Numerical Dimensioning of a Pre-Cooler for sCO 2 Power Cycles to Utilize Industrial Waste Heat

Sebastian Unger, Jonas Müller, Malini Bangalore Mohankumar, Sebastian Rath and Uwe Hampel
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Sebastian Unger: Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf, Institute of Fluid Dynamics, Bautzner Landstr. 400, 01328 Dresden, Germany
Jonas Müller: Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf, Institute of Fluid Dynamics, Bautzner Landstr. 400, 01328 Dresden, Germany
Malini Bangalore Mohankumar: Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf, Institute of Fluid Dynamics, Bautzner Landstr. 400, 01328 Dresden, Germany
Sebastian Rath: Chair of Thermal Power Machinery and Plants, Institute of Power Engineering, Technische Universität Dresden, 01062 Dresden, Germany
Uwe Hampel: Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf, Institute of Fluid Dynamics, Bautzner Landstr. 400, 01328 Dresden, Germany

Energies, 2021, vol. 14, issue 24, 1-15

Abstract: The annual waste heat available from industry in the European Union is more than 2700 PJ. Consequently, the utilization of the unexploited thermal energy will decisively contribute to a reduced overall power consumption and lower greenhouse gas emissions. In the present investigation, a cycle layout, based on supercritical carbon dioxide (sCO 2 ), was applied for a certain waste heat source, a gas compressor station. The boundary conditions determined by the cycle were used by the numerical code ANSYS CFX to design a pre-cooler. Subsequently, this printed circuit heat exchanger was examined for sCO 2 mass fluxes between 100 kg/m²s and 900 kg/m²s. The heat transfer and pressure drop increase as the flow channel diameter is reduced. As the pressure drop of the coolant channel is more sensitive to the diameter, a larger coolant channel diameter is selected to maintain a reasonably low pressure drop. The optimum pre-cooler design consists of a 0.5 mm and 0.8 mm channel diameter for the sCO 2 and coolant channel. Based on these results, internal fins were applied and optimized, to improve the heat transfer performance. An internal fin height of 4 mm was found to achieve the optimum thermal-flow performance for the pre-cooler.

Keywords: new type of heat exchanger; heat transfer; pressure drop; additive manufacturing; integrated pin fin design (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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