Paper on SARABEUS rig design and operation presented by Technical University of Vienna and Kelvion Thermal solution at the 5th European Conference on Supercritical Carbon Dioxide Energy Systems, Prague (Czech Republic)
Front view of the SCARABEUS test rig at TU Wien
The researchers at the Technical University of Vienna (Austria) and Kelvion Thermal Solutions (France) have presented their work on the design of and operation of the SCARABEUS test rig at the Austrian academic institution. This work has been carried out in the context of Work Package 4 (Air Cooled Condenser and Heat Exchanger Development) and Work Package 6 (Test Rig and Experimental Validation) of SCARABEUS and is a cornerstone of the project, given the uniqueness of the rig constructed to validate the operation of heat exchangers on Carbon Dioxide mixtures.
Schematic of the SCARABEUS test rig at TU Wien
The paper can be downloaded free of charge from the conference website (link). Check the abstract below:
At TU Wien, a test facility working with supercritical carbon dioxide (sCO2) was commissioned in 2018. Since then, it has been used for various research tasks. This paper gives an overview about the three configurations of the facility with a focus on design, operation, and results. The authors present the design of components in the three configurations of the test facility: proof of concept of the simple cycle in supercritical and transcritical operation mode, heat transfer measurements, and future work. Special emphasis is given to challenges during engineering and operation. Our most relevant lessons learned are: that a commercial CO2 pump is not sufficient for cycle experiments, how to design a measurement section for heat transfer measurements, and that during experimental research, measurement-concepts and data reduction must be prioritized at all times.
