R&D Integration/System
Function: Couple individual components into a working system.
What do we know?
- Design point systems code incorporating performance and economics is available.
- Several preliminary plant designs and layouts are available.
- Studies examining economics as a function of plant size and power system design have been performed (with analytical code).
- Inter-component fluid pressure drops have been analytically evaluated.
- Plant economics have been evaluated as a function of site-specific parameters (with analytical code).
What do we need to know?
- Performance factors of plant design, component interaction, stability, and dynamics.
- Influence of plant design and layout on total cost for a range of plant sizes.
- Modularity of systems and components and the effects on costs and uncertainties.
- System temperature distribution and thermoeconomic optimization effects on plant design.
- Pressure drops associated with routing of fluid (seawater, system) between components.
- Influence of site-specific factors on plant design.
- Scalability of analytical and experimental results.
- System dynamics and control mechanism design and costs.
What are the R&D requirements?
- Verify system code predictions by plant performance (hardware in seawater).
- Examine plant scaling issues and verify component scalability.
- Determine modularity of various components and subsystems designs.
- Verify pressure drop predictions.
- Determine interaction effects, plant operation stability, and dynamics.
- Determine long-term reliability.
- Obtain operational data for commercial environments.