Performance Analysis of a Novel PXS With Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) System
With the increasing of core thermal power of the nuclear power plant, the decay heat of the core increases in the accident. Therefore, the heat removal capacity of the PXS should be enhanced to fulfill the requirement of core safety. A new scheme is put forward to improve the cooling capacity of PXS and provides long-term power for station blackout (SBO) accident or loss of normal feedwater. In this system, the Organic Rankine Cycle is incorporated between the hot leg and cold leg of PRHR. The decay heat of the core is the heat source and the cooling pool outside the containment is the cool source. The natural circulation of the primary loop is established due to the density difference. The primary fluid flows into the evaporator of the ORC system, where the working fluid of the ORC system is evaporated. Then the temperature of the primary fluid is decreased. The vaporized working fluid drives the expander, which is coaxially fixed with the fluid pump, to generate the power. Finally, the exhausted vapor flows into the condenser and the residual heat is discharged outside of the containment simultaneously. The working fluid in the condenser is pumped into the evaporator by the fluid pump for liquid supplement and the cycle keeps on working continuously. A steady state analysis is performed on a 1700MWe nuclear power plant with ORC as the heat removal system. The heat transfer area of the ORC evaporator is fixed as 487.7m2, which is the same as the area of PRHR HX. The efficiencies of fluid pump and expander of ORC system are assumed as 0.75 and 0.8, respectively. The decay heat of the core is about 67.62MWe, which is 1.38% of the core full power. The working fluids are screened and R141b offers excellent performance. The efficiency of fluid pump and expander are assumed as 0.75 and 0.8, respectively. The condensing temperature is assumed as 80°C and the evaporating temperature is 160°C. The results show that 7.83MWe will be generated by the ORC system and the heat transfer area of the condenser is about 994.5m2. The residual heat of 59.79MWe will be discharged to the water tank outside the containment.