Progressive Filtration of the Induced Effects in Thermoeconomic Diagnosis of Energy Systems
In this paper, the thermoeconomic diagnosis of an energy system is discussed. Several important contributions that make the diagnosis more reliable and practical are introduced. This is obtained through an initial filtration of the effects caused by the dependence of the efficiencies of components on their operating condition. With respect to some previously proposed approaches, simple models are used to achieve this objective. These models are productive models, relating resources and products through linear functions. The drawbacks associated with the use of these simple models are overcome through the use of a technique called the anamnesis, which is the analysis of the case history of a system. A second contribution introduced in this paper is constituted by the analysis of four significant cases of anomalies that can occur in a heat recovery steam generator. Two of them have been obtained by simulating the presence of a single anomaly, each time in a different component. In the other cases, two anomalies have been produced at the same time in two different components. The operating conditions have been obtained by using a simulator, but the effects caused by errors in measurements are taken into account. An analysis has been also performed in order to present the advantages connected with the use of simple productive models, instead of physical models, when measured data are processed.