International Scientific Journals
of Scientific Technical Union of Mechanical Engineering "Industry 4.0"

In the presented paper are performed energy and exergy analyses as well as a comparison of two similar steam turbines from conventional power plants. The first turbine is from an older, while the second turbine is from newer steam power plant. The dominant mechanical power producer in an older steam turbine is LPC (which produces mechanical power of almost 66 MW), while in a newer steam turbine the dominant mechanical power producer is IPC which produces power equal to 102.4 MW. Whole older steam turbine has higher energy and exergy loss in comparison to the whole newer steam turbine. Whole turbine from the newer power plant has much higher energy and exergy efficiencies in comparison to whole turbine from an older power plant. In an older steam turbine, LPC did not show the expected performance because its exergy efficiency is very low (equal to 75.49%), what is much lower than in any other cylinder from both observed turbines. The ambient temperature change sensitivity of the two observed steam turbines and their cylinders is reverse proportional to efficiencies (both energy and exergy). Steam turbine from an older power plant is much more sensitive to the ambient temperature change.

In this paper is performed exergy analysis of steam re-heating system, through all of its components, which operate in nuclear power plant. Analyzed re-heating system consists of the moisture separator (MS) and two re-heaters (RH1 and RH2) and is observed in four different operating regimes. MS has significantly lower exergy destructions and significantly higher exergy efficiencies in comparison to both re-heaters, regardless of the observed operating regime. MS and both re-heaters did not achieve the lowest exergy destructions and the highest exergy efficiencies in the same operating regime which notably complicated possible improvements. Further research of presented re-heating system will be based on operation improvement of RH1 and RH2 – performed exergy analysis shows that MS operation in any operating regime leaves no room for further improvement.

In this paper is performed exergy analysis of three cylinder steam turbine from the supercritical coal-fired power plant. Exergy analysis parameters were calculated for the whole turbine and each cylinder for the ambient temperature range between 5 °C and 45 °C. The dominant mechanical power producer of all the cylinders is a low pressure cylinder (LPC) which produces 262.06 MW of mechanical power. An increase in the ambient temperature increases exergy destructions and decreases exergy efficiencies of the whole turbine and each cylinder. Exergy analysis shows that LPC is a cylinder with the highest exergy destruction (between 24.67 MW and 28.24 MW) and the lowest exergy efficiency (between 82.27% and 84.16%) in comparison to the other cylinders. Exergy destruction of the whole observed turbine is between 67.85 MW and 77.62 MW, while the whole turbine exergy efficiency ranges between 89.47% and 90.67%. Inside the observed steam turbine, LPC is the most influenced by the ambient temperature change, therefore future research and possible optimization should be specifically based on this cylinder.

In this paper is analyzed back-pressure steam turbine which operates in CHP (Combined Heat and Power) plant from the aspect of energy and exergy losses. Produced turbine power, used for electricity generator drive equals 62548.77 kW, while the turbine mechanical loss is 1934.50 kW. Exergy analysis of the turbine shows that cumulative exergy loss is composed of two losses – mechanical loss and steam exergy loss. Steam exergy loss is additional loss which takes into account the state of the ambient in which turbine operates (unlike energy analysis which is independent of the ambient state). Change in the ambient temperature resulted with a change in turbine exergy efficiency and exergy loss. Ambient temperature change for 10 °C resulted with change in turbine exergy efficiency for less than 0.5 % on average, while the change in the turbine exergy loss (for the same temperature change) equals 266.21 kW on average.

This paper presents a comparison of three methods for any pump energy analysis. Each method is used for the analysis of three different water pumps from the conventional steam thermal power plant – two feed water pumps (FWP1 and FWP2) and condensate pump (CP). For each pump three essential types of mechanical power which defines all energy analysis methods are: delivered power from power producer, real (polytropic) power and ideal (isentropic) power. Method 1 which compares delivered and real (polytropic) power show the best performances, while Method 3 which compare delivered and ideal (isentropic) power should be avoided because it results with too high energy power loss and too low energy efficiency of any pump. Method 2 which compares real (polytropic) and ideal (isentropic) pump power can be used as a good compromise for the pump energy analysis in the most of the cases – its results are similar to results of Method 1.

In this paper is performed energy analysis of the dual-flow dissymmetrical low pressure steam turbine, which operates in a coalfired power plant. Based on the measured operating parameters during exploitation it is calculated and presented an ideal and real power, energy losses and energy efficiencies of a whole turbine and both of its cylinders. Right cylinder of the analyzed turbine develops higher real (polytropic) and ideal (isentropic) power in comparison to left turbine cylinder. The first steam extraction of each cylinder dictates cylinder power (both ideal and real). Right cylinder has a higher energy loss and energy efficiency in comparison to left cylinder – the difference in energy loss is notable (5735.74 kW in comparison to 5447.23 kW), while the difference in energy efficiency is low, almost negligible (92.371% in comparison to 92.357%). Percentage differences between observed turbine cylinders show that left cylinder has approximately 5% lower real (polytropic) as well as ideal (isentropic) power and simultaneously approximately 5% lower energy loss.

This paper present energy and exergy evaluation of CO2 closed-cycle gas turbine process. The most important operating parameters of the whole observed cycle, as well as of each of its constituent components are presented and discussed. In the observed process, produced useful mechanical power for the power consumer drive is equal to 5189.78 kW, while the energy efficiency of the whole cycle is equal to 36.6%. Heat Regenerator is a crucial component of the observed process – without its operation energy efficiency of the whole cycle will be equal to only 16.91%. From the exergy aspect, Turbocompressor (TC) and Turbine (TU) shows good performances because its exergy efficiencies are higher than 90%. Regenerator exergy efficiency could be increased by lowering the temperature of the ambient in which analyzed CO2 closed-cycle gas turbine operates.

Previous work has determined the ability of using the Multilayer Perceptron (MLP) type of Artificial Neural Network (ANN) to estimate the power output of a Combined Cycle Power Plant (CCPP) in which optimization did not focus on the solver parameter optimization. In previous work, the solvers used the default parameters. Possibility exists that optimizing solver parameters will net better results. Two solver algorithm’s parameters are optimized: Stochastic Gradient Descent (SGD) and Adam, with 140 and 720 parameter combinations respectively. Solutions are estimated through the use of Root Mean Square Error (RMSE). Lowest RMSE achieved is 4.275 [MW] for SGD and 4.259 [MW] for Adam, achieved with parameters: = 0.05, = 0.02, and nesterov=True for SGD and with parameters = 0.001, 1 = 0.95, 2 = 0.99, and amsgrad=False for Adam. Only a slight improvement is shown in comparison to previous results (RMSE=4.305 [MW]) which points towards the fact that solver parameter optimization with the goal of improving results does not justify the extra time taken for training.

Exergy analysis of steam turbine governing valve from a super critical thermal power plant is presented in this paper. Governing valve was analyzed not only at the highest, but also on two partial steam system loads. The lowest valve exergy destruction is 3598 kW and is obtained at the highest steam system load, while at partial loads of 80% and 60% valve exergy destruction is 13550 kW and 21360 kW. Valve exergy efficiency increases with an increase in system load, from 95.58% at 60% of load to 97.87% at 80% of load. At the highest load, valve exergy efficiency is the highest and is 99.57%. Change in valve steam specific entropy increment (difference in steam specific entropy between valve outlet and inlet) can be used as a tool for quick assessment of valve losses change. The ambient temperature influence on governing valve exergy analysis is low, especially in the highest steam system load where the majority of valve operation can be expected.