• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제53권3호
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• pp.699-714
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• 2021

Supercritical CO₂ (S-CO₂) Brayton cycle has been applied to various heat sources in recent decades, owing to the characteristics of compact structure and high efficiency. Understanding the research development in this emerging research field is crucial for future study. Thus, a bibliometric approach is employed to analyze the scientific publications of S-CO₂ cycle field from 2000 to 2019. In Scopus database, there were totally 724 publications from 1378 authors and 543 institutes, which were distributed over 55 countries. Based on the software-BibExcel, these publications were analyzed from various aspects, such as major research areas, affiliations and keyword occurrence frequency. Furthermore, parameters such as citations, hot articles were also employed to evaluate the research output of productive countries, institutes and authors. The analysis showed that each paper has been cited 13.39 times averagely. United States was identified as the leading country in S-CO₂ research followed by China and South Korea. Based on the contents of publications, existing researches on S-CO₂ are briefly reviewed from the five aspects, namely application, cycle configurations and modeling, CO₂-based mixtures, system components, and experiments. Future development is suggested to accelerate the commercialization of S-CO₂ power system.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제54권9호
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• pp.3540-3550
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• 2022

The supercritical carbon dioxide (S-CO₂) Brayton cycle is an important energy conversion technology for the fourth generation of nuclear energy. Since the printed circuit heat exchanger (PCHE) used in the S-CO₂ Brayton cycle has narrow channels, Rayleigh-Bénard (RB) convection is likely to exist in the tiny channels. However, there are very few studies on RB convection in supercritical fluids. Current research on RB convection mainly focuses on conventional fluids such as water and air that meet the Boussinesq assumption. It is necessary to study non-Boussinesq fluids. PRB convection refers to RB convection that is affected by horizontal incoming flow. In this paper, the computational fluid dynamics simulation method is used to study the PRB convection phenomenon of non-Boussinesq fluid-supercritical carbon dioxide. The result shows that the inlet Reynolds number (Re) of the horizontal incoming flow significantly affects the PRB convection. When the inlet Re remains unchanged, with the increase of Rayleigh number (Ra), the steady-state convective pattern of the fluid layer is shown in order: horizontal flow, local traveling wave, traveling wave convection. If Ra remains unchanged, as the inlet Re increases, three convection patterns of traveling wave convection, local traveling wave, and horizontal flow will appear in sequence. To characterize the relationship between traveling wave convection and horizontal incoming flow, this paper proposes the relationship between critical Reynolds number and relative Rayleigh number (r).

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제54권3호
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• pp.877-887
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• 2022

A new reactor concept is described that directly couples a supercritical CO₂ (sCO₂) power cycle with a CO₂-cooled, heavy water moderated pressure tube core. This configuration attains the simplification and economic potential of past direct-cycle sCO₂ concepts, while also providing safety and power density benefits by using the moderator as a heat sink for decay heat removal. A 200 MWe design is described that heavily leverages existing commercial nuclear technologies, including reactor and moderator systems from Canadian CANDU reactors and fuels and materials from UK Advanced Gas-cooled Reactors (AGRs). Descriptions are provided of the power cycle, nuclear island systems, reactor core, and safety systems, and the results of safety analyses are shown illustrating the ability of the design to withstand large-break loss of coolant accidents. The resulting design attains high efficiency while employing considerably fewer systems than current light water reactors and advanced reactor technologies, illustrating its economic promise. Prospects for the design are discussed, including the ability to demonstrate its technologies in a small (~20 MWe) initial system, and avenues for further improvement of the design using advanced technologies.

• 동력기계공학회지
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• 제18권4호
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• pp.60-65
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• 2014

In this paper, cycle performance analysis for heating capacity, compression work and COP of R134a supercritical heat pump is presented to offer the basic design data for the operating parameters of the system. The operating parameters considered in this study include superheating degree, pressure and outlet temperature of gas cooler, compressor efficiency and evaporating temperature in the R134a supercritical heat pump system. The main results were summarized as follows : Superheating degree, pressure and outlet temperature of gas cooler, compressor efficiency and evaporating temperature of R134a heat pump system have an effect on the heating capacity, compression work and COP of this system. With a thorough grasp of these effect, it is necessary to design the supercritical heat pump using R134a. The prediction for COP of R134a supercritical heat pump have been proposed through multiple regression analysis.

• 한국원자력학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국원자력학회 2005년도 추계학술발표회
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• pp.47-48
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• 2005

• 한국산학기술학회논문지
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• 제21권6호
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• pp.403-410
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• 2020

본 논문은 포항지역 태양광 데이터를 기반으로 태양열을 적용시켜 12kW의 소형 초임계 이산화탄소(s-CO₂) 시험 루프의 설계와 실험 시설의 이론적 연구, 안정화 및 최적화를 통한 이산화탄소의 특성 연구에 초점을 맞추고 있다. 실험 시설의 열역학 사이클은 구성 요소의 한계로 인해 액체, 가스 및 초임계 CO₂가 모두 존재하는 랭킨 사이클(임계점 순환 주기)이며, 펌프, 히터, 레귤레이터, 열교환기, 가스 부스터, 에어 컴프레서 등으로 구성된다. 현재 본 연구에서 제작된 12kW 소형 발전 시스템은 최고압력 12MPa 최고 온도 70℃의 조건에서 6.98%의 효율이 나타나도록 설계되었다. 본 실험 장치를 소형 Brayton cycle과 비교했을 때 약 2% 높은 효율을 가진다는 것을 이론적으로 확인하였고, 사이클 효율을 높이기 위해 최적의 터빈 입구 온도와 압력을 얻었으며, 이 조건에서 IHX(내부 열교환기)의 도입시 18.75%의 최대 효율을 기대할 수 있다는 결론을 도출하였다. 마지막으로, 실험 설비의 태양광 시뮬레이션 결과 5월에는 6.7%, 6월에는 6.26%의 효율로 태양열을 이용할 수 있음을 확인하였다.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제54권4호
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• pp.1482-1494
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• 2022

Power conversion cycles (Subcritical Steam, Supercritical Steam, Open Air Brayton, Recuperated Air Brayton, Combined Cycle, Closed Brayton Supercritical CO₂ (sCO₂), and Stirling) are evaluated for land-based nuclear microreactors based on technical maturity, system efficiency, size, cost and maintainability, safety implications, and siting considerations. Based upon these criteria, Air Brayton systems were selected for further evaluation. A brief history of the development and applications of Brayton power systems is given, followed by a description of how these thermal-to-electrical energy conversion systems might be integrated with a nuclear microreactor. Modeling is performed for optimized cycles operating at 3 MW(e) with turbine inlet temperatures of 500 ℃, 650 ℃ and 850 ℃, corresponding to: a) sodium fast, b) molten salt or heat pipe, and c) helium or sodium thermal reactors, coupled with three types of Brayton power conversion units (PCUs): 1) simple open-cycle gas turbine, 2) recuperated open-cycle gas turbine, and 3) recuperated and intercooled open-cycle gas turbine. Aeroderivative turboshaft engines employing the simple Brayton cycle and two industrial gas turbine engines employing recuperated air Brayton cycles are also analyzed. These engines offer mature technology that can facilitate near-term deployment with a modest improvement in efficiency.

• 대한기계학회논문집B
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• 제39권10호
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• pp.787-793
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• 2015

초임계 이산화탄소($S-CO_2$) 사이클은 소형화된 터보기계 및 열교환기를 통해서 작은 공간에서도 높은 열효율로 전력을 생산할 수 있는 잠재력을 가진 것으로 평가되고 있으며, 최근 이에 대한 관심이 증가하고 있다. 원자력 및 태양열(CSP) 분야에서 $S-CO_2$ 사이클에 대한 연구 결과가 다수 소개되어 온 반면, 폐열 분야에 대한 연구 결과는 상대적으로 많지 않다. 본 연구에서는 폐열 회수 응용 분야에 있어서, 예열에 의한 $S-CO_2$ 사이클의 성능 향상 가능성을 살피기 위하여, 재생 $S-CO_2$ 브레이튼 사이클과 예열기를 갖는 재생 $S-CO_2$ 브레이튼 사이클을 모델링하고 시뮬레이션 하였다. 시뮬레이션 결과, 순출력을 극대화시키는 최적 $CO_2$ 분기율이 존재함을 확인하였다. 본 연구의 시뮬레이션 조건 하에서, 예열기에 의한 순출력 향상은 약 16-26%로 계산되었다.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• 제36권3호
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• pp.153-160
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• 2020

In this paper, we present a hydrostatic bearing design and rotordynamic analysis of a pump-and-drive turbine module for a 250-kW supercritical CO₂ cycle application. The pump-and-drive turbine module consists of the pump and turbine wheel, assembled to a shaft supported by two hydrostatic radial and thrust bearings. The rated speed is 21,000 rpm and the rated power is 143 kW. For the bearing operation, we use high-pressure CO₂ as the lubricant, which is supplied to the bearing through the orifice restrictor. We calculate the bearing stiffness and flow rate for various orifice diameters, and then select the diameter that provides the maximum bearing stiffness. We also conduct a rotordynamic analysis based on the design parameters of the pump-and-drive turbine module. The predicted Campbell diagram shows that there is no critical speed below the rated speed, owing to the high stiffness of the bearings. Furthermore, the predicted damping ratio indicates that there is no unstable mode. We conduct the operating tests for the pump and drive turbine modules within the supercritical CO₂ cycle test loop. The pressurized CO₂, at a temperature of 136℃, is supplied to the turbine and we monitor the shaft vibration during the test. The test results show that there is no critical speed below the rated speed, and the shaft vibration is controlled to below 3 ㎛.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제53권6호
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• pp.1786-1795
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• 2021

Printed Circuit Heat Exchanger (PCHE) is a widely used heat exchanger in the supercritical carbon dioxide (sCO₂) Brayton cycle because it can work under high temperature and pressure, and has been a hot topic in Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP) projects for use as recuperators and condensers. Most previous studies focused on channel structures or shapes. However, no clear advancement has so far been seen in the allover size of the PCHE. In this paper, we proposed an optimal size of the PCHE with a fixed volume. Two boundary conditions of PCHE were simulated, respectively. When the volume of PCHE was fixed, the heat transfer rate and pressure loss were picked as the optimization objectives. The Pareto front was obtained by the Multi-objective optimization procedure. We got the optimized number of PCHE channels under two different boundary conditions from the Pareto front. The comprehensive performance can be increased by 5.3% while holding in the same volume. The numerical results from this study can be used to improve the design of PCHE with straight channels.