Techno-economic Evaluation of the sCO2 Waste Heat Recovery System for Aircraft Engines

Abstract

© 2023, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Inc, AIAA. All rights reserved.Waste Heat Recovery is one of the key pathways to achieving reduced emissions and improving system efficiency. The Waste Heat Recovery (WHR) may be used to convert the waste energy to electric power by using a bottoming cycle. One of the potential bottoming cycles for aircraft application is a Supercritical CO2 (sCO2) power system. The sCO2 power system has advantages because of the component compactness, which is a key factor for aircraft integration. The present work focuses on the performance of the Supercritical CO2 power system in both the current and the next-generation aircraft engines considering the techno-economic evaluation of the bottoming cycle. The techno-economic evaluation needs to consider bottoming cycle integration and potential fuels, such as hydrogen, ammonia, or sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). The first part of the work is focused on the analysis of the sCO2 WHR system for an aircraft engine. The second part of the work is focused on a detailed techno-economic evaluation, including the capital, operation, and maintenance costs. The simulation was done using in-house computer programs for gas turbine performance and the sCO2 cycle. The results show the potential utilization of WHR in different operational regimes: idling on the ground, cruise, landing, and takeoff. The results show that the Waste Heat Recovery unit may generate an additional 100 - 200 kW. However, the additional power will require an additional cost for the system, approximately $ 2 Million.