Small-scale supercritical CO2 demonstration loops are successful at identifying the important technical issues that one must face in order to scale up to larger power levels. The Sandia National Laboratories supercritical CO2 Brayton cycle test loops are identifying technical needs to scale the technology to commercial power levels such as 10 MWe. The small size of the Sandia 1 MWth loop has demonstration of the split flow loop efficiency and effectiveness of the Printed Circuit Heat Exchangers (PCHXs) leading to the design of a fully recuperated, split flow, supercritical CO2 Brayton cycle demonstration system. However, there were many problems that were encountered, such as high rotational speeds in the units. Additionally, the turbomachinery in the test loops need to identify issues concerning the bearings, seals, thermal boundaries, and motor controller problems in order to be proved a reliable power source in the 300 kWe range. Although these issues were anticipated in smaller demonstration units, commercially scaled hardware would eliminate these problems caused by high rotational speeds at small scale. The economic viability and development of the future scalable 10 MWe solely depends on the interest of DOE and private industry. The Intellectual Property collected by Sandia proves that the ~10 MWe supercritical CO2 power conversion loop to be very beneficial when coupled to a 20 MWth heat source (either solar, geothermal, fossil, or nuclear). This paper will identify a commercialization plan, as well as, a roadmap from the simple 1 MWth supercritical CO2 development loop to a power producing 10 MWe supercritical CO2 Brayton loop.
A liquid sodium cooled fast reactor coupled to a supercritical carbon dioxide Brayton power cycle is a promising combination for the next generation nuclear power production process. For optimum efficiency, a microchannel heat exchanger, constructed by diffusion bonding, can be used for heat transfer from the liquid sodium reactor coolant to the supercritical carbon dioxide. In this work, we have reviewed the literature on corrosion of metals in liquid sodium and carbon dioxide. The main conclusions are (1) pure, dry CO{sub 2} is virtually inert but can be highly corrosive in the presence of even ppm concentrations of water, (2) carburization and decarburization are very significant mechanism for corrosion in liquid sodium especially at high temperature and the mechanism is not well understood, and (3) very little information could be located on corrosion of diffusion bonded metals. Significantly more research is needed in all of these areas.
Sandia National Laboratories is investigating advanced Brayton cycles using supercritical working fluids for application to a variety of heat sources, including geothermal, solar, fossil, and nuclear power. This work is centered on the supercritical CO{sub 2} (S-CO{sub 2}) power conversion cycle, which has the potential for high efficiency in the temperature range of interest for these heat sources and is very compact-a feature likely to reduce capital costs. One promising approach is the use of CO{sub 2}-based supercritical fluid mixtures. The introduction of additives to CO{sub 2} alters the equation of state and the critical point of the resultant mixture. A series of tests was carried out using Sandia's supercritical fluid compression loop that confirmed the ability of different additives to increase or lower the critical point of CO{sub 2}. Testing also demonstrated that, above the modified critical point, these mixtures can be compressed in a turbocompressor as a single-phase homogenous mixture. Comparisons of experimental data to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Reference Fluid Thermodynamic and Transport Properties (REFPROP) Standard Reference Database predictions varied depending on the fluid. Although the pressure, density, and temperature (p, {rho}, T) data for all tested fluids matched fairly well to REFPROP in most regions, the critical temperature was often inaccurate. In these cases, outside literature was found to provide further insight and to qualitatively confirm the validity of experimental findings for the present investigation.
This paper describes the modeling and initial operations of a reactivity feedback control system for an electric heater operating within a low pressure closed Brayton cycle. Modeling was carried out using Simulink, converted to a dynamic-linked library in RealTime Workshop, and interfaces with the Brayton cycle hardware through an 800MHz CompactRIO controller and its custom LabView set-up. Experimentally measured temperatures of the operating Brayton loop are used by the model to calculate average fuel and coolant temperatures for a simulated reactor core, which in turn govern feedback to electrical heating elements within the loop. Coupled with the reactivity controller, this laboratory-scale Brayton system operates with a heat source that has the feedback characteristics of a nuclear reactor core. This capability is being developed for space reactor transient analysis in support of NASA's FSP (Fission Surface Power) technology.
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%.