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Conference Article: Thermodynamic assessment of plant efficiencies for HTR power conversion

Abstract

We studied thermodynamic aspects influencing the efficiency of 200 MWth-HTR modules, considering steam cycle plants, gas turbine plants with and without intermediate heat exchanger and plants with combined gas turbine/steam cycle. The influence of steam parameters and of reheating is investigated. The investigated parameters with major influence on the efficiencies of gas turbine cycles are the core outlet temperature, polytropic efficiency of the turbomachinery, performance of the recuperator and the cooling temperature. For combined cycles, we have investigated a direct combined cycle with gas turbine and steam generator heated by the exhaust gas of the turbine, and a combined cycle with intermediate heat exchanger. For core outlet temperatures of 900 C, and steam temperatures of 600 C, respectively, cycle efficiencies between 40.7% and 47.5% have been found, with the indirect gas turbine cycle on the lower bound and the direct combined cycle on the upper bound of the spectrum.

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Reference:

Proceedings of the Conference on High Temperature Reactors, Petten, NL, April 22-24, 2002
Organized by HTR-TN in cooperation with the European Nucler Society (ENS) and the IAEA

International Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna (Austria)

HTR-2002, pp:1-5