Experimental investigation on heat transfer characteristics of plat heat exchanger applied in organic Rankine cycle (ORC)

•Engine waste heat recovery ORC system.•Experimental study the heat transfer.•Single phase convective heat transfer empirical equation.•R245fa evaporation boiling heat transfer empirical equation is given. Diesel engine waste heat recovery system based on the organic Rankine cycle (ORC) has been widely studied and developed by more and more researchers in the world. The brazing plate type heat exchangers (PHE) are widely used in the ORC system, especial in the diesel engine waste heat recovery ORC. This paper describes experimentally study the single phase and boiling heat transfer characteristics of three types of working fluid on PHE’s surfaces. These working fluids are water, 50% coolant and R245fa. The single phase convective heat transfer dimensionless empirical equation for the three types working fluid on three different chevron angle plate surfaces is provided, which has the mean absolute error 9.7% in the range Re=250–7000 and Pr=2.0–12.0. And the evaporation heat transfer empirical equation for the Organic fluid R245fa is given with the mean absolute error 9.97%, which can predict the 95% of the test data with the error less than ±20%.