Power conversion technologies capable of exploiting renewable energy sources are gaining an increasing interest from both the academic and industrial world. Among these technologies, Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) and supercritical CO2 (sCO2) power cycles have proven to be cheaper, simpler and more reliable alternatives to the conventional steam cycles for the exploitation of low- to medium-temperature heat sources, such as geothermal reservoirs, solar radiation, biomass combustion, and waste heat recovery from industrial processes and large propulsion units. The dynamics of the working fluids usually employed in such power systems significantly departs from textbook fluid dynamics and from the perfect-gas model. In this project, research is carried out to improve turbomachinery design via better understanding of the non-conventional phenomena occurring in the so-called non-ideal operating conditions of state-of-the-art power cycles.

2021

2025