Date Available

12-7-2011

Year of Publication

2005

Document Type

Thesis

College

Engineering

Department

Mechanical Engineering

First Advisor

George P. Huang

Abstract

Combined Cycle power plants have recently become a serious alternative for standard coal- and oil-fired power plants because of their high thermal efficiency, environmentally friendly operation, and short time to construct. The combined cycle plant is an integration of the gas turbine and the steam turbine, combining many of the advantages of both thermodynamic cycles using a single fuel. By recovering the heat energy in the gas turbine exhaust and using it to generate steam, the combined cycle leverages the conversion of the fuel energy at a very high efficiency. The heat recovery steam generator forms the backbone of combined cycle plants, providing the link between the gas turbine and the steam turbine. The design of HRSG has historically largely been completed using thermodynamic principles related to the steam path, without much regard to the gas-side of the system. An effort has been made using resources at both UK and Vogt Power International to use computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis of the gas-side flow path of the HRSG as an integral tool in the design process. This thesis focuses on how CFD analysis can be used to assess the impact of the gas-side flow on the HRSG performance and identify design modifications to improve the performance. An effort is also made to explore the software capabilities to make the simulation an efficient and accurate.

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