A Study of s-CO2 Power Cycle for CSP Applications Using an Isothermal Compressor

Author(s):  
Jin Young Heo ◽  
Yoonhan Ahn ◽  
Jeong Ik Lee

For the concentrating solar power (CSP) applications, the supercritical carbon dioxide (s-CO2) power cycle is beneficial in many aspects, including higher cycle efficiencies, reduced component sizing, and potential for the dry cooling option, in comparison to the conventional steam Rankine cycle. Increasing number of investigations and research projects are involved in improving this technology to realize the s-CO2 cycle as a candidate to replace the conventional power conversion systems. In this conceptual study, an isothermal compressor, a turbomachine which undergoes the compression process at constant temperature to minimize compression work, is applied to the s-CO2 power cycle layout. To investigate the cycle performance changes of adopting the novel technology, a framework for defining the efficiency of the isothermal compressor is revised and suggested. This study demonstrates how the compression work for the isothermal compressor is reduced compared to that of the conventional compressor under varying compressor inlet conditions. Furthermore, the recompression Brayton cycle layout using s-CO2 as a working fluid is evaluated for the CSP applications. Results show that for compressor inlet temperatures (CIT) near the critical point, the simple recuperated Brayton cycle with an isothermal compressor performs better than the given reference recompression cycle by 6–10% points in terms of cycle thermal efficiency. For higher CIT values, the recompression cycle using an isothermal compressor can perform above 50% in thermal efficiency. Adopting an isothermal compressor in the s-CO2 layout, however, can imply larger heat exchange area for the compressor which requires further detailed design for realization in the future.

Author(s):  
Jin Young Heo ◽  
Jinsu Kwon ◽  
Jeong Ik Lee

For the concentrating solar power (CSP) applications, the supercritical carbon dioxide (s-CO2) power cycle is beneficial in many aspects, including high cycle efficiencies, reduced component sizing, and potential for the dry cooling option. More research is involved in improving this technology to realize the s-CO2 cycle as a candidate to replace the conventional power conversion systems for CSP applications. In this study, an isothermal compressor, a turbomachine which undergoes the compression process at constant temperature to minimize compression work, is applied to the s-CO2 power cycle layout. To investigate the cycle performance changes of adopting the novel technology, a framework for defining the efficiency of the isothermal compressor is revised and suggested. This study demonstrates how the compression work for the isothermal compressor is reduced, up to 50%, compared to that of the conventional compressor under varying compressor inlet conditions. Furthermore, the simple recuperated and recompression Brayton cycle layouts using s-CO2 as a working fluid are evaluated for the CSP applications. Results show that for compressor inlet temperatures (CIT) near the critical point, the recompression Brayton cycle using an isothermal compressor has 0.2–1.0% point higher cycle thermal efficiency compared to its reference cycle. For higher CIT values, the recompression cycle using an isothermal compressor can perform above 50% in thermal efficiency for a wider range of CIT than the reference cycle. Adopting an isothermal compressor in the s-CO2 layout can imply larger heat exchange area for the compressor which requires further development.


Author(s):  
Yongju Jeong ◽  
Seongmin Son ◽  
Seong kuk Cho ◽  
Seungjoon Baik ◽  
Jeong Ik Lee

Abstract Most of the power plants operating nowadays mainly have adopted a steam Rankine cycle or a gas Brayton cycle. To devise a better power conversion cycle, various approaches were taken by researchers and one of the examples is an S-CO2 (supercritical CO2) power cycle. Over the past decades, the S-CO2 power cycle was invented and studied. Eventually the cycle was successful for attracting attentions from a wide range of applications. Basically, an S-CO2 power cycle is a variation of a gas Brayton cycle. In contrast to the fact that an ordinary Brayton cycle operates with a gas phase fluid, the S-CO2 power cycle operates with a supercritical phase fluid, where temperatures and pressures of working fluid are above the critical point. Many advantages of S-CO2 power cycle are rooted from its novel characteristics. Particularly, a compressor in an S-CO2 power cycle operates near the critical point, where the compressibility is greatly reduced. Since the S-CO2 power cycle greatly benefits from the reduced compression work, an S-CO2 compressor prediction under off-design condition has a huge impact on overall cycle performance. When off-design operations of a power cycle are considered, the compressor performance needs to be specified. One of the approaches for a compressor off-design performance evaluation is to use the correction methods based on similitude analysis. However, there are several approaches for deriving the equivalent conditions but none of the approaches has been thoroughly examined for S-CO2 conditions based on data. The purpose of this paper is comparing these correction models to identify the best fitted approach, in order to predict a compressor off-design operation performance more accurately from limited amount of information. Each correction method was applied to two sets of data, SCEIL experiment data and 1D turbomachinery code off-design prediction code generated data, and evaluated in this paper.


Author(s):  
Arun Kumar Narasimhan ◽  
Diego Guillen Perez ◽  
D. Yogi Goswami

Abstract Scroll expanders are generally used for low temperature power generation applications due to their inherently small built-in volume ratio. The working fluid and operating conditions play an important role in the expander performance as well as its physical size and volume ratio. Hence, a comparative study of scroll expander performance was carried out between two different working fluids, R433C and supercritical (s-CO2). The s-CO2 Brayton cycle achieved a maximum cycle efficiency of 13.6% at an expander supply pressure of 11 MPa. Two separate scroll geometries were modeled for supercritical Organic Rankine Cycle (SORC) using R433C and s-CO2 Brayton cycle for the operating conditions that provided the maximum cycle performance. The s-CO2 scroll geometry achieved a maximum expander efficiency of 80% with a volume ratio of 2.5 and a diameter of 19 cm. The high inlet temperatures required a much higher volume ratio of 6.2 and scroll diameter of 30 cm for the R433C based SORC leading to greater leakages and lower expander efficiency of 62%. The comparative study shows that s-CO2 is better suited for scroll expander than R433C at such high expander supply temperatures.


Author(s):  
Ali S. Alsagri ◽  
Andrew Chiasson ◽  
Ahmad Aljabr

A thermodynamic analysis and optimization of a newly-conceived combined power cycle were conducted in this paper for the purpose of improving overall thermal efficiency of power cycles by attempting to minimize thermodynamic irreversibilities and waste heat as a consequence of the Second Law. The power cycle concept comprises a topping advanced recompression supercritical carbon dioxide (sCO2) Brayton cycle and a bottoming transcritical carbon dioxide (tCO2) Rankine cycle. The bottoming cycle configurations included a simple tCO2 Rankine cycle and a split tCO2 Rankine cycle. The topping sCO2 recompression Brayton cycle used a combustion chamber as a heat source, and waste heat from a topping cycle was recovered by the tCO2 Rankine cycle due to an added high efficiency recuperator for generating electricity. The combined cycle configurations were thermodynamically modeled and optimized using an Engineering Equation Solver (EES) software. Simple bottoming tCO2 Rankine cycle cannot fully recover the waste heat due to the high exhaust temperature from the top cycle, and therefore an advance split tCO2 Rankine cycle was employed in order to recover most of the waste heat. Results show that the highest thermal efficiency was obtained with recompression sCO2 Brayton cycle – split flow tCO2 Rankine cycle. Also, the results show that the combined CO2 cycles is a promising technology compared to conventional cycles.


Author(s):  
Seungjoon Baik ◽  
Seong Gu Kim ◽  
Seong Jun Bae ◽  
Yoonhan Ahn ◽  
Jekyoung Lee ◽  
...  

The supercritical carbon dioxide (S-CO2) Brayton power conversion cycle has been receiving worldwide attention because of high thermal efficiency due to relatively low compression work near the critical point (30.98°C, 7.38MPa) of CO2. The S-CO2 Brayton cycle can achieve high efficiency with simple cycle configuration at moderate turbine inlet temperature (450∼650°C) and relatively high density of S-CO2 makes possible to design compact power conversion cycle. In order to achieve compact cycle layout, a highly compact heat exchanger such as printed circuit heat exchanger (PCHE) is widely used. Since, the cycle thermal efficiency is a strong function of the compressor inlet temperature in the S-CO2 power cycle, the research team at KAIST is focusing on the thermal hydraulic performance of the PCHE as a precooler. The investigation was performed by first developing a PCHE in-house design code named KAIST-HXD. This was followed by constructing the designed PCHE and testing it in the KAIST experimental facility, S-CO2PE. The test results of the PCHE were compared to the test results of a shell and tube type heat exchanger as well.


Author(s):  
Eric M. Clementoni ◽  
Timothy L. Cox

Supercritical carbon dioxide (sCO2) Brayton power cycles take advantage of the high density of CO2 near the critical point to reduce compressor power and increase cycle efficiency. However, thermophysical properties of CO2 vary drastically near the critical point. Concerns of large property variations and liquid formation within the compressor can result in sCO2 cycle designers selecting compressor inlet operating conditions substantially above the critical point, thereby reducing cycle performance. The Naval Nuclear Laboratory has built and tested the 100 kWe Integrated System Test (IST) to demonstrate the ability to operate and control an sCO2 Brayton power cycle over a wide range of conditions. Since the purpose of the IST is focused on controllability, the design compressor inlet conditions were selected to be 8.2°F (4.6°C) and 270 psi (18.4 bar) above the critical point to reduce the effect of small variations in compressor inlet temperature and pressure on density. This paper evaluates the effect of design compressor inlet pressure on cycle efficiency for a simple recuperated Brayton cycle and the performance of an operating Brayton power cycle with a fixed design over a range of compressor inlet pressures.


Author(s):  
Ali S. Alsagri ◽  
Andrew D. Chiasson

A thermodynamic analysis and optimization of a newly-conceived combined power cycle were conducted in this paper for the purpose of improving overall thermal efficiency of power cycles by attempting to minimize thermodynamic irreversibilities and waste heat as a consequence of the Second Law. The power cycle concept comprises a topping advanced recompression supercritical carbon dioxide (sCO2) Brayton cycle and a bottoming transcritical carbon dioxide (tCO2) Rankine cycle. The bottoming cycle configurations included a simple tCO2 Rankine cycle and a split tCO2 Rankine cycle. The topping sCO2 recompression Brayton cycle used a combustion chamber as a heat source, and waste heat from a topping cycle was recovered by the tCO2 Rankine cycle due to an added high efficiency recuperator for generating electricity. The combined cycle configurations were thermodynamically modeled and optimized using an Engineering Equation Solver (EES) software. Simple bottoming tCO2 Rankine cycle cannot fully recover the waste heat due to the high exhaust temperature from the top cycle, and therefore an advance split tCO2 Rankine cycle was employed in order to recover most of the waste heat. Results show that the highest thermal efficiency was obtained with recompression sCO2 Brayton cycle – split flow tCO2 Rankine cycle. Also, the results show that the combined CO2 cycles is a promising technology compared to conventional cycles.


Energies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (7) ◽  
pp. 1741 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aofang Yu ◽  
Wen Su ◽  
Li Zhao ◽  
Xinxing Lin ◽  
Naijun Zhou

As one of the promising technologies to meet the increasing demand for electricity, supercritical CO2 (S-CO2) Brayton cycle has the characteristics of high efficiency, economic structure, and compact turbomachinery. These characteristics are closely related to the thermodynamic properties of working fluid. When CO2 is mixed with other gas, cycle parameters are determined by the constituent and the mass fraction of CO2. Therefore, in this contribution, a thermodynamic model is developed and validated for the recompression cycle. Seven types of CO2-based mixtures, namely CO2-Xe, CO2-Kr, CO2-O2, CO2-Ar, CO2-N2, CO2-Ne, and CO2-He, are employed. At different CO2 mass fractions, cycle parameters are determined under a fixed compressor inlet temperature, based on the maximization of cycle efficiency. Cycle performance and recuperators’ parameters are comprehensively compared for different CO2-based mixtures. Furthermore, in order to investigate the effect of compressor inlet temperature, cycle parameters of CO2-N2 are obtained under four different temperatures. From the obtained results, it can be concluded that, as the mass fraction of CO2 increases, different mixtures show different variations of cycle performance and recuperators’ parameters. In generally, the performance order of mixtures coincides with the descending or ascending order of corresponding critical temperatures. Performance curves of these considered mixtures locate between the curves of CO2-Xe and CO2-He. Meanwhile, the curves of CO2-O2 and CO2-N2 are always closed to each other at high CO2 mass fractions. In addition, with the increase of compressor inlet temperature, cycle performance decreases, and more heat transfer occurs in the recuperators.


Author(s):  
Hanfei Tuo

The CO2 transcritical Rankine power cycle has been widely investigated recently, because of its better temperature glide matching between sensible heat source and working fluid in vapor generator, and its desirable qualities, such as moderate critical point, little environment impact and low cost. A reheat CO2 transcritical power cycle with two stage expansion is presented to improve baseline cycle performance in this paper. Energy and exergy analysis are carried out to investigate parametric effects on cycle performance. The main results show that reheat cycle performance is sensitive to the medium pressures and the optimum pressures exist for maximizing net work output and thermal efficiency, respectively. Reheat cycle is compared to baseline cycle under the same conditions. More significant improvements by reheat are obtained at lower turbine inlet temperatures and/or larger high cycle pressure. Work output improvement is much higher than thermal efficiency improvement, because extra waste heat is required to reheat CO2. Based on second law analysis, exergy efficiency of reheat cycle is also higher than that of baseline cycle, because more useful work is converted from waste heat. Reheat with two stage expansion has great potential to improve thermal efficiency and especially net work output of a CO2 transcritical power cycle using a low-grade heat source.


Author(s):  
Concepción Paz ◽  
Eduardo Suarez ◽  
Miguel Concheiro ◽  
Antonio Diaz

Waste heat dissipated in the exhaust system in a combustion engine represents a major source of energy to be recovered and converted into useful work. A waste heat recovery system (WHRS) based on an Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) is a promising approach, and has gained interest in the last few years in an automotive industry interested in reducing fuel consumption and exhaust emissions. Understanding the thermodynamic response of the boiler employed in an ORC plays an important role in steam cycle performance prediction and control system design. The aim of this study is therefore to present a methodology to study these devices by means of pattern recognition with infrared thermography. In addition, the experimental test bench and its operating conditions are described. The methodology proposed identifies the wall coordinates, traces paths, and tracks wall temperature along them in a way that can be exported for subsequent post-processing and analysis. As for the results, through the wall temperature paths on both sides (exhaust gas and working fluid) it was possible to quantitatively estimate the temperature evolution along the boiler and, in particular, the beginning and end of evaporation.


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