Exhaust waste heat recovery from a heavy-duty truck engine: Experiments and simulations

Journal article, 2022

Waste heat recovery using an (organic) Rankine cycle is an important and promising technology for improving engine efficiency and thereby reducing the CO2 emissions due to heavy-duty transport. Experiments were performed using a Rankine cycle with water for waste heat recovery from the exhaust gases of a heavy-duty Diesel engine. The experimental results were used to calibrate and validate steady-state models of the main components in the cycle: the pump, pump bypass valve, evaporator, expander, and condenser. Simulations were performed to evaluate the cycle performance over a wide range of engine operating conditions using three working fluids: water, cyclopentane, and ethanol. Additionally, cycle simulations were performed for these working fluids over a typical long haul truck driving cycle. The predicted net power output with water as the working fluid varied between 0.5 and 5.7 kW, where the optimal expander speed was dependent on the engine operating point. The net power output for simulations with cyclopentane was between 1.8 and 9.6 kW and that for ethanol was between 1.0 and 7.8 kW. Over the driving cycle, the total recovered energy was 11.2, 8.2, and 5.2 MJ for cyclopentane, ethanol, and water, respectively. These values correspond to energy recoveries of 3.4, 2.5, and 1.6%, respectively, relative to the total energy requirement of the engine. The main contribution of this paper is the presentation of experimental data on a complete Rankine cycle-based WHR system coupled to a heavy-duty engine. These results were used to validate component models for simulations, allowing for a realistic estimation of the steady-state performance under a wide range of operating conditions for this type of system.