Thermodynamic Optimization of the HAT Cycle Plant Structure—Part I: Optimization of the “Basic Plant Configuration”

A method for the thermodynamic optimization of the humid air turbine cycle plant structure is presented here. The method is based on the optimization of a “basic configuration of the plant” including “basic components” (compressor, turbine, combustion chamber, regenerator, and saturator), always present and connected in the same way in the plant structure and a heat exchange section which is viewed as a “black-box” where the heat transfer between hot and cold thermal flows occurs regardless of how many heat exchangers there are and of how they are interconnected. The optimal boundary conditions between the basic components and black-box are determined by calculating the conditions of maximum heat transfer in the black-box independently of the structure of the heat exchanger network. This is done by defining optimal composite curves in a Fortran routine at each step in the main optimization procedure. Once the structure of the heat exchanger networks that fulfill the optimal boundary conditions have been found, the optimal structure of the whole plant is obtained (see Section 2). The method is useful in a general sense as it can be applied to highly integrated energy systems in which it is difficult to define the optimal structure of the heat exchanger network in advance.