2559/JN - High Pressure Heat Exchanger Testbed

The University of Sheffield (UoS) with funding from European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and the Department for Business Energy and Industrial Strategy is establishing a Translational Energy Research Centre (TERC) to support and promote low carbon energy technology development, validation and uptake. To complement our research capability, we are looking to procure a high pressure heat exchanger (HPHE) test bed.

The high pressure, high temperature heat exchanger (HEX) test bed is aimed at supporting R and D in high-efficiency power conversion cycles, focussing on supercritical CO2 (sCO2) for oxy-fired gas cycles (Allam cycle) but also with global applications in other power and industrial sectors. The objective is to establish a flexible test loop ideally capable of operating at pressures up to 370 bar, support R and D in oxy-fired gas cycles, but in general it is envisaged the facility will enable the study of high efficiency heat exchangers covering areas such as heat transfer, pressure drop, thermal stresses, and impact of phase changes, impurities, fouling, corrosion and materials research.

It will provide performance data for the sCO2 cycle to model and evaluate designs, e.g. heat exchanger sizing. We are estimating tender submissions of between GBP 300 000 and GBP 400 000. The GBP 350 000 figure shown indicates the mid range value for this project.