Engine coolant temperature regulation via superheating control of an Organic Rankine Cycle

Waste Heat Recovery (WHR) systems based on the Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) are an interesting technology to increase fuel efficiency of vehicles. This paper proposes a cascade control scheme to regulate the temperature of the cooling system of an electrically turbocharged natural gas engine for a heavy duty vehicle, using an ORC. To do so, the LPV framework is used to both identify a model and control ORC superheat. Then, an additional loop is used to control the reference superheat. The resulting control system allows correct operation of the ORC under investigation.