Advanced Study on Supercritical Fluids in Innovative Technologies Application

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

It is well known that the power industry is a key industry for advances in any other industries, agriculture and level of living. Main sources for electrical-energy production are: 1) thermal - coal (primary) and natural gas (secondary); 2) nuclear and 3) hydro. Therefore, it is very important to increase thermal efficiency of thermal and Nuclear Power Plants (NPPs). Coal-fired power plants have reached thermal efficiencies of 43-53% due to supercritical pressures and temperatures. However, modern water-cooled NPPs have thermal efficiencies within a range of 30-36%. Currently, 6 concepts of Generation IV reactors with thermal efficiencies close to those of modern thermal power plants are being developed around the world. Unfortunately, Canada has only 1 supercritical coal-fired power plant (in this case, being far behind many developed countries) and is developing only 1 concept - SuperCritical Water-cooled Reactor (SCWR). Therefore, participating in development of modern coal-fired power plants with even higher operating parameters and other Geneneration IV reactor concepts is a very important task for Canadian researchers. Analysis of these concepts showed that in general, all of them can be connected to supercritical Rankine steam cycle (the power cycle proven for more than 50 years) or supercritical carbon dioxide Brayton gas-turbine cycle through heat exchangers. Also, supercritical carbon dioxide and refrigerants can be used in advanced air-conditioning/refrigeration cycles or as modeling fluids instead of water in thermalhydraulic experiments. Objectives of the proposed research are: 1) advanced studies on supercritical fluids heat transfer and pressure drop in various flow geometries; 2) developing advanced coal-fired and NPPs supercritical cycles and heat exchangers; 3) support to SCW CANDU reactor development in Canada; 4) linking SCWRs with thermochemical cycles for co-generation of hydrogen. All these studies will bring Canada to leading positions within several major areas of science and engineering in the world. Also, a number of HQP will be prepared within these areas.