Axial sCO[formula omitted] high-performance turbines parametric design

• Published in: Energy conversion and management 2022-12, Vol.274 p.116418-
• Main Authors: Stepanek, Jan, Syblik, Jan, Entler, Slavomir
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: administrative management; energy conversion; steam
• ISSN: 0196-8904
• DOI: 10.1016/j.enconman.2022.116418

Supercritical CO2 thermal cycles provide low complexity and small size of equipment compared to the Rankine cycle. However, higher power units of hundreds of megawatts have not yet been implemented. This study focuses on sCO2turbines for high power cycles and presents an estimation of their dimensions, efficiency, and other parameters. For this purpose, a specialized calculation code named TACOS was built. The turbines are designed for inlet pressures of 25MPa and 30MPa and inlet temperatures from 300°C to 600°C. In total, more than 460 high-performance axial turbines were designed in this study. The turbines have been optimized with shaft power from 10MW to 2,000MW (one-flow configuration) for revolutions from 3,000rpm to 12,000rpm. The results show that supercritical CO2 turbines are about one-fifth the size of their steam alternatives with comparable efficiencies. Turbines with synchronous revolutions (50Hz) achieve the highest efficiency for shaft power in one-flow configuration up to 500MW and this correspond to an efficiency close to 90%. High-speed turbines are suitable for power levels up to 50MW with efficiencies of around 87%. The vast majority of turbines come out as three-stage or four-stage.