A thermodynamic analysis and optimization of four supercritical CO2 Brayton cycles were conducted in this study in order to improve calculation accuracy; the feasibility of the cycles; and compare the cycles’ design points. In particular, the overall thermal efficiency and the power output are the main targets in the optimization study. With respect to improving the accuracy of the analytical model, a computationally efficient technique using constant conductance (UA) to represent heat exchanger performances is executed. Four Brayton cycles involved in this compression analysis, simple recaptured, recompression, pre-compression, and split expansion. The four cycle configurations were thermodynamically modeled and optimized based on a genetic algorithm (GA) using an Engineering Equation Solver (EES) software. Results show that at any operating condition under 600 °C inlet turbine temperature, the recompression sCO2 Brayton cycle achieves the highest thermal efficiency. Also, the findings show that the simple recuperated cycle has the highest specific power output in spite of its simplicity.
