Parametric Study and Optimization of an Irreversible Closed Intercooled Regenerative Brayton Cycle

Author(s):  
Brian Wolf ◽  
Shripad T. Revankar

In this paper, entropy generation minimization techniques are used in the analysis of an irreversible closed intercooled regenerative Brayton cycle coupled to variable temperature heat reservoirs. First, dimensionless power and efficiency equations are derived for a base case (single stage) which replicates those obtained in recent literature. Second, equations are derived for a multi-stage Brayton cycle. The dimensionless power and efficiency equations are used to analyze the effects of total pressure ratio, intercooling pressure ratio, thermal capacity rates of the working fluid and heat reservoirs, and the component (regenerator, intercooler, hot and cold side heat exchangers) effectiveness. Using detailed numerical examples, the optimal power and efficiency corresponding to variable component effectiveness, compressor and turbine efficiencies, intercooling pressure ratio, total pressure ratio, pressure recovery coefficients, heat reservoir inlet temperature ratio, and the cooling fluid in the intercooler and the cold side heat reservoir inlet temperature ratio are analyzed.

2002 ◽  
Vol 09 (04) ◽  
pp. 325-337 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shengbing Zhou ◽  
Lingen Chen ◽  
Fengrui Sun ◽  
Chih Wu

The performance optimization of an irreversible simple Brayton refrigerator coupled to constant-temperature heat reservoirs is carried out by taking the cooling load density, i.e., the ratio of cooling load to the maximum specific volume in the cycle, as the optimization objective using finite-time thermodynamics (FTT) or entropy generation minimization (EGM) in this paper. The analytical formulae about the relations between cooling load density and pressure ratio, as well as between coefficient of performance (COP) and pressure ratio are derived with the heat resistance losses in the hot- and cold-side heat exchangers, and the irreversible compression and expansion losses in the compressor and expander. The influences of the effectiveness of the heat exchangers, the temperature ratio of the reservoirs, and the efficiencies of the compressor and expander on the cooling load density versus COP are provided by numerical examples. The cooling load density optimization is performed by searching the optimum pressure ratio of the compressor, and searching the optimum distribution of heat conductance of the hot- and cold-side heat exchangers for the fixed total heat exchanger inventory. The influences of some design parameters, including the effectiveness of the heat exchangers between the working fluid and heat reservoirs, the efficiencies of compressor and expander, the temperature ratio of heat reservoirs, on the maximum cooling load density, the optimum heat conductance distribution and the optimum pressure ratio are provided by numerical examples. The refrigeration plant design with optimization leads to a smaller size including the compressor, expander, and the hot- and cold-side heat exchangers.


Author(s):  
Victor I. Mileshin ◽  
Andrew N. Startsev ◽  
Igor A. Brailko ◽  
Igor K. Orekhov

Present paper is devoted to numerical optimization of a 8:1 total pressure ratio centrifugal compressor to improve performances of core engine belonging to a turbo-shaft engine. Main subject of optimization is vaned diffuser with following impeller’s pressure ratio increase. This compressor designed by CIAM [7] and tested as a part of core engine gave satisfactory performances even under the first test run. Further development requires new concepts one of which is reduction of core engine’s turbine inlet temperature. Redesign of vaned diffuser through elimination of reverse flow zone gives 5% increase of mass flow-rate and 0.7% increase of efficiency. Further 6% increase of impeller’s total pressure ratio (at the same rpm) modifies Brayton cycle of core engine reducing turbine inlet temperature by 32° and turbine exhaust temperature by 43°. To maintain the same power output, this drop of turbine exhaust temperature is compensated by 4% increase of the operational flow-rate.


Author(s):  
Xiaoyi Li ◽  
Lei Zhou ◽  
Jay Kapat ◽  
Louis C. Chow

A novel design for a high-speed, miniature centrifugal compressor for a miniature RTBC (reverse turbo Brayton cycle) cryogenic cooling system is the focus of this paper. Due to the geometrical restriction imposed by the cryocooling system, the outer radius of the compressor is limited to 2.5 cm. Such a small compressor must rotate at a high speed in order to provide an acceptable pressure ratio. Miniature design precludes the use of inducers with large angles. In order to compensate for the absence of conventional inducers, the proposed design uses inlet guide vanes (IGV) that produce preswirl at the impeller inlet. IGV is followed by a radial impeller and an axial diffuser. The design speed for this compressor is 313,000 rpm for an overall static-to-total pressure ratio of 1.7 with helium as the working fluid for the compressor and the cryocooling system. The analysis undertaken in this paper is for an aerodynamically similar design with air as the working fluid. The rotational speed is 108,000 rpm and the overall static-to-total pressure ratio of 1.55. This paper concentrates on computational prediction of the performance of the compressor. The three-dimensional transient simulation is performed by using sliding mesh model (SMM). Blade tip leakage is not considered in the computation presented here. The unsteady solution predicts the interaction between IGV and the impeller, and between the impeller and the diffuser. The isentropic efficiency of impeller is found to be 81% at the design point. Based on the results obtained in this study, the inlet angle of diffuser vanes is modified to match the gas flow at the impeller exit, resulting in an increase of the isentropic efficiency of diffuser from 8.6% to 74.8%. It is also found that the performance of upstream components — IGV and impeller, are not affected by the performance of the diffuser.


Author(s):  
Kuifang Wan ◽  
Yunhan Xiao ◽  
Shijie Zhang

By adding an induced draft fan or exhaust compressor between flue gas condenser and stack to make the turbine expand to a pressure much lower than ambient pressure, this paper actually employed inverted Brayton cycle to solve stack temperature problems after water recovery from Humid Air Turbine (HAT) cycle exhaust gas and compare the effect of different discharging methods on the system’s performance. Comparing with the methods of gas discharged directly or recuperated, this scenario can obtain the highest electrical efficiency under certain pressure ratio and turbine inlet temperature. Due to the introduction of induced draft fan, in spite of one intercooler, there are twice intercoolings during the whole compression since the flue gas condenser is equivalent to an intercooler but without additional pressure loss. So the compression work decreases. In addition, the working pressure of humidifier and its outlet water temperature are lowered for certain total pressure ratio to recover more exhaust heat. These enhance the electrical efficiency altogether. Calculation results show that the electrical efficiency is about 49% when the pressure ratio of the induced draft fan is 1.3∼1.5 and 1.5 percentage points higher than that of HAT with exhaust gas recuperated. The specific works among different discharging methods are very closely. However, water recovery is some extent difficult for HAT employing inverted Brayton cycle.


Author(s):  
Vishal Anand ◽  
Krishna Nelanti ◽  
Kamlesh G. Gujar

The gas turbine engine works on the principle of the Brayton Cycle. One of the ways to improve the efficiency of the gas turbine is to make changes in the Brayton Cycle. In the present study, Brayton Cycle with intercooling, reheating and regeneration with variable temperature heat reservoirs is considered. Instead of the usual thermodynamic efficiency, the Second law efficiency, defined on the basis of lost work, has been taken as a parameter to study the deviation of the irreversible Brayton Cycle from the ideal cycle. The Second law efficiency of the Brayton Cycle has been found as a function of reheat and intercooling pressure ratios, total pressure ratio, intercooler, regenerator and reheater effectiveness, hot and cold side heat exchanger effectiveness, turbine and compressor efficiency and heating capacities of the heating fluid, the cooling fluid and the working fluid (air). The variation of the Second law efficiency with all these parameters has been presented. From the results, it can be seen that the Second law efficiency first increases and then decreases with increase in intercooling pressure ratio and increases with increase in reheating pressure ratio. The results show that the Second law efficiency is a very good indicator of the amount of irreversibility of the cycle.


Author(s):  
L Chen ◽  
J Zheng ◽  
F Sun ◽  
C Wu

The power density is taken as an objective for performance analysis of an irreversible closed Brayton cycle coupled to variable-temperature heat reservoirs. The analytical formulas about the relationship between power density and working fluid temperature ratio (pressure ratio) are derived with the heat resistance losses in the hot- and cold-side heat exchangers, the irreversible compression and expansion losses in the compressor and turbine, and the effect of the finite thermal capacity rate of the heat reservoirs. The obtained results are compared with those results obtained by using the maximum power criterion. The influences of some design parameters, including the temperature ratio of the heat reservoirs, the effectivenesses of the heat exchangers between the working fluid and the heat reservoirs, and the efficiencies of the compressor and the turbine, on the maximum power density are provided by numerical examples, and the advantages and disadvantages of maximum power density design are analysed. The power plant design with maximum power density leads to a higher efficiency and smaller size. When the heat transfers between the working fluid and the heat reservoirs are carried out ideally and the thermal capacity rates of the heat reservoirs are infinite, the results of this article become similar to those obtained in the recent literature.


Author(s):  
Botao Zhang ◽  
Bo Liu ◽  
Xin Sun ◽  
Hang Zhao

Abstract In order to explore the similarities and differences between the flow fields of cantilever stator and idealized compressor cascade with tip clearance, and to extend the cascade leakage model to compressors, the influence of stator hub rotation to represent cascade and cantilever stator on hub leakage flow was numerically studied. On this basis, the control strategy and mechanism of blade root suction were discussed. The results show that there is no obvious influence on stall margin of the compressor whether the stator hub is rotating or stationary. For rotating stator hub, the overall efficiency is decreased while the total pressure ratio is increased. At peak efficiency point and near stall point, the efficiency is reduced by about 0.43% and 0.34% individually, while the total pressure ratio is enlarged by about 0.23% and 0.27%, respectively. The gap leakage flow is promoted due to stator hub rotation, and the structure of the leakage vortex is weakened obviously. In addition, the hub leakage flow originating from the blade leading edge of rotating hub may contribute to double leakage near the trailing edge of the adjacent blade. However, the leakage flow directly out of the blade passage with stationary stator hub. The stator root loading and strength of the leakage flow increase with the rotation of the hub, and the leakage vortex is further away from the suction surface of the blade and is stretched to an ellipse closer to the endwall under the shear action. The rotating hub makes the flow loss near the stator gap increase, while the flow loss in the upper part of the blade root is decreased. Meanwhile, the total pressure ratio in the end area is increased. Blade root suction of cantilever stator can effectively control the hub leakage flow, inhibit the development of hub leakage vortex, and improve the flow capacity of the passage, thereby reducing the flow loss and modifying the flow field in the end zone.


Author(s):  
Zijing Chen ◽  
Bo Liu ◽  
Xiaoxiong Wu

Abstract In order to further improve the effectiveness of design(inverse) issue of S2 surface of axial compressor, a design method of optimization model based on real-coded genetic algorithm is instructed, with a detailed description of some important points such as the population setting, the fitness function design and the implementation of genetic operator. The method mainly takes the pressure ratio, the circulation as the optimization variables, the total pressure ratio and the overall efficiency of the compressor as the constraint condition and the decreasing of the diffusion factor of the compressor as the optimization target. In addition, for the propose of controlling the peak value of some local data after the optimization, a local optimization strategy is proposed to make the method achieve better results. In the optimization, the streamline curvature method is used to perform the iterative calculation of the aerodynamic parameters of the S2 flow surface, and the polynomial fitting method is used to optimize the dimensionality of the variables. The optimization result of a type of ten-stage axial compressor shows that the pressure ratio and circulation parameters have significant effect on the diffusion factor’s distribution, especially for the rotor pressure ratio. Through the optimization, the smoothness of the mass-average pressure ratio distribution curve of the rotors at all stages of the compressor is improved. The maximum diffusion factors in spanwise of rotor rows at the first, fifth and tenth stage of the compressor are reduced by 1.46%, 12.53% and 8.67%, respectively. Excluding the two calculation points at the root and tip of the blade because of the peak value, the average diffusion factors in spanwise are reduced by 1.28%, 3.46%, and 1.50%, respectively. For the two main constraints, the changes of the total pressure ratio and overall efficiency are less than 0.03% and 0.032%, respectively. In the end, a 3-d CFD numerical result is given to testify the effects of the optimization, which shows that the loss in the compressor is decreased by the optimization algorithm.


2001 ◽  
Vol 08 (04) ◽  
pp. 377-391 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lingen Chen ◽  
Junlin Zheng ◽  
Fengrui Sun ◽  
Chih Wu

In this paper, the power density, defined as the ratio of power output to the maximum specific volume in the cycle, is set as the objective for performance analysis of an irreversible, regenerated and closed Brayton cycle coupled to constant-temperature heat reservoirs from the viewpoint of finite time thermodynamics (FTT) or entropy generation minimization (EGM). The analytical formulae about the relations between power density and pressure ratio are derived with the heat resistance losses in the hot- and cold-side heat exchangers and the regenerator, the irreversible compression and expansion losses in the compressor and turbine, and the pressure loss in the pipe. The results obtained are compared with those obtained by using the maximum power criterion. The influences of some design parameters, including the effectiveness of the regenerator, the temperature ratio of heat reservoirs, the effectivenesses of heat exchangers between working fluid and heat reservoirs, the efficiencies of the compressor and the turbine, and the pressure recovery coefficient, on the maximum power density are illustrated by numerical examples, and advantages and disadvantages of maximum power density design are analyzed. When heat transfers between working fluid and heat reservoirs are carried out ideally, the results of this paper coincide with those obtained in recent literature.


Author(s):  
Hong Wu ◽  
Qiushi Li ◽  
Sheng Zhou

This paper presents an optimization method for fan/compressor which couples throughflow model solving axisymmetric Euler equations with adaptive simulated annealing (ASA) algorithm. One of the advantages of this optimization method is that it spends much less time than 3D optimization due to the rapid solving of throughflow model. In addition, the optimization space is quite extensive because more design variables can be adjusted in throughflow phase, such as swirl distribution, hub curve and sweep. To validate this optimization method, a highly loaded fan rotor with pressure ratio of 3.06 as a baseline is optimized. During the optimization process, the objective function is total pressure ratio, moreover, mass flow and efficiency are selected as the constraint conditions. Three important design variables including swirl distribution, hub curve and sweep are parameterized using Bezier curve, and then optimized in throughflow model independently, finally the optimum designs are validated using 3D viscous CFD solver. It is shown that pressure ratio and rotor loading can be improved further through optimizing swirl distribution, however, hub and sweep curves take more effects on mass flow and efficiency respectively. The optimization results demonstrate the advantage and feasibility of this optimization method.


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