Analysis of supercritical CO2 Brayton power cycles in nuclear and fusion energy

• Published in: Fusion engineering and design Vol. 146; pp. 1520 - 1523
• Main Authors: Syblik, Jan, Vesely, Ladislav, Entler, Slavomir, Stepanek, Jan, Dostal, Vaclav
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Amsterdam Elsevier B.V 01.09.2019; Elsevier Science Ltd
• Subjects: Carbon dioxide; Cooling; Cooling cycle; Cooling systems; DEMO 2; Design optimization; Nuclear energy; Nuclear fusion; Nuclear power plants; Parameters; Physical properties; Projects; Supercritical CO2; Nuclear fusion; Supercritical CO2; Cooling cycle; DEMO 2
• ISSN: 0920-3796; 1873-7196
• DOI: 10.1016/j.fusengdes.2019.02.119

The first part of this article focuses on proposal of the appropriate cooling cycle for the specific fusion reactor. Furthermore, cooling technology of fusion power plant, two supercritical CO2 Brayton cycles and its positive and negative aspects are described. Additionally, comparison of cycles in terms of difficulty and possibilities of using more resources at once are depicted. This work also gives a principal preview of main technical parameters of supercritical CO2 cooling system. The second part describes the optimization of suggested design in order to maximize power of a fusion power plant and new computational software for optimization of the cooling cycles therewith, which would be also useful in the field of nuclear power engineering. The results of this article is comparison of efficiencies, power and other physical parameters of two layouts.