Counter flow induced draft cooling tower option for supercritical carbon dioxide Brayton cycle

Abstract

A simplified qualitative analysis was performed to investigate the possibility of using counter flow induced draft cooling tower option to reject heat from the supercritical carbon dioxide Brayton cycle for advanced fast reactor (AFR)-100 and advanced burner reactor (ABR)-1000 plants. A code was developed to estimate the tower dimensions, power and water consumption, and to perform economic analysis. The code developed was verified against a vendor provided quotation and is used to understand the effect of ambient air and water conditions on the design of cooling tower. The calculations indicated that there exists optimum water conditions for given ambient air conditions which will result in minimum power consumption, thereby increasing the cycle efficiency. A cost-based optimization technique is used to estimate the optimum water conditions which will improve the overall plant economics. A comparison of different cooling options for the S-CO2 cycle indicated that the cooling tower option is a much more practical and economical option compared to the dry air cooling or direct water cooling options.