Thermal energy recovery at flightweight using apartial-heating Brayton cycle

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Authors
Harris, Michael A.
Advisors
Hoffmann, Klaus A.
Issue Date
2025-05
Type
Thesis
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Abstract

Gas turbine aircraft engines are among the most well-optimized systems in human industry. Despite this, their thermal efficiency falls well short of that of their ground-based counterparts, which use heavy co-generation systems that capture and reuse exhaust heat. Recent advancements in supercritical CO2 Brayton cycles and their proliferation into other industries promise extremely compact and power-dense means of capturing this heat and producing additional mechanical power. This paper presents a cycle topology novel to aerospace research and diagnoses a pinch point in the precooler as the main obstacle to previously considered systems. The partial heating cycle is shown to significantly outperform regenerated and unregenerated cycles, offering 26.6% more power per unit mass flow rate through the precooler.

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Thesis (M.S.)-- Wichita State University, College of Engineering, Dept. of Aerospace Engineering
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Wichita State University
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