Design and thermodynamic analysis of supercritical CO2 reheating recompression Brayton cycle coupled with lead‐based reactor.

Summary: A reheating process is generally incorporated in a supercritical CO2 (S‐CO2) Brayton cycle to enhance its efficiency. The heat transfer process from the reactor coolant to the working fluid of the power cycle is a key issue encountered when designing reheating power systems for the lead‐based reactor. The traditional reheating system, called RH‐1, utilizes an intermediate coolant circuit. In this paper, a novel reheating system, called RH‐2, is proposed. It eliminates the intermediate coolant circuit and combines the processes of the primary heating and reheating in a single heat exchanger. A thermodynamic analysis of three different systems for the lead‐based reactor integrated with the S‐CO2 power cycle with or without reheating was conducted to evaluate the performance of the proposed system. The results confirmed that the performance of RH‐2 was the best of all the three systems. Under the same reactor conditions, the system efficiency of RH‐2 was greater than those of RH‐1 and the recompression (no reheating) system by 1.2% and 1.7%, respectively. RH‐2 could also maintain higher efficiency when the main operating parameters varied. The efficiency of RH‐2 was higher at different core outlet temperatures and split ratios. The maximum efficiency at optimal maximum pressure of RH‐2 was greater than those of the other two systems. RH‐2 was less sensitive to the variations in the isentropic efficiencies of the components than the other two systems, while the turbine isentropic efficiency demonstrated a significantly higher impact on the system efficiency than the two compressors (approximately 3.8 times). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]