Heat Exchangers

Do you like free heat? We do. The recuperator recovers heat from the hot gases of a turbine cycle to heat the air before entering the combustor. This reduces the amount of new fuel consumed increasing the thermal efficiency of the turbine system.

Brayton has 30 years of experience in the most challenging heat exchanger applications using patented recuperator technologies. Brayton has designed and developed a variety of recuperator architectures in diverse shapes, sizes and materials.

Technical Expertise

High temperatures (600 to 1100°C) operating conditions.
Pressures from 3 to 300 bar, and environments involving high thermal gradients and transients.
Supercritical CO2 cycles
Advanced micro-channel and micro-pore surfaces.
Advanced manufacturing methods
Metallurgical analysis of metal bonding and welding methods
Surface characterization
Component level in-house qualification testing; hydrostatic, creep, friction and joules (F&J) characterization.

Approach

Establish Efficiency Target, Operating Environments and Candidate Materials

Cell Architecture and Core Layout

Cell Destructive Creep and Fatigue Qualification Testing

Core Hydrostatic Leak Testing

Full-scale Thermal Fatigue Test Characterization

Custom Packaging Integration

In-house Pilot Production Capabilities

Heat Exchanger Technology

Heat Exchanger Design and Test Facilities

Heat Transfer Test Rig

Outlet flow accumulator with temperature instrumentation

Flow control and measurement with control panel

Brayton’s F&J (friction and joules) test rig provides thermal characterization for heat exchanger sub components including pressure drop and heat transfer characterization. Engineering can determine critical fin metrics such as density (number of folds per in), foil thickness, flow length and the performance of different fin configurations.

Thermal Fatigue & Creep Test Rig

Pressure up to 103 MPa (15,000 psig)
Temperature up to 850°C (1562°F)
Samples measured within tight process control, with the following tolerances:
- Temperature: ± 12.7 °C
- Fin and plate Thickness ±0.0002”
- Pressure: (gage) ± 1 psi (6.9 kPa)
- Fin density ± 0.5 fpi
- Time: ± 0.5 min