Effects of working fluid and shaft rotation speed on the performance of HTR plants and the size of CBC turbo-machine Original Research Article

Investigated are the effects of the molecular weight of the working fluid, reactor exit temperature, and shaft rotation speed on the size and number of stages of the turbo-machine as well as the performance of high temperature reactor (HTR) plants with actively cooled reactor pressure vessel and direct or indirect Closed Brayton Cycles (CBCs). The present analyses for working fluids of helium (4 g/mol) and the 15 g/mol He–Xe and He–N2 binary mixtures are performed for a reactor thermal power of 600 MW, shaft rotation speed of 3000–9000 rpm, and reactor exit temperature from 973 K to 1223 K. For the plants with indirect CBCs, the analyses assume a temperature pinch of 50 K in the IHX. Results show that the CBC compression ratio is relatively low (∼2.6 for He and He–Xe and ∼3.2 for He–N2), increases very little with increasing the reactor exit temperature and near the maximum thermal efficiency of the plant. For the plants with a direct helium CBC, the thermal efficiency increases from 42% to 51% as the reactor exit temperature increases from 973 K to 1223 K, respectively, versus 37% to 47% for the plants with indirect He-CBC. The HTR plants with indirect He–Xe and He–N2 CBCs and operating at a turbine inlet temperature of 1123 K have slightly higher thermal efficiencies (45.9% and 45.8%) than the He plant with indirect CBC (45.6%), generating ∼1.6 MWe more electrical power. The molecular weight of the working fluid has a very small effect on the plant thermal efficiency, but significantly reduces the size and number of stages of the CBC turbo-machine. Increasing the shaft rotation speed also decreases the size and number of stages of the CBC turbo-machine.