Enhancing heat rejection from electronic devices with a supercritical carbon dioxide minichannel heat exchanger

2019 ◽  
Vol 106 ◽  
pp. 463-473 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olivia C. da Rosa ◽  
Felipe G. Battisti ◽  
Gustavo M. Hobold ◽  
Alexandre K. da Silva
Author(s):  
Shaun D. Sullivan ◽  
Jason Farias ◽  
James Kesseli ◽  
James Nash

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.


Author(s):  
John Dyreby ◽  
Sanford Klein ◽  
Gregory Nellis ◽  
Douglas Reindl

Supercritical carbon dioxide (SCO2) Brayton cycles have the potential to offer improved thermal-to-electric conversion efficiency for utility scale electricity production. These cycles have generated considerable interest in recent years because of this potential and are being considered for a range of applications, including nuclear and concentrating solar power (CSP). Two promising SCO2 power cycle variations are the simple Brayton cycle with recuperation and the recompression cycle. The models described in this paper are appropriate for the analysis and optimization of both cycle configurations under a range of design conditions. The recuperators in the cycle are modeled assuming a constant heat exchanger conductance value, which allows for computationally efficient optimization of the cycle's design parameters while accounting for the rapidly varying fluid properties of carbon dioxide near its critical point. Representing the recuperators using conductance, rather than effectiveness, allows for a more appropriate comparison among design-point conditions because a larger conductance typically corresponds more directly to a physically larger and higher capital cost heat exchanger. The model is used to explore the relationship between recuperator size and heat rejection temperature of the cycle, specifically in regard to maximizing thermal efficiency. The results presented in this paper are normalized by net power output and may be applied to cycles of any size. Under the design conditions considered for this analysis, results indicate that increasing the design high-side (compressor outlet) pressure does not always correspond to higher cycle thermal efficiency. Rather, there is an optimal compressor outlet pressure that is dependent on the recuperator size and operating temperatures of the cycle and is typically in the range of 30–35 MPa. Model results also indicate that the efficiency degradation associated with warmer heat rejection temperatures (e.g., in dry-cooled applications) are reduced by increasing the compressor inlet pressure. Because the optimal design of a cycle depends upon a number of application-specific variables, the model presented in this paper is available online and is envisioned as a building block for more complex and specific simulations.


2020 ◽  
pp. 1-34
Author(s):  
Matthew Carlson ◽  
Francisco Alvarez

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.


2012 ◽  
Vol 134 (8) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan Kruizenga ◽  
Hongzhi Li ◽  
Mark Anderson ◽  
Michael Corradini

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.


Author(s):  
John J. Dyreby ◽  
Sanford A. Klein ◽  
Gregory F. Nellis ◽  
Douglas T. Reindl

Continuing efforts to increase the efficiency of utility-scale electricity generation has resulted in considerable interest in Brayton cycles operating with supercritical carbon dioxide (S-CO2). One of the advantages of S-CO2 Brayton cycles, compared to the more traditional steam Rankine cycle, is that equal or greater thermal efficiencies can be realized using significantly smaller turbomachinery. Another advantage is that heat rejection is not limited by the saturation temperature of the working fluid, facilitating dry cooling of the cycle (i.e., the use of ambient air as the sole heat rejection medium). While dry cooling is especially advantageous for power generation in arid climates, the reduction in water consumption at any location is of growing interest due to likely tighter environmental regulations being enacted in the future. Daily and seasonal weather variations coupled with electric load variations means the plant will operate away from its design point the majority of the year. Models capable of predicting the off-design and part-load performance of S-CO2 power cycles are necessary for evaluating cycle configurations and turbomachinery designs. This paper presents a flexible modeling methodology capable of predicting the steady state performance of various S-CO2 cycle configurations for both design and off-design ambient conditions, including part-load plant operation. The models assume supercritical CO2 as the working fluid for both a simple recuperated Brayton cycle and a more complex recompression Brayton cycle.


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