ORC: How it works In a typical ORC design, a thermal energy source feeds an evaporator to drive an expander or “reverse compressor”, which in turn generates the electricity. The provider of the heat can be natural, such as in the case of geothermal energy, or waste heat from any number of industrial waste heat sources.

The Rankine cycle or Rankine Vapor Cycle is the process widely used by power plants such as coal-fired power plants or nuclear reactors. In this mechanism, a fuel is used to produce heat within a boiler, converting water into steam which then expands through a turbine producing useful work.

The Organic Rankine Cycle's principle is based on a turbogenerator working as a conventional steam turbine to transform thermal energy into mechanical energy and finally into electric energy through an electrical generator.

Rankine's Theory says that failure will occur when the maximum principal stress at any point reaches a value equal to the tensile stress in a simple tension specimen at failure.