Studies on a high temperature regenerative heat exchanger for closed cycle MHD power generation. (7th report. Unsteady thermal performance under cyclic continuous operation).

Abstract

A heat transfer analysis code for predicting the performance of a regenerative heat exchanger for high temperature argon heating has been developed which simulates heat transfer processes in the combustion chamber coupled with those in the storage bed of a pebble bed. The thermal performance of heat exchangers under cyclic operation is predicted by this code, and the results show that optimization of geometries for both the combustion chamber and the heat storage bed is important for improving the thermal performance. Unsteady response of heat exchangers to the change of the external load of a closed cycle MHD electrical power generator is investigated by the computer code. The results show that the response time is almost the same as the cyclic operational period of heat exchangers.