OPTIMIZATION OF A CLOSED BRAYTON CYCLE FOR NAVY

The thermodynamic potential of the closed Brayton cycle has been well recognized for many years. This power cycle has been proposed for application to Navy ship propulsion because of its attributes of higher efficiencies and lower weight and volume requirements than existing cycles. Although the closed Brayton cycle has not yet seen Naval application except in small research units, the open Brayton cycle has been accepted and installed in new Navy destroyer ship classes. One of the primary goals of Navy conceptual ship design is to develop a concept within acquisition cost constraints. Since ship displacement is often used as surrogate for acquisition cost, and consistent with the primary goals of conceptual design, the primary operating variables for th