Heat exchangers of different types find application in power systems based on solid oxide fuel cells (SOFC). Compact plate fin heat exchangers are typically found to perfectly fit systems with power output under 5 kWel. Micro-combined heat and power (micro-CHP) units with solid oxide fuel cells can exhibit high electrical and overall efficiencies, exceeding 85%, respectively. These values can be achieved only when high thermal integration of a system is assured. Selection and sizing of heat exchangers play a crucial role and should be done with caution. Moreover, performance of heat exchangers under variable operating conditions can strongly influence efficiency of the complete system. For that reason, it becomes important to develop high fidelity mathematical models allowing evaluation of heat exchangers under modified operating conditions, in high temperature regimes. Prediction of pressure and temperatures drops at the exit of cold and hot sides are important for system-level studies. Paper presents dedicated mathematical model used for evaluation of a plate fin heat exchanger, operating as a part of micro-CHP unit with solid oxide fuel cells.
Controlling low-temperature drying facilities which utilise nonprepared air is quite difficult, due to very large variability of ventilation air parameters - both in daily and seasonal cycles. The paper defines the concept of cumulative drying potential of ventilation air and presents experimental evidence that there is a relation between this parameter and condition of the dried matter (sewage sludge). Knowledge on current dry mass content in the dried matter (sewage sludge) provides new possibilities for controlling such systems. Experimental data analysed in the paper was collected in early 2012 during operation of a test solar drying facility in a sewage treatment plant in Błonie near Warsaw, Poland.
The trigeneration systems for production of cold use sorption refrigeration machines: absorption and adsorption types. Absorption systems are characterized namely by better cooling coefficient of performance, while the adsorptive systems are characterized by the ability to operate at lower temperatures. The driving heat source temperature can be as low as 60-70 °C. Such temperature of the driving heat source allows to use them in district heating systems. The article focuses on the presentation of the research results on the adsorption devices designed to work in trigeneration systems.
The objective of the paper is to analyse thermodynamical and operational parameters of the supercritical power plant with reference conditions as well as following the introduction of the hybrid system incorporating ORC. In ORC the upper heat source is a stream of hot water from the system of heat recovery having temperature of 90 °C, which is additionally aided by heat from the bleeds of the steam turbine. Thermodynamical analysis of the supercritical plant with and without incorporation of ORC was accomplished using computational flow mechanics numerical codes. Investigated were six working fluids such as propane, isobutane, pentane, ethanol, R236ea and R245fa. In the course of calculations determined were primarily the increase of the unit power and efficiency for the reference case and that with the ORC.
A mathematical model of the steam superheater exchanger with distributed parameters has been developed. Scale deposits were assumed to be present on the internal tube surfaces. It was assumed that the inner tube surfaces are covered by a thin layer of scale deposits. The finite volume method was used to solve partial differential equations describing flue gas, tube wall and steam temperature. The developed modeling technique can especially be used for modeling tube heat exchangers when detail information on the tube wall temperature distribution is needed. The numerical model of the superheater developed in the paper can be used for modeling of the superheaters with complex flow arrangement accounting scales on the internal tube surfaces. Using the model proposed the detailed steam, wall and flue gas temperature distribution over the entire superheater can be determined. The steam pressure distribution along its path flow and the total heat transfer rate can also be obtained. The calculations showed that the presence of scale on the internal surfaces of the tubes cause the steam temperature decrease and the heat flow rate transferred from the flue gas to the steam. Scale deposits on the inner surfaces of the tubes cause the tube wall temperature growth and can lead to premature wear of tubes due to overheating.
A gas turbine air bottoming cycle consists of a gas turbine unit and the air turbine part. The air part includes a compressor, air expander and air heat exchanger. The air heat exchanger couples the gas turbine to the air cycle. Due to the low specific heat of air and of the gas turbine exhaust gases, the air heat exchanger features a considerable size. The bigger the air heat exchanger, the higher its effectiveness, which results in the improvement of the efficiency of the gas turbine air bottoming cycle. On the other hand, a device with large dimensions weighs more, which may limit its use in specific locations, such as oil platforms. The thermodynamic calculations of the air heat exchanger and a preliminary selection of the device are presented. The installation used in the calculation process is a plate heat exchanger, which is characterized by a smaller size and lower values of the pressure drop compared to the shell and tube heat exchanger. Structurally, this type of the heat exchanger is quite similar to the gas turbine regenerator. The method on which the calculation procedure may be based for real installations is also presented, which have to satisfy the economic criteria of financial profitability and cost-effectiveness apart from the thermodynamic criteria.
Paper deals with theoretical analysis of possible efficiency increase of compression refrigeration cycles by means of application of a twophase ejector. Application of the two phase ejector in subcritical refrigeration system as a booster compressor is discussed in the paper. Results of exergy analysis of the system operating with various working fluids for various operating conditions have been shown. Analysis showed possible exergy efficiency increase of refrigeration compression cycle.
The paper deals with the computational fluid dynamics modelling of carbon dioxide capture from flue gases in the post combustioncapture method, one of the available carbon capture and storage technologies. 30% aqueous monoethanolamine solution was used as a solvent in absorption process. The complex flow system including multiphase countercurrent streams with chemical reaction and heat transfer was considered to resolve the CO2 absorption. The simulation results have shown the realistic behaviour and good consistency with experimental data. The model was employed to analyse the influence of liquid to gas ratio on CO2 capture efficiency.
In the paper the results of analysis of an integrated gasification combined cycle IGCC polygeneration system, of which the task is to produce both electricity and synthesis gas, are shown. Assuming the structure of the system and the power rating of a combined cycle, the consumption of the synthesis gas for chemical production makes it necessary to supplement the lack of synthesis gas used for electricity production with the natural gas. As a result a change of the composition of the fuel gas supplied to the gas turbine occurs. In the paper the influence of the change of gas composition on the gas turbine characteristics is shown. In the calculations of the gas turbine the own computational algorithm was used. During the study the influence of the change of composition of gaseous fuel on the characteristic quantities was examined. The calculations were realized for different cases of cooling of the gas turbine expander’s blades (constant cooling air mass flow, constant cooling air index, constant temperature of blade material). Subsequently, the influence of the degree of integration of the gas turbine with the air separation unit on the main characteristics was analyzed.
The analyzed heat accumulator is a key element in a hybrid heating system. In this paper, analytical and numerical models of the ceramic heat accumulator are presented.The accuracy of finite difference methods will be assessed by comparing the results with those obtained from the exact analytical solution.
The paper presents a thermodynamic optimization of 900MW power unit for ultra-supercritical parameters, modified according to AD700 concept. The aim of the study was to verify two optimisation methods, i.e., the finding the minimum of a constrained nonlinear multivariable function (fmincon) and the Nelder-Mead method with their own constrain functions. The analysis was carried out using IPSEpro software combined with MATLAB, where gross power generation efficiency was chosen as the objective function. In comparison with the Nelder-Mead method it was shown that using fmincon function gives reasonable results and a significant reduction of computational time. Unfortunately, with the increased number of decision parameters, the benefit measured by the increase in efficiency is becoming smaller. An important drawback of fmincon method is also a lack of repeatability by using different starting points. The obtained results led to the conclusion, that the Nelder-Mead method is a better tool for optimisation of thermal cycles with a high degree of complexity like the coal-fired power unit.
The influences of various operating conditions including cathode inlet air flow rate, electrolyte temperature and fuel particles size on the performance of the direct carbon fuel cell DCFC were presented and discussed in this paper. The experimental results indicated that the cell performance was enhanced with increases of the cathode inlet gas flow rate and cell temperature. Binary alkali hydroxide mixture (NaOH-LiOH, 90-10 mol%) was used as electrolyte and the biochar of apple tree origin carbonized at 873 K was used as fuel. Low melting temperature of the electrolyte and its good ionic conductivity enabled to operate the DCFC at medium temperatures of 723-773 K. The highest current density (601 A m−2) was obtained for temperature 773 K and air flow rate 8.3×106 m3s−1. Itwas shown that too low or too high air flow rates negatively affect the cell performance. The results also indicated that the operation of the DCFC could be improved by proper selection of the fuel particle size.
This paper presents the parameters of the reference oxy combustion block operating with supercritical steam parameters, equipped with an air separation unit and a carbon dioxide capture and compression installation. The possibility to recover the heat in the analyzed power plant is discussed. The decision variables and the thermodynamic functions for the optimization algorithm were identified. The principles of operation of genetic algorithm and methodology of conducted calculations are presented. The sensitivity analysis was performed for the best solutions to determine the effects of the selected variables on the power and efficiency of the unit. Optimization of the heat recovery from the air separation unit, flue gas condition and CO2 capture and compression installation using genetic algorithm was designed to replace the low-pressure section of the regenerative water heaters of steam cycle in analyzed unit. The result was to increase the power and efficiency of the entire power plant.
This paper presents a gas turbine combined cycle plant with oxy-combustion and carbon dioxide capture. A gas turbine part of the unit with the operating parameters is presented. The methodology and results of optimization by the means of a genetic algorithm for the steam parts in three variants of the plant are shown. The variants of the plant differ by the heat recovery steam generator (HRSG) construction: the singlepressure HRSG (1P), the double-pressure HRSG with reheating (2PR), and the triple-pressure HRSG with reheating (3PR). For obtained results in all variants an economic evaluation was performed. The break-even prices of electricity were determined and the sensitivity analysis to the most significant economic factors were performed.
In generalized method of data reconciliation as equations of conditions beside substance and energy balances can be used equations which don’t have precisely the status of conservation lows. Empirical coefficients in these equations are traded as unknowns’ values. To this kind of equations, in application of the generalized method of data reconciliation in supercritical power unit, can be classified: steam flow capacity of a turbine for a group of stages, adiabatic internal efficiency of group of stages, equations for pressure drop in pipelines and equations for heat transfer in regeneration heat exchangers. Mathematical model of a power unit was developed in the code Thermoflex. Using this model the off-design calculation has been made in several points of loads for the power unit. Using these calculations identification of unknown values and empirical coefficients for generalized method of data reconciliation used in power unit has been made. Additional equations of conditions will be used in the generalized method of data reconciliation which will be used in optimization of measurement placement in redundant measurement system in power unit for new control systems
The paper presents the results of investigations on a cyclone with additional gas extraction. The experiments were performed in the cyclone with a diameter of 0.2 m equipped with a truncated counter-cone situated in the dust bin inlet. The gas stream flowing through the countercone was 10 and 20% of the gas supplied to the cyclone. The separation efficiencies and pressure loss were measured. The experiment showed that the extraction of gas by the counter-cone deteriorated the cyclone efficiency and forcing the outflow of gas through the counter-cone requires the use of an additional outlet fan.
Passive autocatalytic recombiners (PAR) is the only used method for hydrogen removal from the containment buildings in modern nuclear reactors. Numerical models of such devices, based on the CFD approach, are the subject of this paper. The models may be coupled with two types of computer codes: the lumped parameter codes, and the computational fluid dynamics codes. This work deals with 2D numerical model of PAR and its validation. Gaseous hydrogen may be generated in water nuclear reactor systems in a course of a severe accident with core overheating. Therefore, a risk of its uncontrolled combustion appears which may be destructive to the containment structure.