Cycle Calculations of a Small-Scale Heat Removal System With Supercritical CO₂ as Working Fluid

In the case of an accident in a nuclear power plant with combined initiating events (loss of ultimate heat sink and station blackout), an additional heat removal system could transfer the decay heat from the core to an ultimate heat sink (UHS). One specific additional heat removal system, based upon a Brayton cycle with supercritical carbon dioxide (CO₂) as working fluid, is currently investigated within the European Union-funded project “sCO₂-HeRo” (supercritical carbon dioxide heat removal system). It serves as a self-launching, self-propelling, and self-sustaining decay heat removal system used in severe accident scenarios. Since this Brayton cycle produces more electric power than it consumes, the excess electric power can be used inside the power plant, e.g., for recharging batteries. A small-scale demonstrator is attached to the pressurized water reactor (PWR) glass model at Gesellschaft für Simulatorschulung (GfS), Essen, Germany. In order to design and build this small-scale model, cycle calculations are performed to determine the design parameters from which a layout can be derived.