The potential to recover waste heat from the exhaust gases of a turboprop engine and produce useful work through an Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) is investigated. A thermodynamic analysis of the engine’s Brayton cycle is derived to determine the heat source available for exploitation. The aim is to use the aircraft engine fuel as the working fluid of the organic Rankine cycle in order to reduce the extra weight of the waste heat recovery system and keep the thrust-to-weight ratio as high as possible. A surrogate fuel with thermophysical properties similar to aviation gas turbine fuel is used for the ORC simulation. The evaporator design as well as the weight minimisation and safety of the suggested application are the most crucial aspects determining the feasibility of the proposed concept. The results show that there is potential in the exhaust gases to produce up to 50kW of power, corresponding to a 10.1% improvement of the overall thermal efficiency of the engine.
