Research on a Transonic Supercritical Carbon Dioxide Centrifugal Turbine

Abstract

Recently, the supercritical carbon dioxide Brayton (SCO2) cycle gained a lot of attention for its application to next-generation nuclear reactors. Turbine is the key component of the energy conversion in the thermodynamic cycle. Transonic centrifugal turbine has advantages of compatibility of aerodynamic and geometric, low cost, high power density, and high efficiency; therefore, it has opportunity to become the main energy conversion equipment in the future. In this paper, a transonic nozzle and its corresponding rotor cascade of the single-stage centrifugal turbine were designed. In addition, the three-dimensional (3D) numerical simulation and performance analysis were conducted. The numerical simulation results show that the predicted flow field is as expected and the aerodynamic parameters are in good agreement with one-dimensional (1D) design. Meanwhile, the off-design performance analysis shows that the transonic centrifugal turbine stage has wide stable operation range and strong load adaptability. Therefore, it can be concluded that the proposed turbine blade has good performance characteristics.