SHAPE OPTIMIZATION OF A sCO2 CENTRIFUGAL COMPRESSOR STAGE

The design of a centrifugal compressor for supercritical carbon dioxide (sCO2) power cycle must account for non-ideal gas effects and the possible occurrence of two-phase flows. Shape optimization techniques combined with computational fluid-dynamic (CFD) simulations can produce optimized designs while inherently coping with the peculiar flow characteristics near the thermodynamic critical point. This work presents the first shape-optimization attempt of such non-conventional