Book Description
A systematic, detailed major component and system design evaluation and multiple parameter optimization under practical constraints has been performed of the family of supercritical CO2 Brayton power cycles for application to advanced nuclear reactors. The recompression cycle is shown to excel with respect to simplicity, compactness, cost and thermal efficiency. The main advantage of the supercritical CO2 cycle is comparable efficiency with the helium Brayton cycle at significantly lower temperature (550°C vs. 850 0C), but higher pressure (20 MPa vs. 8 MPa). The supercritical CO2 cycle is well suited to any type of nuclear reactor with core outlet temperature above [approx.] 500 0C in either direct or indirect versions. By taking advantage of the abrupt property changes near the critical point of CO2 the compression work can be reduced, which results in a significant efficiency improvement. However, a real gas cycle requires much more careful optimization than an ideal gas Brayton cycle. Previous investigations by earlier authors were systematized and refined in the present work to survey several different CO2 cycle layouts. Inter- cooling, re-heating, re-compressing and pre-compressing were considered. The recompression cycle was found to yield the highest efficiency, while still retaining simplicity. Inter-cooling is not attractive for this type of cycle as it offers a very modest efficiency improvement. Re-heating has a better potential, but it is applicable only to indirect cycles. Economic analysis of the benefit of re-heating for the indirect cycle showed that using more than one stage of re-heat is economically unattractive.