Cantera-Based Python Computer Program for Solving Steam Power Cycles with Superheating

Marzouk, Osama A.

doi:10.46338/ijetae0323_06

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…This package has its own database of water properties. [52][53][54] This is a validation for the obtained results here. For example, the predicted thermal cycle efficiency of the steam here is 38.60%, which is exact (to 4 significant digits) with the independent analysis conducted using the modeling tool Cantera.…”

Section: Base Casesupporting

confidence: 68%

Subcritical and supercritical Rankine steam cycles, under elevated temperatures up to 900°C and absolute pressures up to 400 bara

Marzouk

2024

Advances in Mechanical Engineering

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The Rankine cycle is a conceptual arrangement of four processes as a closed vapor power thermodynamic cycle, where a working fluid (especially water as a liquid, as a vapor, and as a liquid-vapor mixture) can be used to convert heat into mechanical energy (shaft rotation). This cycle and its variants are widely used in electric power generation through utility-scale thermal power plants, such as coal-fired power plants and nuclear power plants. In the steam-based Rankine cycle, water should be pressurized and heated to be in the form of very hot high-pressure water vapor called “superheated steam,” before the useful process of expansion inside a steam turbine section occurs. If the absolute pressure and temperature of the superheated steam are both above the critical values for water (220.6 bara and 374.0°C), the cycle is classified as “supercritical.” Otherwise, the cycle is classified as “subcritical.” This study considers the impact of the temperature and pressure, independently, on the performance of a steam Rankine cycle. Starting from a representative condition for a subcritical cycle (600°C peak temperature and 50 bara peak absolute pressure), either the peak temperature or the peak absolute pressure of the cycle is increased with regular steps (up to 900°C, with a temperature step of 50°C, and up to 400 bara, with a pressure step of 50 bar). The variation of five scale-independent performance metrics is investigated in response to the elevated temperature and the elevated pressure. Thus, a total of 10 response curves are presented. When the temperature increased, all the five response variables were improved in a nearly linear profile. On the other hand, increasing the pressure did not give a monotonic linear improvement for each response variable. In particular, the cycle efficiency seemed to approach a limiting maximum value of 45% approximately, where further increases in the pressure cause diminishing improvements in the efficiency. When varying the peak pressure, an optimum minimum ratio of (water-mass-to-output-power) is found at 203 bara, although the cycle efficiency still increases beyond this value. In the present research work, the web-based tool for calculating steam properties by the British company Spirax Sarco Limited, and the software program mini-REFPROP by NIST (United States National Institute of Standards and Technology) were used for finding the necessary specific enthalpies (energy content) of water at different stages within the steam cycle. Both tools were found consistent with each other, as well as with the Python-based software package Cantera for simulating thermo-chemical-transport processes. The results showed that if the peak temperature reaches 900°C, a gain of about 5 percentage points (pp) in the thermal cycle efficiency becomes possible (compared to the case of having a base peak temperature of 600°C), as the predicted efficiency was found to increase from 38.60% (base case) to 43.67%. For the influence of the steam peak pressure, operating in the subcritical regime but close to the critical point appears to be a good choice given the gradual decline in efficiency gains at higher pressures. About 4.7 percentage point increase was found at the high subcritical peak pressure of 200 bara (compared to a base subcritical peak pressure of 50 bara). The results of this study also showed that the liquid water droplet mass fraction at the steam turbine exit diminishes from 11.00% at 600°C to only 1.48% at 900°C, which is favorable. This mass fraction grows from 11.00% at 50 bara to 27.89% at 400 bara, which is not acceptable. Every 100°C increase in the superheating temperature between 600°C and 900°C was found to cause aa increase in the cycle thermal efficiency by about 1.69 percentage points, and simultaneous a beneficial increase in the steam quality at the turbine exit by about 3.17 percentage points.

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Section: Base Casesupporting

confidence: 68%

Subcritical and supercritical Rankine steam cycles, under elevated temperatures up to 900°C and absolute pressures up to 400 bara

Marzouk

2024

Advances in Mechanical Engineering

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“…The higher-temperature cycle (or the topping cycle) is the plasma generator. Its hot exhaust gas is used as an input heat source to a lower-temperature cycle (or the bottoming cycle), which can be a conventional steam power plant with turbogenerators driven by steam turbines according to a Rankine power cycle (Marzouk, 2023), or a conventional gas-fired power plant with turbogenerators driven by gas turbines according to a Brayton power cycle (Esmaeilzadehazimi et al, 2019).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Detailed and simplified plasma models in combined-cycle magnetohydrodynamic power systems

Marzouk

2023

Int. j. adv. appl. sci.

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Magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) is a subject concerned with the dynamics of electrically conducting fluids (plasma) and can be applied in electric power generation. As a unique technology for producing direct-current electricity without moving parts, it can be utilized within a high-temperature topping power cycle to be combined with a traditional bottoming power cycle, forming a combined-cycle MHD system. This study presents governing equations for the electric field and current density field within a moving plasma subject to an applied magnetic field. The modeling equations are described at four descending levels of complexity. Starting with the first level of modeling, which is the most general case, where no assumptions are made regarding the electric field, plasma velocity field, applied magnetic field, or electrode geometry. In the second level of modeling, the magnetic field is treated as one-dimensional. In the third level of modeling, a specific Faraday-type magnetohydrodynamics plasma generator channel is considered, having two continuous electrodes acting as parallel constant-voltage terminals. In the fourth (and simplest) level of modeling, an additional approximation is made by setting the Hall parameter to zero and replacing all vector fields with scalar quantities. For that simplest model, a representative set of operation conditions (electric conductivity 20 S/m, temperature 2800 K, supersonic plasma gas speed 2000 m/s with Mach 2.134, and magnetic flux density 5 T) shows that the optimum idealized electric power that can be extracted from a unit volume of plasma is estimated as 500 MW/m3. This is a much larger volumetric power density than typical values encountered in reciprocating piston-type engines (0.2 MW/m3) or rotary gas turbine engines (0.5 MW/m3). Such an extremely high power density enables very compact power generation units.

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Adiabatic Flame Temperatures for Oxy-Methane, Oxy-Hydrogen, Air-Methane, and Air-Hydrogen Stoichiometric Combustion using the NASA CEARUN Tool, GRI-Mech 3.0 Reaction Mechanism, and Cantera Python Package

Marzouk

2023

Eng. Technol. Appl. Sci. Res.

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The Adiabatic Flame Temperature (AFT) in combustion represents the maximum attainable temperature at which the chemical energy in the reactant fuel is converted into sensible heat in combustion products without heat loss. AFT depends on the fuel, oxidizer, and chemical composition of the products. Computing AFT requires solving either a nonlinear equation or a larger minimization problem. This study obtained the AFTs for oxy-methane (methane and oxygen), oxy-hydrogen (hydrogen and oxygen), air-methane (methane and air), and air-hydrogen (hydrogen and air) for stoichiometric conditions. The reactant temperature was 298.15 K (25°C), and the pressure was kept constant at 1 atm. Two reaction mechanisms were attempted: a global single-step irreversible reaction for complete combustion and the GRI-Mech 3.0 elementary mechanism (53 species, 325 steps) for chemical equilibrium with its associated thermodynamic data. NASA CEARUN was the main modeling tool used. Two other tools were used for benchmarking: an Excel and a Cantera-Python implementation of GRI-Mech 3.0. The results showed that the AFTs for oxy-methane were 5,166.47 K (complete combustion) and 3,050.12 K (chemical equilibrium), and dropped to 2,326.35 K and 2,224.25 K for air-methane, respectively. The AFTs for oxy-hydrogen were 4,930.56 K (complete combustion) and 3,074.51 K (chemical equilibrium), and dropped to 2,520.33 K and 2,378.62 K for air-hydrogen, respectively. For eight combustion modeling cases, the relative deviation between the AFTs predicted by CEARUN and GRI-Mech 3.0 ranged from 0.064% to 3.503%.

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Cantera-Based Python Computer Program for Solving Steam Power Cycles with Superheating

Cited by 3 publications

References 27 publications

Subcritical and supercritical Rankine steam cycles, under elevated temperatures up to 900°C and absolute pressures up to 400 bara

Subcritical and supercritical Rankine steam cycles, under elevated temperatures up to 900°C and absolute pressures up to 400 bara

Detailed and simplified plasma models in combined-cycle magnetohydrodynamic power systems

Adiabatic Flame Temperatures for Oxy-Methane, Oxy-Hydrogen, Air-Methane, and Air-Hydrogen Stoichiometric Combustion using the NASA CEARUN Tool, GRI-Mech 3.0 Reaction Mechanism, and Cantera Python Package

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