One-dimensional thermodynamic cycle analysis of micro gas turbine (MGT) for small power plant

Abstract

The energy demands worldwide and especially in developing countries are significantly increased, whereas the numbers of electricity supply are not enlarged at the same ratio. Together with the decentralized ideal of the forthcoming power plants, the 100kW micro gas turbine (MGT) could be one of the solutions for the future. Based on the multi-fuel MGT development project for small power plants, the 1D simulation of the overall system with MATLAB has been performed to utilize as an analysis tool for optimizing the thermodynamic cycle of the system. At the beginning the code has been validated with the commercial program for power plant simulation, called EBSILON Professional. The result shows that they are compatible in the same direction. The next part illustrates the comparing result of the efficiency on the whole system, when the turbine inlet temperature has changed. The results show that higher turbine inlet temperature provides also higher global efficiency. However, the minimum efficiencies, which are obtained on each specific turbine inlet temperature, are not corresponded at the same pressure ratio. In the latter section, the effect of fuel types is also considered on the output efficiency. The results show that to maintain the output efficiency on each fixed turbine inlet temperature the fuel mass flow rate has to be increased in reciprocal to their lower heating values. However, in the lower range of their mass flow rate the increment of efficiency is not proportional to the addition of fuel.