Thermodynamic Analysis of Combined Plants Utilizing Helium Turbine with Nuclear Heating and Liquid Hydrogen Refrigerating

It is possible to obtain valuable energy recoveries by means of a combined plant for electrical energy production and liquid hydrogen vaporization and superheating with a closed cycle helium turbine with nuclear heating. Even if the properly defined exergy efficiency is not very high, it must be observed that the ratio of the exergy of the obtained electrical energy to the exergy of the thermal energy entering into the combined plant is higher than the one of the usual best combined plants.

The energy and exergy analyses developed in this paper are aimed to evaluate pros and cons of the considered system.