORC has the greatest potential for increasing the fuel efficiency, and the combined cycle offers very high thermal efficiency. While being less efficient, the steam cycle has the advantages of being well proven, harmless to the environment as well as being less hazardous in comparison.

Author

Ulrik Larsen

Chalmers, Shipping and Marine Technology

Oskar Sigthorsson

Technical University of Denmark (DTU)

Fredrik Haglind

Technical University of Denmark (DTU)

Energy

0360-5442 (ISSN)

Vol. 74

Driving Forces

Sustainable development

Innovation and entrepreneurship

Areas of Advance

Transport

Energy

Subject Categories

Energy Engineering

DOI

10.1016/j.energy.2014.06.096

More information

Latest update

1/25/2023