Optimum Design of Shell and Tube Heat Exchangers using Modified Kinetic Gas Molecule Optimizer for the use of Low Temperature in Organic Rankine Cycles

Shell and Tube Heat Exchangers (STHEs) plays a crucial role in an effective design of Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) power plants.The main aim of this research work is to design a cost-effective ORC in order to exploit low to medium temperature geothermal fluid or low grade industrial waste heat. In this research work, modified Kinetic Gas Molecule Optimization (KGMO) algorithm was developed forfinding the optimized parameter settings of the power plant. In modified KGMO algorithm, feedback learning stage was included for improving the fitness of individual worst particles. In addition, the proposed optimization algorithm was tested on two dissimilar fluids such asR245fa and R134a in order to show the effectiveness of proposed scheme. The experimental investigation showed that the proposed scheme effectively improved the heat exchanger performance as related to the existing schemes. The enhancement factor of proposed scheme was 2.8063 for R245fa fluid and 1.9346 for R134a fluid, which was better compared to the existing schemes; KGMO and Bell-Delaware method.