With recently awarded funding from the US Department of Energy SunShot Initiative’s CSP: APOLLO Program (Concentrating Solar Power: Advanced Projects Offering Low LCOE Opportunities), Sandia is working with a team led by the University of Wisconsin–Madison to evaluate the potential for significant improvements in the commercial viability of supercritical carbon dioxide (sCO2)/Brayton-cycle power conversion as [...]
Sandia and eight other companies and research organizations* will collaborate to advance a distributed power system that can produce cleaner, more efficient electricity. The memorandum of understanding (MOU) focuses on developing an energy-conversion system based on supercritical carbon dioxide (sCO2)/Brayton-cycle technology. Gary Rochau, manager of Sandia’s Advanced Nuclear Concepts Dept. said sCO2/Brayton cycle technology could [...]
"Standard Test Methods for Tension Testing of Metallic Materials" E8/E8M-11, ASTM International (2008). ASTM standard (E8) used for tension testing guidance, with tests in constant displacement mode 2 tests were performed: at room temperature and at 650 °C Post-mortem metallography was performed on both samples Room-Temperature Tensile Test [...]
Research Goal 1. Tensile specimens prepared from diffusion-bonded block of 316/316L SS2. Micrograph showing good grain growth across the diffusion bond3. Small defects in bond area may not impact overall strength—but could lower design life, due to crevice corrosion Diffusion bond strength, defects, and corrosion behavior must be understood before they can [...]
Planned Heat-Exchanger Test Loop Capabilities 500 kW heaters (elec.) 500 kW gas cooler Unbalanced flows Dedicated system accepts novel mixtures and additives Facility Goal Provide testing capability for 1 MW-scale commercial and prototype heat exchangers used at any position in current and future Brayton layouts Path Forward to Commercialization What we are [...]
About the Brayton Lab at NESL The Sandia NESL / Brayton Lab has been established to achieve the DOE-NE objective of a 10 MWe recompression closed Brayton cycle (RCBC) for a sodium fast reactor by 2020. We work related projects that advance the technology and advocate for collaborative efforts within government, industry, and communities. The Sandia [...]
Sandia National Laboratories is seeking an industry partner to market a turbine system that could substantially improve energy efficiency in small modular nuclear reactors. The system uses carbon dioxide in a closed-loop “Brayton-cycle” turbine to crank up electric conversion from heat, said Gary Rochau, manager of the advanced nuclear concepts group at Sandia’s [...]
