The technology developed in this project solves the challenge of high efficiency, high temperature recuperators with a novel design that are combined with state-of-the-art 3D printing and surface roughness reduction in the internal passages. This will enable efficient and power dense power generation cycles for applications in transportation, electricity generation, and industrial sectors.
A comprehensive approach to the development of high-temperature and high-pressure heat exchangers (HX) through multi-disciplinary research in: 1) material science and engineering, 2) advanced manufacturing, 3) heat exchanger design modeling, optimization, and experimentation, and 4) cost modeling is proposed. A novel modular radial HX architecture that includes flow through diverging pin arrays and branching channel counter-flow headers is proposed. The hypothesis is that such HXs will result in a compact low-pressure drop design that is amenable to cyclic operation at high temperature and high pressure. The HX will be fabricated via laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) additive manufacturing (AM) with superalloys for high-temperature strength such as MHA 3300 and H282. The objective is to identify process parameters that will allow HXs to be printed with sufficiently low defect content. Two different technologies will be used to minimize surface roughness inside the HX so as to minimize pressure drop, namely abrasive flow smoothing and electrochemical machining with inserted electrodes. The application focus of the project is on recuperators for the supercritical CO2 (sCO2) cycle, although the design can be readily modified for use in other applications. We propose to advance the technology from a TRL 1 to a TRL 4 while aiming at transitioning the technology to industrial partners. The team has five industrial partners from OEM down to a small start-up business in scale.
Project partners: UC Davis, HEXCES, NETL, GE, Extrude Hone, CO School of Mines, Metal Powder Works
Project sponsor: Department of Energy