Lumped Parameters Modeling of an Incinerator With Heat Recovery for Energy Production

This work shows the modeling of an incineration plant with energy recovery which operates in the vicinity of Pisa, Italy. The plant analysed was built formerly as an incineration plant and was recently refurbished with a heat recovery steam generator to drive a condensing steam turbine. In the foresight of an enlargement of the plant capacity, the Technical Office of the Company asked the Energetica Department of University of Pisa for an analysis of the recovery capability. The Technical Office and the Energetica Department decided to create a lumped parameter model in order to simulate the temperature behavior of the combustion products. This model was created inside Matlab/Simulink environment. The followed procedure led to the reproduction of the system interested by the cycle in steady state conditions in order to obtain a model simple enough but at the same time rigorous of the real behavior of steam cicle. After the description of the plant modeling, model calibration and validation is shown, by means of the comparison between the measured and simulated values of temperatures and mass flows in several load conditions. The model developed is currently used by the Technical Office of the Company for further developments of the plant.