Lead-to-CO2 Heat Exchangers for Coupling of the STAR-LM LFR to a Supercritical Carbon Dioxide Brayton Cycle Power Converter

Author(s):  
Anton V. Moisseytsev ◽  
James J. Sienicki ◽  
David C. Wade

Recent development of the Secure Transportable Autonomous Reactor-Liquid Metal (STAR-LM) lead-cooled natural circulation fast reactor (LFR) has been directed at coupling to an advanced power conversion system that utilizes a gas turbine Brayton cycle with supercritical carbon dioxide (S-CO2) as the working fluid. A key ingredient in achieving a coupled plant having a high efficiency are the modular lead-to-CO2 heat exchangers that must fit within the available volume inside the reactor vessel and must heat the S-CO2 to a high temperature. Thermal hydraulic performance and feasibility of seven different heat exchanger concepts has been investigated with respect to the achievement of a suitably high Brayton cycle efficiency for the coupled LFR-S-CO2 plant. The relative merits of the different heat exchanger configurations are revealed by the analysis which provides a basis to select the most promising concepts for further development.

Author(s):  
Joshua Schmitt ◽  
David Amos ◽  
Jayanta Kapat

The goal of this study is to design and assess the effectiveness of a micro-channel recuperator using supercritical carbon dioxide as a working fluid. A one-dimensional thermal analysis is performed for a micro-channel recuperator suitable for a Brayton cycle with a nominal 100 MW class turbomachine. The impact of supercritical carbon dioxide properties near the critical point on the thermal performance of the recuperator is studied in detail. The cycle parameters are first obtained from an overall cycle analysis. Two adjacent flow passages with square cross-section in counter-flow configuration are considered for this analysis along with appropriate symmetry. The high pressure of SCO2 is also addressed and the structural stresses on the micro-channel walls are analyzed. Only the axial temperature variations in the hot stream and the cold stream are considered in the one-dimensional analysis. Each channel is discretized in the axial direction. Axial conduction through the wall is included in the energy balance. Of particular interest in this analysis is the variation of transport properties of the CO2 working fluid as thermodynamic conditions approach the critical point. These property variations are provided to the computer code through the REFPROP database. Over the length of the heat exchanger local changes in Reynolds number, Nusselt number, and heat transfer coefficient are charted. From the results of the heat transfer calculations, the log mean temperature difference and heat exchange effectiveness of the heat exchanger is calculated. Using the code to produce multiple results, the optimum heat exchanger design is found. Recommendations on the manufacturing method of a micro-channel recuperator are made.


Author(s):  
Alan Kruizenga ◽  
Mark Anderson ◽  
Roma Fatima ◽  
Michael Corradini ◽  
Aaron Towne ◽  
...  

The increasing importance of improving efficiency and reducing capital costs has led to significant work studying advanced Brayton cycles for high temperature energy conversion. Using compact, highly efficient, diffusion-bonded heat exchangers for the recuperators has been a noteworthy improvement in the design of advanced carbon dioxide Brayton cycles. These heat exchangers will operate near the pseudocritical point of carbon dioxide, making use of the drastic variation of the thermophysical properties. This paper focuses on the experimental measurements of heat transfer under cooling conditions, as well as pressure drop characteristics within a prototypic printed circuit heat exchanger. Studies utilize type-316 stainless steel, nine channel, semi-circular test section, and supercritical carbon dioxide serves as the working fluid throughout all experiments. The test section channels have a hydraulic diameter of 1.16 mm and a length of 0.5 m. The mini-channels are fabricated using current chemical etching technology, emulating techniques used in current diffusion-bonded printed circuit heat exchanger manufacturing. Local heat transfer values were determined using measured wall temperatures and heat fluxes over a large set of experimental parameters that varied system pressure, inlet temperature, and mass flux. Experimentally determined heat transfer coefficients and pressure drop data are compared to correlations and earlier data available in literature. Modeling predictions using the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) package FLUENT are included to supplement experimental data. All nine channels were modeled using known inlet conditions and measured wall temperatures as boundary conditions. The CFD results show excellent agreement in total heat removal for the near pseudocritical region, as well as regions where carbon dioxide is a high or low density fluid.


2020 ◽  
pp. 1-34
Author(s):  
Matthew Carlson ◽  
Francisco Alvarez

Abstract A new generation of Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) technologies is under development to provide dispatchable renewable power generation and reduce the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) to 6 cents/kWh by leveraging heat transfer fluids (HTF) capable of operation at higher temperatures and coupling with higher efficiency power conversion cycles. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has funded three pathways for Generation 3 CSP (Gen3CSP) technology development to leverage solid, liquid, and gaseous HTFs to transfer heat to a supercritical carbon dioxide (sCO2) Brayton cycle. This paper presents the design and off-design capabilities of a 1 MWth sCO2 test system that can provide sCO2 coolant to the primary heat exchangers (PHX) coupling the high-temperature HTFs to the sCO2 working fluid of the power cycle. This system will demonstrate design, performance, lifetime, and operability at a scale relevant to commercial CSP. A dense-phase high pressure canned motor pump is used to supply up to 5.3 kg/s of sCO2 flow to the primary heat exchanger at pressures up to 250 bar and temperatures up to 715 °C with ambient air as the ultimate heat sink. Key component requirements for this system are presented in this paper.


2012 ◽  
Vol 134 (8) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan Kruizenga ◽  
Hongzhi Li ◽  
Mark Anderson ◽  
Michael Corradini

Competitive cycles must have a minimal initial cost and be inherently efficient. Currently, the supercritical carbon dioxide (S-CO2) Brayton cycle is under consideration for these very reasons. This paper examines one major challenge of the S-CO2 Brayton cycle: the complexity of heat exchanger design due to the vast change in thermophysical properties near a fluid’s critical point. Turbulent heat transfer experiments using carbon dioxide, with Reynolds numbers up to 100 K, were performed at pressures of 7.5–10.1 MPa, at temperatures spanning the pseudocritical temperature. The geometry employed nine semicircular, parallel channels to aide in the understanding of current printed circuit heat exchanger designs. Computational fluid dynamics was performed using FLUENT and compared to the experimental results. Existing correlations were compared, and predicted the data within 20% for pressures of 8.1 MPa and 10.2 MPa. However, near the critical pressure and temperature, heat transfer correlations tended to over predict the heat transfer behavior. It was found that FLUENT gave the best prediction of heat transfer results, provided meshing was at a y+ ∼ 1.


Author(s):  
John J. Dyreby ◽  
Sanford A. Klein ◽  
Gregory F. Nellis ◽  
Douglas T. Reindl

Continuing efforts to increase the efficiency of utility-scale electricity generation has resulted in considerable interest in Brayton cycles operating with supercritical carbon dioxide (S-CO2). One of the advantages of S-CO2 Brayton cycles, compared to the more traditional steam Rankine cycle, is that equal or greater thermal efficiencies can be realized using significantly smaller turbomachinery. Another advantage is that heat rejection is not limited by the saturation temperature of the working fluid, facilitating dry cooling of the cycle (i.e., the use of ambient air as the sole heat rejection medium). While dry cooling is especially advantageous for power generation in arid climates, the reduction in water consumption at any location is of growing interest due to likely tighter environmental regulations being enacted in the future. Daily and seasonal weather variations coupled with electric load variations means the plant will operate away from its design point the majority of the year. Models capable of predicting the off-design and part-load performance of S-CO2 power cycles are necessary for evaluating cycle configurations and turbomachinery designs. This paper presents a flexible modeling methodology capable of predicting the steady state performance of various S-CO2 cycle configurations for both design and off-design ambient conditions, including part-load plant operation. The models assume supercritical CO2 as the working fluid for both a simple recuperated Brayton cycle and a more complex recompression Brayton cycle.


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.


2013 ◽  
Vol 136 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Saeb M. Besarati ◽  
D. Yogi Goswami

A number of studies have been performed to assess the potential of using supercritical carbon dioxide (S-CO2) in closed-loop Brayton cycles for power generation. Different configurations have been examined among which recompression and partial cooling configurations have been found very promising, especially for concentrating solar power (CSP) applications. It has been demonstrated that the S-CO2 Brayton cycle using these configurations is capable of achieving more than 50% efficiency at operating conditions that could be achieved in central receiver tower type CSP systems. Although this efficiency is high, it might be further improved by considering an appropriate bottoming cycle utilizing waste heat from the top S-CO2 Brayton cycle. The organic Rankine cycle (ORC) is one alternative proposed for this purpose; however, its performance is substantially affected by the selection of the working fluid. In this paper, a simple S-CO2 Brayton cycle, a recompression S-CO2 Brayton cycle, and a partial cooling S-CO2 Brayton cycle are first simulated and compared with the available data in the literature. Then, an ORC is added to each configuration for utilizing the waste heat. Different working fluids are examined for the bottoming cycles and the operating conditions are optimized. The combined cycle efficiencies and turbine expansion ratios are compared to find the appropriate working fluids for each configuration. It is also shown that combined recompression-ORC cycle achieves higher efficiency compared with other configurations.


Author(s):  
Takashi Sasaki ◽  
Masao Itoh ◽  
Hideyuki Maeda ◽  
Junichi Tominaga ◽  
Daizo Saito ◽  
...  

Toshiba has been developing a turbine and a combustor for a semi-closed recuperated Brayton cycle of supercritical carbon dioxide called the Allam cycle, which is capable of both sequestrating 100% of carbon dioxide generated by combustion and providing electricity with competitive efficiency as the advanced combined cycle. The 25 MWe class demonstration plant with natural gas for this innovative cycle is being constructed in the USA by NET Power LLC and its operation is expected to be in 2017. Toshiba is going to provide the main components of its turbine and combustor. This paper describes the specification of the turbine and the combustor and consideration necessary to realize them in the first of a kind design condition of 30MPa with a supercritical carbon dioxide as its working fluid. This paper also describes some of the validation tests to realize new technologies before this turbine and combustor are installed and operated in the demonstration plant.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document