Computer simulation of a combined cycle power plant

Abstract

This paper presents the simulation procedure developed to predict the performance of a combined cycle power plant from given performance characteristics of its main components. In order that the procedure could be validated, the simulation technique has been applied to a typical combined cycle power plant (having a dual pressure bottoming cycle) manufactured by a prominent company. The characteristics of the standard equipment like the air compressor, steam and gas turbines, various pumps, etc. have been taken from the manufacturer's catalogues and converted into appropriate equations based on theoretical understanding. The performance of various heat exchangers (like economizers, superheaters, evaporators, etc.) has been determined by using the effectiveness concept after evaluating the overall heat transfer coefficient by using appropriate correlations from literature. The strategy of system simulation is obtained by judiciously interlinking the information flow diagrams of various components and thus the task is finally reduced to that of solving nine non-linear equations for nine variables. The predicted performance of the system is seen to be in good agreement with in good agreement with its rated performance.