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Implementation of a Waste Heat Recovery Combined Cycle System Employing

the Organic Rankine Cycle for a Gas Turbine

Conference Paper · January 2022

DOI: 10.2514/6.2022-1406

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 AIAA SciTech Forum 10.2514/6.2022-1406
January 3-7, 2022, San Diego, CA & Virtual
AIAA SCITECH 2022 Forum

Implementation of a Waste Heat Recovery

Combined Cycle System Employing the
Organic Rankine Cycle for a Gas Turbine
M. Cerza1, B. Meinster2 and S. Blair3
US Naval Academy, Annapolis, MD, 21402, USA

A 1/9 scale prototype unit for a GT-ORC Waste Heat Recovery Combined Cycle plant was
successfully installed in the Gas Turbine Laboratory at the US Naval Academy. The plant
uses a Rolls Royce M250 turbine, an Electratherm Power +4400 ORC unit and a Creare
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exhaust gas heat exchanger (EHX). The ORC component boosted the shaft power by 20% of
the gas turbine engine by 40 kW over baseline (no ORC) power (200 kW). The GT-ORC
Combined Cycle Plant showed an overall thermal efficiency rise over the GT engine alone by
4%. The exhaust gas heat exchanger had an overall effectiveness of 0.6 and there was a
reduction in brake specific fuel consumption of 18% for the GT-ORC system over the base
GT engine. The GT-ORC Combined Cycle Plant is a viable way to utilize US Navy gas turbine
powered ship exhaust for extra useful power thereby reducing greenhouse gasses to produce
increased power through conventional fuel supplied processes.

I. Nomenclature
Cair = capacity, air(exhaust)
Cr = capacity ratio
Cwater = capacity, water
Cx = force coefficient in the x direction
Eff = heat exchanger effectiveness
GT = gas turbine
ORC = Organic Rankine Cycle
EHX = waste heat recovery heat exchanger

II. Introduction
The US Navy has been involved in the past decades with trying to increase the energy efficiency of the fleet and
reduce its carbon footprint. This has been one of the paramount issues facing the world today. Modern gas turbine
engines employed in the fleet are about 26% efficient at full power operating conditions. At partial power conditions
they are much less than that. Aging gas turbine plants are only about 20% efficient. The US Navy is planning to
employ the all-electric ship concept which will boost overall engine efficiency by allowing the engines to run on full
power, and bringing other engines online as needed. In that manner the engines could operate at the higher efficiency
peak power conditions. Increasing overall power plant efficiency can lead to:
• increased fuel savings.
• a ship’s extension of its operational range.
• increased power.
• increased time on station.

1
Professor, Mechanical Engineering Dept, and AIAA Member Grade.
2
Ensign, USN.
3
Permanent Military Professor, CDR, USN, Mechanical Engineering Dept.

This material is declared a work of the U.S. Government and is not subject to copyright protection in the United States.
 In addition to the all-electric ship concept, waste heat recovery technology is also being developed. Waste heat
recovery technologies are methods to recover waste heat and convert some of that wasted heat into useful energy.
Extra energy can then be produced or utilized without the burning of additional fuel. The US Navy’s destroyers,
DDGs, and cruisers, CGs, comprise the majority of the US Navy’s surface fleet, and each of these ships, utilizes four
General Electric LM 2500 engines, and consumes as much as 9000 tons of fuel every two weeks spent at sea [1].
Waste heat recovery is not a new concept to the US Navy. In the 1970’s and early 1980’s the Navy experimented
with waste heat boilers. There were inherent problems with these boilers that did not make them viable as a solution
for waste heat recovery. These issues included too high exhaust side gas pressure drops which penalized engine
performance, water side fouling, and high maintenance. Later in the 1980’s, the Navy again tried the concept of the
waste heat boiler in its RACER (Rankine Cycle Energy Recovery) program. This program attempted to transfer
exhaust gas energy through a Rankine Cycle steam boiler. A combined cycle was created in which the gas turbine
was the topping cycle, and a steam plant was the bottoming cycle. Again, maintenance issues resulted in that the
boiler tubes and their welded joints kept breaking from the thermal cycling of the gas turbine engine. Much noise was
also generated from the vibration of boiler tubes. In the 1990’s and early 2000’s, the Royal Navy wanted Rolls Royce
and Westinghouse to develop an intercooled and recuperated gas turbine, the WR-21, to increase the efficiency of the
marine gas turbines currently in place. The recuperator was utilized to preheat incoming compressor air by means of
the exhaust gas waste energy. Again, the recuperator experienced reliability issues.
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In recent times, the commercial land-based power industry had successfully incorporated an organic Rankine cycle
power plant (ORC) as the bottoming plants to existing fossil fueled power plants. Through the Office of Naval
Research, it was decided to employ an ORC plant on a prototype combined Gas Turbine-Organic Rankine Cycle waste
heat recovery plant. This was an attempt by the US Navy to investigate this waste heat recovery system for potential
use on its surface combatants. The prototype plant was to be a 1/9 scaled unit for a Rolls Royce 501K gas turbine.
The 501K is a 3 MW auxiliary gas turbine that produces the electrical power onboard Navy ships.

III. GT-ORC Plant Design

The ORC used in the USNA GT-ORC system is an Electratherm Power+ Generator 4400, which is available on the
commercial market [2]. The 4400 uses a basic ORC, vice an ORC featuring improvements such as a recuperator,
multi-stage expander, etc. Lecompte et al., in their review of ORC architectures, point out that while the basic ORC
architecture underperforms improved ORCs in most measures, it still recovers enough waste heat to make its use
worthwhile [3]. Additionally, the simplicity of the basic ORC architecture would prove beneficial while an initial
understanding of the GT-ORC relationship is obtained. Once the relationship between the GT and ORC is established,
cycle improvements may be incorporated to optimize and find a suitable architecture for shipboard application. The
4400 uses R245fa as its working fluid, which Öhman and Lundqvist show allows for power outputs comparable to
similar working fluids, but with a much higher fraction of Carnot efficiency (the theoretical maximum efficiency of a
heat engine for a given set of high and low temperatures) than similar working fluids [4].
The Power+ 4400 was connected to a Rolls Royce M250 C20B gas turbine (old Allison T63A720) by means of
an intermediate hot water loop. This engine in its current condition can produce about 320 SHP (240 kW). The air
flow to the RR M250 was 1.00 to 1.64 kg/s. The exhaust temperature of the gas turbine varied from 510 to 600 C
depending on engine throttle conditions and the exergy rate of the exhaust gas was calculated to be approximately 1
MW. The waste heat in the engine exhaust was transferred to the intermediate hot water loop via a Creare, LLC plate
and fin exhaust gas heat exchanger (EHX). In order to prevent the refrigerant (R245fa) in the ORC evaporator from
reaching its temperature limit (about 150 C), the intermediate flow rate was sized (greater than 40 GPM) to deliver
hot water to the ORC evaporator at no more than 120 C. The temperature difference from the gas turbine exhaust and
the hot water delivery temperature did create a thermal performance penalty for the ORC cycle thermal efficiency, but
the ORC power produced is considered to be free from added gas turbine fuel costs. The amount of heat transferred
to the ORC evaporator was measured to be from 450 to 600 kW pending various engine conditions. The ORC unit
produced a maximum power under the tested operating conditions of 40 kW. The ORC condenser was cooled by the
USNA building chill water loop, which operated at about 6 C at a flow rate of 200 GPM. The flow could be boosted
to 500 GPM but was not in this study. Figure 1 depicts a schematic of the USNA GT-ORC Waste Heat Recovery
Combined Cycle Plant.

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Figure 1 USNA GT-ORC Waste Heat Recovery Combined Cycle Plant.

The entering chill water had a temperature range of 5.5 to 7.8 C and the flow rate could be adjusted from 200 to
500 GPM. The electrical system of the ORC unit required power connections to supply/absorb up to 400 Amps of
480 volt, 3 phase power and deliver this power to the city electric grid. The laboratory electrical system was modified
to accept the electrical requirements.

IV. Gas Turbine Baseline Operation (No ORC)

Figure 2 depicts the helicopter gas turbine engine used in this prototype and the Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC)
power plant hardware. Figure 3 shows the components of the RR M250 C20B. Air enters the two 12” intake bell-
mouths shown on the right side of the figure. The exhaust products exit the two exhaust legs. It is these exhaust
products which then flow into the waste heat or exhaust gas heat exchanger (EHX).
The RR M250 C20B at USNA has had degraded performance over the past 10 years. This was primarily due to the
compressors. For the GT-ORC runs in this report, the compressor pressure ratio was never higher than 6.0. The
probable causes for this degradation in performance was probably due to wear and tear over time (clearances in the
compressor airways and/or water erosion during USNA’s water injection program).

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Figure 2 – Rolls Royce M250 C20B engine and Electratherm Power+ 4400 ORC plant

Figure 3 – Components of the RR M250 C20B

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 Table 1 displays the performance characteristics of the engine as run on July 11, 2018. This table reflects baseline
operation, i.e., no ORC operation.

Table 1 – Performance characteristics of the USNA RR M250 C20B (July 11, 2018)
USNA RR M250 C20B
% Throttle (USNA metric) 70 - 95
Air flow lbm/s (kg/s) 1.58-3.23 (0.72- 1.47)
Air flow CFM (m3/m) 1350-2800 (38.2- 79.3)
Pressure ratio 2.4-6.0
Shaft horsepower SHP (kW) 23-289 SHP (17-216 kW)
Exhaust gas temperature F (C) 930-1100 F (500-595 C)
Ambient room temperature F (C) 78-90 F (25.5-32.2 C)
Fuel flow rate lbm/s (kg/s) 0.02-0.057 (0.009-0.026)
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SFC lbm/h/HP (kg/h/kW) 3.26-0.773 (1.98- 0.471)

AFR 82.6-56.3

Figure 4 – Baseline GT data taken July 11, 2018 (No ORC)

Figure 4 depicts the graphical data of the baseline GT runs. Pictured are the shaft net power output (SkW), the
exhaust gas temperature (EGT) and the brake specific fuel consumption (SFC) in kg/h/kW*100 (in other words one
has to divide the number by 100). The engine was only run to 95% of throttle due to a gas generator turbine (GGT)
exit temperature approaching 1400 F. The service manual for this old engine states to not operate when this
temperature is above 1400F. The percent throttle shown in Table 1 is a USNA dynamometer metric. It is essentially

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 the percent opening of the fuel actuator valve assembly. The gas turbine does not generate much power until the bleed
air valve closes completely which is at about 70% throttle. Power is then seen to rise quickly.

V. Exhaust Heat Recovery Heat Exchanger (EHX)

The waste heat from the exhaust pipes of the RR M250 gas turbine were combined into an inlet plenum which was
mated to the inlet face of the Exhaust Gas Heat Exchanger (EHX) also called the waste heat exchanger (WHX).
Thermal energy is transferred to the working fluid, water, in the intermediate Hot Water (HW) Loop. The EHX and
the HW loop were fabricated by Creare, LLC. The Creare exhaust gas heat exchanger is a counter flow plate and fin
heat exchanger comprising of 10 panels plumbed in parallel with two water manifolds for inlet and outlet hot water
flow. The 500 to 595 C exhaust energy is transferred to the water which enters the heat exchanger at about 90 C and
exits at up to 120 C by design. The water flow rate can vary from 40 to 200 GPM via a centrifugal pump.
The EHX is approximately 75 inches long by 13 inches high by 24 inches wide (Figures 5). Each panel is about 1
inch high and is comprised of Inconel water side fins and gas side fins separated by Inconel plates. The 10 panels are
gas and liquid flow independent from each other. The dimensional details of the panels are company proprietary.
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Creare, LLC has written a technical memorandum report, TM-4161 (August 3, 2018) to the Office of Naval Research
(ONR). The water side pressure drop across the EHX was approximately 3 psi and the gas side pressure loss was
designed to be no more than 4 iwg. This is a typical Navy standard required for gas turbine exhaust side modifications
pertaining to recuperators. Figure 6 depicts the EHX inside the main exhaust tunnel. The EHX slides in on rails.
The heated water was limited in operation to exit the heat exchanger at no more than 120 C. This was due to the
restrictions on the working fluid in the ORC, refrigerant 245fa. The hot water then enters the ORC evaporator (Figure
7) where it transfers heat to the ORC working fluid, R245fa. The rate of energy transfer from the intermediate hot
water loop to the ORC evaporator was approximately 400 to 600 kW depending on the gas turbine operating
conditions. A safety by-pass loop was installed at the ORC evaporator inlet. Due to the extreme temperatures of the
GT exhaust, the intermediate hot water loop temperature could rise above 120 C during ORC operation. If this event
should occur the hot water from the EHX could by-pass the ORC evaporator (controlled by the ORC diagnostics
system) thereby shutting off the incoming heat to the ORC in order to keep the refrigerant from burning. If this event
is realized during the course of a run, the gas turbine operator has to shut down the gas turbine or the water in the hot
water loop will continue to rise in temperature until it generates steam and pressurizes. This is a non-desirable and
dangerous situation in the laboratory due to the limiting pressures on the piping system (125 psig). As a safety
precaution, two safety relief valves were plumbed in the HW loop. One was set at 90 psig and the other was set at
100 psig to help vent steam in the case of an over pressurization accident. The steam would be vented into the main
exhaust trunk and would probably condense in the underground tunnels that lead out of the laboratory.

Figure 5a Exhaust Gas Heat Exchanger

Figure 6 EHX

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 TM-4159
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Figure 5b Exhaust Gas Heat Exchanger

Figure 7 Hot Water Loop

Figure 2. Hot Water Loop Components and Piping – View A

VI. Organic Rankine Cycle Plant (ORC)

The Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) is an Electratherm Power+ 4400 model capable of producing about 60 kW of
electrical power. The ORC uses 400 lbs. of refrigerant R245fa. The refrigerant is stored in an accumulator tank when
the power plant is not running. The unit is compact, sits on a steel palette and is shown on Figure 2. The major
components are shown on Figure 1 and are comprised of a boiler (evaporator), turbine, electrical generator, condenser
and refrigerant pump. Waste heat energy from the gas turbine exhaust is transferred to the intermediate hot water loop
via the EHX and then passed to the ORC boiler (evaporator). In the evaporator, R245fa enters as a subcooled liquid
from the refrigerant pump and is heated. The R245fa starts to vaporize in the evaporator and may exit the evaporator
as a saturated mixture, a saturated vapor or a superheated vapor. This exit state depends on the amount of heat
transferred from the gas turbine exhaust and the refrigerant flow rate. The refrigerant then enters the expander
(turbine) where shaft power is produced and the refrigerant continues to expand to a lower energy state. It typically
exits the turbine as a low-quality mixture. The R245fa is then condensed by the chill water loop in the condenser.
The refrigerant then enters the accumulator where it flows into the 12-stage refrigerant pump.
Electrical power is produced by the generator which is connected to the turbine via a fixed shaft. The generator is
an 1800 rpm, brushless, synchronous generator which maintains a constant shaft (and turbine) speed of 1800 rpm.
Therefore, the refrigerant volumetric flow rate in the turbine is essentially constant. The generator electronics also
matches the phase of the incoming power from the sub-distribution panel ORC breaker and produces 480v back into
the sub-distribution panel breaker. In this way, the generator takes over driving the parasitic power of the ORC, and
pushes the net power back directly to the utility grid.
Laboratory safety issues were addressed in the installation of this GT-ORC combined cycle plant. The laboratory
itself has a floor area of approximately 950 sf. The ceiling is 20 feet high. Due to the presence of 400 lbs of refrigerant
R245fa, two refrigerant detectors were installed in the gas turbines room. The detection system was controlled from
outside the laboratory doors. An oxygen (O2) sensor was also installed inside the laboratory. The O2 sensor was put
in place to monitor any decrease in room air oxygen level below 20.6 percent. This could arise from either refrigerant

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 leaks or exhaust gas emission leaks from the gas turbines. An emergency refrigerant vent was also installed. Should
the ORC unit have to be vented in case of operating pressure buildup, the vent was directly plumbed to the outside
ambient (outdoors).

VII. Instrumentation

Instrumentation for the GT-ORC Waste Heat Recovery Plant was divided into three major sections:
1. The gas turbine diagnostics.
2. The EHX diagnostics.
3. The ORC diagnostics.

Gas Turbine Diagnostics

The Rolls Royce M250 C20B gas turbine was mated to a Superflow Series 902 water brake dynamometer. The
dynamometer output shaft is held constant at 6000 rpm which was the design shaft speed for the helicopters that utilize
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this engine. Over 100 variables are measured by the dynamometer, hence, it is not practical to list them all. The main
parameters used in this study are listed below:
• Air intake variables (pressure, temperature, relative humidity, barometric pressure).
• Fuel flow rate (Diesel #2 heating oil was used).
• Pressure at 5 gas turbine state points (inlet box, compressor discharge, combustor discharge, gas generator
turbine, GGT, discharge and power turbine, PT, discharge).
• Temperature at the above 5 state points.
• Turbine speeds (GGT and PT)
• Dynamometer shaft speed.
• Dynamometer shaft torque.
• Shaft horsepower.
• Volumetric inlet air flow, CFM.
• Percent throttle actuator opening.

These data were recorded on a dedicated PC. Figure 8 depicts the GT data collection schematic. P and T represent
the pressure and temperature state property points, respectively.

Fuel X-
P4,T4 Console
P3,T3 Combustion (all PC
Chamber measure-
P1,T1 ments)
printer
Gas
Inlet Air Compressor Generator file
Turbine Super
Assembly Flow
P5,T5 Dyno
Compressor Power
Inlet Turbine
Air Exhaust
Flow P2,T2 P6,T6
Meter
Figure 8 – Gas Turbine Data Schematic

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 Exhaust Gas Heat Exchanger (EHX)

The exhaust gas heat exchanger data (Figure 9) was collected separately by a dedicated laptop computer. The data
collected is listed below:
• Exhaust gas inlet temperature at 8 locations (averaged).
• Exhaust gas outlet temperatures at 1 location.
• Inlet/Exit pressures.
• Exhaust side pressure drop through the heat exchanger.
• Hot water flow rate.
• Hot water inlet/outlet temperatures.
• Hot water inlet/outlet pressures.
• Exhaust gas inlet/outlet velocities averaged over 4-port pitot-static tubes.
Due to the extreme variations in exhaust gas temperatures at a fixed cross-sectional plane in the inlet and outlet
sections of the EHX, the following figures show the thermocouple locations. The thermocouples were averaged after
the data was collected. Due to time constraints to get data before our laboratory and building went down for a year-
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long HVAC renovation, all the exhaust thermocouples were not implemented in this study. Therefore, heat transfer
for the EHX was gotten primarily from water-side data.

Exhaust Sensors before Heat Exchanger

Pressure Sensor
Pex_1 Thermo-
couples

Baffles
4 port averaging
T11
Pitot-Static Tube

T12

Differential
Pressure
Sensor
dPex T13 T14 T15 T16 T17 T18

Thermocouples

Figure 9– Exhaust Probes at EHX Inlet

ORC Diagnostics

The Electratherm Power+ 4400 ORC plant was installed with its own dedicated data acquisition unit. The unit is
complex and much information about the ORC system is recorded. The system logs all state points and these can be
displayed on various informational screens.

The data collected from the gas turbine, exhaust gas heat exchanger and ORC spreadsheets were consolidated into
performance information for the various experimental data runs.

VIII. Data Analysis and Performance

The USNA GT-ORC Waste Heat Recovery prototype plant was installed with a two-fold purpose:
- To demonstrate the feasibility of the GT-ORC Combined Cycle plant as a method for recovering and
making use of wasted exhaust gas energy from Navy gas turbine engines.

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 - To be a GT-ORC Waste Heat Recovery Laboratory for USNA Midshipmen.

A fully automated GT-ORC plant was not implemented in this study. This was largely due to the time constraints of
obtaining data before Rickover Hall went down for HVAC renovations. It was also due to the nature of gas turbine
operation where the exhaust gas temperatures are well above the burning point of the R245fa refrigerant. The gas
turbine, EHX and ORC stations were manned by operators who communicated with each other during the GT-ORC
operation in order to avoid accidents. If anything did not appear right on the data screens, the ORC evaporator was
bypassed and the gas turbine was shut down. The operational procedure was as follow:
• The chill water, CW, loop were turned on and the flow rates set from 200-300 GPM. The CW inlet
temperature could vary between 42 and 46 F. This was not controllable as it reflects the building CW
system on any given day.
• The intermediate hot water loop was turned on and its flowrate was set.
• The ORC was turned on and put into standby mode. In stand-by mode the ORC pump is running but the
unit is not accepting waste heat. It is in exchange with the CW loop in the condenser.
• The gas turbine was brought up to speed and set at 70 percent throttle. During this time, the exhaust gas,
EHX water inlet/outlet and ORC evaporator R245fa temperatures were closely monitored. Should the
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EHX water temperature or R245fa temperature go above 120 C the ORC went into an automatic bypass
mode and the gas turbine was shut down.
• As soon as the temperature in the evaporator reached a condition for the ORC unit to make power the ORC
unit automatically goes into run mode and the generator outlet power is monitored by the ORC system
controller.
• The ORC controller varies the electrical frequency of the VFD driving the refrigerant pump. This
modulates the refrigerant pump speed and hence the refrigerant flowrate. The ORC controller compares
power output and seeks to vary the VFD drive to produce maximum power output for various GT and CW
loop conditions.
• Data is recorded for the GT, EHX and ORC at various run levels. It should be noted that the time constants
for the GT and EHX are relatively low meaning that the GT and EHX can achieve steady state in a very
short period of time. The ORC has a very high time constant due to the large heat capacity (thermal mass)
of the ORC unit. It therefore, takes a long time for the ORC data to reach steady state.
• The gas turbine can be modulated to vary turbine conditions.
• For shut down, the gas turbine is first shut down. The ORC is still making power and is allowed to since
the ORC condenser is the only real heat sink in this plant.
• When the ORC cannot make power it is shut down automatically. The EHX and HW loop are eventually
cooled by the airflow in the room flowing over the EHX assembly. This is not fast.
• Shut down.

Performance Results

Figure 10 displays the effect of GT load on GT-ORC output power. The GT load is essentially the throttle setting.
For a given throttle setting (70 to 100 %), power is produced such that the water brake holds the engine-dynamometer
shaft speed at 6000 rpm. This controls the GGT speed which controls the inlet air flow rate and GT shaft power
produced. Air flow rate is shown because it is a more meaningful parameter. For these conditions the CW flow was
approximately 220 GPM and the HW flow was about 100 GPM. A gas turbine is designed to operate most efficiently
at full power. For the range of inlet air flowrates tested, the GT output power was seen to vary from 75 to 228 kW.
The ORC power out was 22 to 40 kW.
Figure 11 shows the effect of GT load (air inlet flow) on the thermal efficiency of the GT, ORC and GT-ORC
plant. The thermal efficiency is the overall thermal efficiency as defined by shaft output power over heat rate brought
in by the combusted GT fuel (Diesel #2 heating oil). This varied from 13 to 20.4 percent. The thermal efficiency of
the ORC plant was calculated as the ORC power output divided by the waste heat energy delivered to the ORC
evaporator by the intermediate hot water loop. This varied from 6.6 to 7.4 percent. The combined cycle thermal
efficiency was calculated by the total shaft output powers (ORC plus GT) divided by the heat rate of the GT fuel. This
was 16.6 to 24 percent. Since the ORC heat input was derived from the waste heat of the gas turbine exhaust, a
maximum 4 percent increase in thermal efficiency of the combined cycle plant over the base GT engine was realized.

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Figure 10 – Effect of GT load on GT-ORC Power Output

Figure 11 – The effect of GT load (air inlet flow) on the thermal efficiency of the GT-ORC plant

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Figure 12 – The effect of GT load (air inlet flow) on the brake specific fuel consumption (SFC) of the GT vs. GT-
ORC plants

In Figure 12 the effect of gas turbine loading (inlet air flow rate) on brake specific fuel consumption (SFC) is
shown. SFC is defined as the gas turbine fuel flow rate divided by the shaft output power produced. The units in
Figure 12 for SFC are kg/s/kW. As the GT load is increased, the GT produces more power and thermal efficiency
increases. For the base GT (no ORC) the SFC for our engine varied from 1.85x10-4 to 1.20x10-4 kg/s/kW. When the
ORC is online and producing power, the SFC drops and is shown to vary from 1.46x10-4 to 1.021x10-4 kg/s/kW.
Figure 13 depicts the percent increase in thermal efficiency and percent decrease in brake specific fuel
consumption when the ORC plant is online. Both parameters decrease with increasing GT inlet air flow rate (load).
The reason for this is that when the GT is at a throttle setting of about 70% (idling) it is producing only about 20 kW.
Yet, the GT is rejecting heat of about 800 kW via its exhaust flow. Therefore, 400 kW of waste heat can still be
delivered to the ORC unit even when the GT is producing practically no power. Any power output by the ORC is
seen as a boost. As the GT load increases, the percentage of this boost decreases. The percent increase in thermal
efficiency and decrease in SFC was 25 to 16.6 (thermal efficiency) and 21 to 14.2 (SFC), respectively.
The CW loop thermal mixing valve control assembly was not installed at this time. However, the HW loop control
assembly was. In Figure 14, the effect of the HW loop flow rate on total GT-ORC power output for various GT inlet
air mass flow rates is depicted. The HW flow rate varied from 40 to 174 GPM. The figure basically resembles a
shotgun scatter plot in the sense that there was no discernable effect of HW flow rate on the GT-ORC total power
output. This was largely due to the ORC controller which varies the refrigerant pump speed to seek optimum ORC
power output. The one effect that the HW loop flow rate has on the GT-ORC plant is that it varies the water
temperature rise across the EHX in the intermediate HW loop. If the HW loop flow rate is high, the temperature
difference from EHX water inlet to EHX water outlet is low. If the HW loop flow rate is low, the opposite occurs.
For the conditions tested for the HW flow rate, the R245fa entered the ORC evaporator with a span of about 15 degrees
C. The corresponding adjustment of the refrigerant flow rate to seek maximum power output, kept that power output
very close in the span of conditions tested. If the HW loop flow is too low, such that the HW inlet temp to the ORC
goes above 120 C, the ORC evaporator bypass valve opens and the ORC attempts to dump heat via the condenser and
CW loop.

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Figure 13 – The effect of GT load (air inlet flow) on the % increase in thermal efficiency and percent decrease in SFC
when the ORC is online

Figure 14 – The effect of HW loop flow rate on the total GT-ORC output power at various GT loads (air inlet flow).

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Downloaded by Martin Cerza on January 3, 2022 | http://arc.aiaa.org | DOI: 10.2514/6.2022-1406

Figure 15 – EHX effectiveness

Figure 15 depicts the EHX effectiveness as a function of Number of Transfer Units (NTU) for the various capacity
ratios, Cr, used in the data runs. The following equations were used.

$%&'(%) -./012∗45./012678(' 95./01267 <

:;
𝐸𝑓𝑓 = $*%+
= -/=2∗(5?567 95./012:; )

𝐶𝑤𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑟 = 𝑚𝑑𝑜𝑡./012 ∗ 𝑐𝑝./012

𝐶𝑎𝑖𝑟 = 𝑚𝑑𝑜𝑡/=2 ∗ 𝑐𝑝/=2

-%:N
𝐶𝑟 = 𝑐𝑎𝑝𝑎𝑐𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜 =
-O%'PN

Q9RST [9V5W∗(Q9-2)]
𝐸𝑓𝑓 = for a counterflow heat exchanger
Q9-2∗RST [9V5W∗(Q9-2)]

The data shows that the Creare, LLC EHX has a very good effectiveness of about 60 percent over the limited
conditions tested. The target effectiveness going into this project was 50 percent. Effectiveness is altered by a variety
of parameters such as channel length, heat transfer coefficients, internal fabrication methods, and temperature
differences, to name a few.

IX. Conclusions

• A 1/9 scale prototype unit for a GT-ORC Waste Heat Recovery Combined Cycle Plant was successfully
installed in the Gas Turbines Laboratory at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD.
• The Plant uses a Rolls Royce M250 C20B gas turbine engine, an Electratherm Power+ 4400 ORC Plant
(R245fa), and a Creare, LLC exhaust gas heat exchanger (EHX).

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 • The ORC plant boosted power by a maximum of 40 kW over the baseline GT shaft power output, 200 kW.
A boost of 20 percent.
• The GT-ORC Combined Cycle Plant had an overall thermal efficiency rise over the GT engine alone of
approximately 4 percent. 24 percent for the GT-ORC unit vice 20 percent for the GT alone.
• The heat exchanger effectiveness of the EHX was 0.6. Thus, the heat exchanger was successful in
recovering 60 percent of the exergy that is carried at the gas turbine exhaust stacks.
• There was a maximum reduction in brake specific fuel consumption of 18 percent for the GT-ORC system
over the base GT.
• The GT-ORC Waste Heat Recovery Plant is a viable way to utilize US Navy gas turbine powered ship
exhaust for extra useful power thereby reducing greenhouse gases to produce increased power through
conventional fuel supplied processes.

X. Funding Sources

This work was accomplished under a multi-year funding source from Dr. Mark Spector, The Office of Naval Research,
Downloaded by Martin Cerza on January 3, 2022 | http://arc.aiaa.org | DOI: 10.2514/6.2022-1406

Code 331, Arlington, VA under Navy contract N0001417WX02114.

XI.Acknowledgement

Many thanks to Creare, Inc., of Hanover, NH. Dr. Roger Hill for the design of the EHX waste exchanger and the
technicians who came down to USNA to help install the heat exchanger. Thanks also to the people from Electratherm,
Inc., who helped train our staff in the operation of the Power+ 4400 ORC unit.

XII. References
[1] “DDG-51 Arleigh Burke - Specifications” [Online]. Available:
https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ship/ddg-51-specs.htm. [Accessed: 24-Jan-2019].
[2] “Power+ Generator 4400 – up to 65kWe – ElectraTherm” [Online]. Available:
https://electratherm.com/products/power-plus-generator-4400-up-to-65kwe/. [Accessed: 21-Oct-2018].
[3] Lecompte, S., Huisseune, H., Van Den Broek, M., Vanslambrouck, B., and De Paepe, M., 2015, “Review of
Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) Architectures for Waste Heat Recovery.”
[4] Öhman, H., 2012, “Comparison and Analysis of Performance Using Low Temperature Power Cycles.”

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