Effects of intercooling on the performance of an irreversible regenerative Brayton cycle

Abstract

An irreversible regenerative intercooled Brayton cycle with the finite heat capacities of external reservoirs is presented in this paper. The power output is adopted as the objective function of the cycle and optimised with respect to the cycle temperatures along with the intercooling pressure ratio for a given set of operating conditions. It is found that there exists an optimal value of the intercooling pressure ratio at which the optimised power output and the corresponding efficiency attain their maximum value. Moreover, the optimised power output and the corresponding thermal efficiency are plotted against the intercooling pressure ratio for the different sets of operating parameters. Another result, which is different from the earlier studies, shows that the heat capacitance rate and the effectiveness on the source side should be larger than those the heat capacitance rates of the other side viz., they should be in the order of C H>C L>C I>C W and ϵH>ϵR>ϵL>ϵI, respectively, for better performance.