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Title: Fundamental study of key issues related to advanced sCO2 Brayton cycle: Prototypic HX development and cavitation

Technical Report ·
DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/1417033· OSTI ID:1417033
 [1]
  1. Georgia Inst. of Technology, Atlanta, GA (United States)

Diffusion bonded heat exchangers are the leading candidates for the sCO2 Brayton cycles in next generation nuclear power plants. Commercially available diffusion bonded heat exchangers utilize set of continuous semi-circular zigzag micro channels to increase the heat transfer area and enhance heat transfer through increased turbulence production. Such heat exchangers can lead to excessive pressure drop as well as flow maldistribution in the case of poorly designed flow distribution headers. The goal of the current project is to fabricate and test potential discontinuous fin patterns for diffusion bonded heat exchangers; which can achieve desired thermal performance at lower pressure drops. Prototypic discontinuous offset rectangular and Airfoil fin surface geometries were chemically etched on to 316 stainless steel plate and sealed against an un-etched flat pate using O-ring seal emulating diffusion bonded heat exchangers. Thermal-hydraulic performance of these prototypic discontinuous fin geometries was experimentally evaluated and compared to the existing data for the continuous zigzag channels. The data generated from this project will serve as the database for future testing and validation of numerical models.

Research Organization:
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Nuclear Energy (NE)
DOE Contract Number:
NE0008299
OSTI ID:
1417033
Report Number(s):
14-6670; 14-6670; TRN: US1801784
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English