Publications

Modeling and experimental results for condensing supercritical CO2 power cycles

Wright, Steven A.; Conboy, Thomas M.; Rochau, Gary E.

This Sandia supported research project evaluated the potential improvement that 'condensing' supercritical carbon dioxide (S-CO{sub 2}) power cycles can have on the efficiency of Light Water Reactors (LWR). The analytical portion of research project identified that a S-CO{sub 2} 'condensing' re-compression power cycle with multiple stages of reheat can increase LWR power conversion efficiency from 33-34% to 37-39%. The experimental portion of the project used Sandia's S-CO{sub 2} research loop to show that the as designed radial compressor could 'pump' liquid CO{sub 2} and that the gas-cooler's could 'condense' CO{sub 2} even though both of these S-CO{sub 2} components were designed to operate on vapor phase S-CO{sub 2} near the critical point. There is potentially very high value to this research as it opens the possibility of increasing LWR power cycle efficiency, above the 33-34% range, while lowering the capital cost of the power plant because of the small size of the S-CO{sub 2} power system. In addition it provides a way to incrementally build advanced LWRs that are optimally designed to couple to S-CO{sub 2} power conversion systems to increase the power cycle efficiency to near 40%.