scholarly journals Design of a 1 Mwth Supercritical Carbon Dioxide Primary Heat Exchanger Test System

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Carlson ◽  
Francisco Alvarez
Keyword(s):  
Carbon Dioxide ◽  
Heat Exchanger ◽  
Supercritical Carbon Dioxide ◽  
Test System ◽  
Supercritical Carbon

scholarly journals DESIGN OF A 1 MWTH SUPERCRITICAL CARBON DIOXIDE PRIMARY HEAT EXCHANGER TEST SYSTEM

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-34
Author(s):  
Matthew Carlson ◽  
Francisco Alvarez
Keyword(s):  
Carbon Dioxide ◽  
Heat Exchanger ◽  
Supercritical Carbon Dioxide ◽  
Technology Development ◽  
Ambient Air ◽  
Test System ◽  
Department Of Energy ◽  
Working Fluid ◽  
Levelized Cost Of Electricity ◽  
Supercritical Carbon

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.

scholarly journals Design of a 1 MWth Supercritical Carbon Dioxide Primary Heat Exchanger Test System

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Carlson ◽  
Francisco Alvarez
Keyword(s):  
Carbon Dioxide ◽  
Power Generation ◽  
Heat Exchanger ◽  
Supercritical Carbon Dioxide ◽  
Storage System ◽  
Thermal Storage ◽  
Ambient Air ◽  
Test System ◽  
Brayton Cycle ◽  
Supercritical Carbon

Abstract Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) plants have the potential to provide dispatchable renewable power generation to support the baseload need currently supplied primarily by coal and nuclear plants and peaking power capability to reduce the use of natural gas for load following. However, these plants have had difficulty achieving widespread use due to the low cost of combined photovoltaic and battery systems capable of providing similar services to the electricity grid. A new generation of CSP technologies must be developed to 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. Three promising pathways for Generation 3 CSP (Gen3CSP) technology development have been funded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) leveraging solid, liquid, and gaseous HTFs to transfer heat to a supercritical carbon dioxide (sCO2) Brayton cycle. The primary heat exchangers (PHX) necessary to couple these high-temperature HTFs to sCO2 are an essential new technology that must be demonstrated at a scale relevant to commercial CSP to validate design expectations for performance, lifetime, and operability. The demonstration of these PHXs need a reliable 1 MWth-scale sCO2 test system that can provide sCO2 coolant to the PHX in a compact package suitable for installation near any Gen3CSP thermal storage system. This paper outlines the final design of such a system including the expected operating range and off-design capabilities. The system uses a dense-phase high pressure canned motor pump as the sCO2 circulator and ambient air as the ultimate heat sink operating at pressures up to 250 bar and temperatures up to 715 °C with capability to supply up to 5.3 kg/s of sCO2 flow to the primary heat exchanger. Key component requirements for this system have been frozen and procurement is underway. The expected completion date for heated acceptance testing of this system is September of 2020. This system is also capable of being upgraded through the addition of a turbo-compressor and turbo-generator to operate as a complete sCO2 Brayton cycle with power generation in order to demonstrate an integrated solar to sCO2 power pilot plant and understand transient interactions between the thermal storage system, sCO2 turbomachinery, and ambient air temperature. In addition, this upgrade would provide experience with plant operating considerations including balancing charging the thermal storage system with generating and dispatching power to the electrical grid. A roadmap for this upgrade will be discussed including limitations and requirements for the necessary turbomachinery.

Supercritical Carbon Dioxide Heat Transfer in Horizontal Semicircular Channels

2012 ◽  
Vol 134 (8) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan Kruizenga ◽  
Hongzhi Li ◽  
Mark Anderson ◽  
Michael Corradini
Keyword(s):  
Heat Transfer ◽  
Carbon Dioxide ◽  
Heat Exchanger ◽  
Supercritical Carbon Dioxide ◽  
Turbulent Heat Transfer ◽  
Turbulent Heat ◽  
Brayton Cycle ◽  
Heat Exchanger Design ◽  
Transfer Behavior ◽  
Supercritical Carbon

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.

Mechanical Design and Validation Testing for a High-Performance Supercritical Carbon Dioxide Heat Exchanger

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shaun D. Sullivan ◽  
Jason Farias ◽  
James Kesseli ◽  
James Nash
Keyword(s):  
Carbon Dioxide ◽  
Heat Exchanger ◽  
Supercritical Carbon Dioxide ◽  
Heat Exchangers ◽  
High Performance ◽  
Mechanical Design ◽  
Great Promise ◽  
Heat Rejection ◽  
Very High ◽  
Supercritical Carbon

Supercritical carbon dioxide (sCO2) Brayton cycles hold great promise as they can achieve high efficiencies — in excess of 50% — even at relatively moderate temperatures of 700–800 K. However, this high performance is contingent upon high-effectiveness recuperating and heat rejection heat exchangers within the cycle. A great deal of work has gone into development of these heat exchangers as they must operate not only at elevated temperatures and very high pressures (20–30 MPa), but they must also be compact, low-cost, and long-life components in order to fully leverage the benefits of the sCO2 power cycle. This paper discusses the mechanical design and qualification for a novel plate-fin compact heat exchanger designed for sCO2 cycle recuperators and waste heat rejection heat exchangers, as well as direct sCO2 solar absorber applications. The architecture may furthermore be extended to other very high pressure heat exchanger applications such as pipeline natural gas and transcritical cooling cycles. The basic heat exchanger construction is described, with attention given to those details which have a direct impact on the durability of the unit. Modeling and analysis of various mechanical failure modes — including burst strength, creep, and fatigue — are discussed. The design and construction of test sections, test rigs, and testing procedures are described, along with the test results that demonstrate that the tested design has an operating life well in excess of the 100,000 cycles/90,000 hour targets. Finally, the application of these findings to a set of design tools for future units is demonstrated.

Heat Transfer of Supercritical Carbon Dioxide in Printed Circuit Heat Exchanger Geometries

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan Kruizenga ◽  
Mark Anderson ◽  
Roma Fatima ◽  
Michael Corradini ◽  
Aaron Towne ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Heat Transfer ◽  
Carbon Dioxide ◽  
Heat Exchanger ◽  
Pressure Drop ◽  
Supercritical Carbon Dioxide ◽  
Test Section ◽  
Heat Exchangers ◽  
Total Power ◽  
Printed Circuit ◽  
Supercritical Carbon

The increasing importance of improving efficiency and reducing capital costs has lead 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 thermo-physical 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 1.16mm and a length of 0.5m. 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 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 FLUENT results show excellent agreement in total power removal for the near pseudocritical region, as well as regions where carbon dioxide is a high or low density fluid.

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