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Experimental and Numerical Study of an 80-kW Zigzag Printed Circuit Heat Exchanger for Supercritical CO2 Brayton Cycle

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Abstract

In this study, an experimental system was built to investigate the global performance of an 80-kW zigzag printed circuit heat exchanger (PCHE). It could meet the requirement of the pre-cooler for the supercritical carbon dioxide (S-CO2) Brayton power cycle and the modified effectiveness considering the pinch point is between 61.5% and 79.3%. When the outlet S-CO2 temperature is near the pseudo-critical point, the thermo-physical properties have more effects on heat transfer performance compared to flow characteristics. For the local performance, the mass flow rates of both sides have crucial influences on the location where the peak of S-CO2 Nusselt number occurs while only the S-CO2 flow rate affects the variation of the peak value. In addition, the influence of the radius of curvature on the secondary-flow should not be ignored. In the end, new empirical correlations were proposed considering the drastic variations of the Prandtl number.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51606191), the National Key Research and Development Program-China (2017YFB0601803), and Key deployment project of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Y7220112H1).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Engineering Thermophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100190, China

    Huzhong Zhang, Keyong Cheng, Xiulan Huai, Jingzhi Zhou & Jiangfeng Guo

  2. School of Engineering Science, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Huzhong Zhang, Keyong Cheng, Xiulan Huai, Jingzhi Zhou & Jiangfeng Guo

Authors
  1. Huzhong Zhang
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  2. Keyong Cheng
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  3. Xiulan Huai
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  4. Jingzhi Zhou
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  5. Jiangfeng Guo
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Keyong Cheng or Xiulan Huai.

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Zhang, H., Cheng, K., Huai, X. et al. Experimental and Numerical Study of an 80-kW Zigzag Printed Circuit Heat Exchanger for Supercritical CO2 Brayton Cycle. J. Therm. Sci. 30, 1289–1301 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11630-021-1490-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11630-021-1490-8

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