Development of shell-and-tube type ceramic heat exchanger for CGT301

Abstract

The development of a 300kW-class recuperative ceramic gas turbine (CGT301) for continuous load has been conducted by the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) as one of the programs in the Moonlight Project. In this program, the development of a ceramic heat exchanger has been carried out under the cooperation of Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries, Ltd. (IHI) and NGK Insulators, Ltd. (NGK). since 1988. In this paper, the process of the development of the ceramic heat exchanger is described. A three pass shell-and-tube type of heat exchanger is considered. As the heat exchanger is to be operated at gas temperature over 825°C, the reliability is expected to be improved by applying high-temperature resistant silicon-nitride ceramics to its hot tube-bundle. In consideration of the limitation in the size of the ceramic tube-bundle, the heat exchanger was designed as the assembly of six identical modules. Tests of a single module with ceramic tube-bundle were conducted. It was confirmed that the ceramic tube-bundle had reasonable structural reliability, and that the module gave a sufficient performance i.e., temperature effectiveness and pressure drop characteristics.