Master Thesis - Simulation and Control of a Recuperated Supercritical CO2 Cycle

Objective:

The objective of this work is to finalise the ATHLET model of a recuperated supercritical CO2 (sCO2) cycle and to simulate and control the cycle under various boundary conditions.

Background:

sCO2 is a promising working medium for various next-generation applications, both in the field of renewable and conventional power generation (project sCO2-flex, SOLARSCO2OL, ShunShot, Misha) and in residual heat removal (project sCO2-4-NPP).
Within the scope of this work, a recuperated sCO2 cycle with a turbine inlet temperature of 650 °C, as occurs e.g. in solar thermal tower power plants or MMRs ("Micro Modular Reactor"), should be analysed. An existing ATHLET (Analysis of THermal-hydraulics of LEaks and Transients) simulation model is finalised by adapting the size of the components. Then, the model is tested under various boundary conditions by applying different control strategies. Post-processing of the simulation results is conducted with Matlab.

Approach:

• Literature study on operation and control of sCO2 cycles
• Familiarization with simulation code ATHLET
• Finalization of the model of the recuperated sCO2 cycle
• Implementation of different control strategies
• Simulations with different boundary conditions
• Thesis preparation and presentation

Requirements:

• Fundamentals of thermodynamics, fluid dynamics and control
• Experience in programming preferably in Matlab
• Interest in simulation and control
• Analytical thinking and self-initiative

Start: as soon as possible