Testing of a Compact Heat Exchanger for Use as the Cooler in a Supercritical CO{sub 2} Brayton Cycle
- Argonne National Laboratory, 9700 S. Cass Avenue, Argonne, IL 60439 (United States)
- Kansas State University, 3002 Rathbone hall, Manhattan, KS 66506-5205 (United States)
The performance of a compact, printed circuit heat exchanger manufactured by Heatric has been tested for operating conditions corresponding to those of the cooler in the STARLM lead fast reactor (LFR) concept, which is designed with an indirect supercritical CO{sub 2} Brayton cycle for power production. The heat exchanger was tested with water at atmospheric pressure on the cold side and supercritical CO{sub 2} on the hot side. To match the planned cooler conditions, the hot side operated at a pressure of 7.5 MPa, inlet temperature in the range of 70-90 deg C, and an outlet temperature of 31.6-31.8 deg. C, which is near the pseudo-critical point. A test at 8.5 MPa and similar temperatures was performed for comparison. CO{sub 2} mass flow rates were in the range of 100 to 700 kg/h, and heat loads between 10 and 30 kW. The heat transfer coefficients for Reynolds numbers between 2000 and 6000 are 200-800 W/m{sup 2}K. The accompanying water side heat transfer coefficient, measured in separate tests, was {approx}3500 W/m{sup 2}K and so the heat transfer rate for these cooler operating conditions was controlled by the CO{sub 2} side. The average heat transfer coefficient was expected to increase with proximity of the outlet temperature to the pseudo-critical temperature, but such an effect was not observed. Therefore the PCHE performance appeared to be unaffected by the substantial fluid property variations in the pseudo-critical region. (authors)
- Research Organization:
- American Nuclear Society, 555 North Kensington Avenue, La Grange Park, IL 60526 (United States)
- OSTI ID:
- 21016406
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: 2006 International congress on advances in nuclear power plants - ICAPP'06, Reno - Nevada (United States), 4-8 Jun 2006; Other Information: Country of input: France; 17 refs; Related Information: In: Proceedings of the 2006 international congress on advances in nuclear power plants - ICAPP'06, 2734 pages.
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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