Performance limit analysis of Recooled Cycle for regenerative cooling systems

This paper presents a new cooling cycle called Recooled Cycle (RC) for systems with active cooling and demonstrates how coolant could be utilized for secondary cooling through the transfer of enthalpy from coolant to work with an indirect increase in the coolant cooling capacity (heat sink), without any property change in the coolant. The basic concept and working principle are introduced; a thermodynamic cycle analysis is performed to demonstrate the system performance gains with RC over the conventional system with regenerative cooling. Using the principle of thermodynamics, performance potential analysis of RC is performed; expression of performance limit is obtained by deduction. Numerical analysis results further reveal the potential performance of RC taking scramjet engine with RC as the example. Results show that RC is with great potential performance and scientific feasibility. It can increase coolant heat sink and correspondingly reduce the coolant flow for cooling. In addition, the power output of RC could provide energy supply for subsystems.