Advanced Cooling Tower Concept for Commercial and Industrial Applications

For the majority of cooling towers installed, of which there are greater than half a million installed in the U.S., tower design uses direct evaporative cooler technology where an ideally enthalpy-neutral process cools the process water stream to a temperature above the ambient wet bulb. This ambient wet bulb temperature is the limiting factor for the process cooling. As such the energy-water connection is clear, these cooling towers are direct consumers of treated water and their cooling performance is intimately tied to the process efficiency.

Standardization of Cross Flow Turbine Design for Typical Micro-Hydro Site Conditions in Pakistan

Pakistan has a hydro potential of approximately 42,000MW; however only 7,000MW is being utilized for electrical power production [1, 2]. Out of 42,000 MW, micro hydro potential is about 1,300MW [1, 2]. For typical site conditions (available flow rate and head) in Pakistan, Cross Flow Turbines (CFTs) are best suited for medium head 5–150m [3] for micro-hydro power production. The design of CFT generally includes details of; the diameter of the CFT runner, number of blades, radius of curvature and diameter ratio. This paper discusses the design of various CFTs for typical Pakistan site conditions in order to standardize the design of CFTs based on efficiency that is best suited for a given site conditions. The turbine efficiency as a function of specific speed will provide a guide for cross flow turbine selection based on standardized turbine for manufacturing purposes. Standardization of CFT design will not only facilitate manufacturing of CFT based on the available site conditions with high turbine efficiency but also result in reduced manufacturing cost.

Introducing ASME PTC 48

In the field of Power Generation, Operators — Plant Owners, Utilities, IPPs … — have had to face severe constraints linked not only with price of electricity and cost of fuel, but also with more and more demanding environmental constraints. It appears that the next atmospheric emission coming under scrutiny is CO2. Some small scale laboratory size experiments and pilot scale tests demonstrating the ability to capture CO2 before it reaches the atmosphere have already been conducted, and some industrial scale demonstrators are already at the permitting stage and will soon reach construction. In order to anticipate the needs of Performance Tests within this coming market, ASME decided to form a new committee in order to prepare and deliver ASME Performance Test Code – PTC 48 “Overall Plant Performance with Carbon Capture” test code. This new code may be seen as an evolution of ASME PTC 46 “Performance Test Code on Overall Plant Performance” 1996 (currently under revision), which goes beyond the sole verification of components to provide guidelines for testing a full Plant. Capturing CO2 from fuel–fired power plants will have a significant impact on net capacity and net heat rate of the plant. Such plants will, in addition to the Power Block and Steam Generator, also include systems not commonly included in non-CO2 capture power plants. The addition of an ASU (Air Separation Unit, for oxy-combustion with CO2 capture) and/or CPU (CO2 Purification Unit, for oxy-combustion or post-combustion CO2 capture) has made necessary the preparation of a dedicated test code based upon same guiding principle than PTC 46, i.e. treating the plant globally as a “Black Box”. This approach allows correction of output and efficiency at the plant interfaces, but at the exclusion of internal parameters. It is anticipated that the code can inform development of regulations that define the rules and obligations of Operators. Currently, the proposed PTC 48 aims at fossil fuel fired Steam-electric power plants using either post-combustion CO2 capture or oxy-combustion with CO2 capture technologies. Combined cycles and Integrated Gasification Combined Cycles — IGCCs — are not addressed.

Earthquake Experience Data Point to Benefit of Diverse Backup Power

Operating nuclear power plants typically have backup electrical power supplied by diesel generators. Although backup power systems are designed with redundant trains, each capable of supplying the power requirements for safe shutdown equipment, there is a common-mode seismic failure risk inherent in these customary backup power arrangements. In an earthquake, multiple equipment trains with similar, if not identical, components located side-by-side are exposed to inertial forces that are essentially identical. In addition, because of their similar subcomponent configurations, seismic fragilities are approximately equal. In that case, the probability of multiple backup power system failures during an earthquake is likely to be dependent on, and nearly the same as, the individual seismic failure probability of each equipment train. Post-earthquake inspections at conventional multiple unit power stations over the last 40 years identified this common-mode seismic failure risk long before the tsunami-related common-mode failures of diesel generators at Fukushima Daiichi in March 2011. Experience data from post-earthquake inspections also indicate that failure probabilities of diverse sets of power generation equipment are independent and inherently less susceptible to common-mode failures. This paper demonstrates that employing diverse backup power designs will deliver quantifiable improvements in electrical system availability following an earthquake. These improvements are illustrated from available literature of post-earthquake inspection reports, along with other firsthand observations. A case study of the seismic performance of similarly configured electrical power generation systems is compared to the performance of diverse sets of electrical power systems. Seismic probabilistic risk analyses for several system configurations are presented to show the benefit of improved post-earthquake availability that results from designing new backup power systems with greater diversity.

Design and Fabrication of an Experimental Facility for High-Pressure Pool Boiling

In this work, we present the design and fabrication a high-pressure pool boiling facility to conduct pool boiling experiments on horizontal heated surfaces under elevated pressures, up to 20 bar. Previous research has shown that micro- and/or nano-structured surfaces and coated surfaces will increase heat transfer coefficients up to one order of magnitude at atmospheric pressure. However, most boiling applications are subjected to high pressure, especially in the power industry. Pressure inside a boiling water reactor in a nuclear power plant will reach as high as 75 atm (75.99 bar). In order to determine how heat transfer is enhanced at increased pressures, with deionized water and refrigerants, on modified surfaces, a special experimental setup needs to be designed and fabricated. Difficulties in making such an experimental setup come from stabilizing the system pressure, sealing the test setup and visualizing the boiling conditions in the vessel. Both advantages and disadvantages of this design will be discussed and possible methods for improvements will be proposed. Preliminary test results on a plane copper surface are also included. Future research will be focusing on boiling of water and refrigerants on micro-structured copper surfaces, graphene coated, and Teflon© coated surfaces under high pressure.

Numerical Study of a Multipurpose Power Generator Using the Finite Element Method

Analytical and experimental analyses of a variable electromotive-force generator (VEG) show the advantages of this modified generator in hybrid electric vehicle and wind turbine applications with enhancing the fuel efficiency and expanding the operational range, respectively. In this study, electromagnetic analysis of a modified two-pole DC generator with an adjustable overlap between the rotor and the stator is studied using 3-D finite element simulation in ANSYS. The generator stator is modeled with two opposite pole pieces whose arcs span between 15° to 90° in the counterclockwise direction and −15° to −90° in the clockwise direction. A semicircular cylinder whose arc spans between −90° and 90° is used to model the generator rotor. A tetrahedral mesh is used to provide a solution for changes in the electromotive force at different frequencies and overlap ratios. For a constant electromagnetic flux density and fixed number of coils, the changes in the electromotive force at different overlap ratios between the rotor and the stator are obtained in static conditions. There is a very good correlation between the results from simulation and those from analytical and experimental studies.

Experimental Results of Flow Nozzle Based on PTC 6 for High Reynolds Number

Discharge coefficients for three flow nozzles based on ASME PTC 6 are measured under many flow conditions at AIST, NMIJ and PTB. The uncertainty of the measurements is from 0.04% to 0.1% and the Reynolds number range is from 1.3×105 to 1.4×107. The discharge coefficients obtained by these experiments is not exactly consistent to one given by PTC 6 for all examined Reynolds number range. The discharge coefficient is influenced by the size of tap diameter even if at the lower Reynolds number region. Experimental results for the tap of 5 mm and 6 mm diameter do not satisfy the requirements based on the validation procedures and the criteria given by PTC 6. The limit of the size of tap diameter determined in PTC 6 is inconsistent with the validation check procedures of the calibration result. An enhanced methodology including the term of the tap diameter is recommended. Otherwise, it is recommended that the calibration test should be performed at as high Reynolds number as possible and the size of tap diameter is desirable to be as small as possible to obtain the discharge coefficient with high accuracy.

Numerical Simulation of a Compressed Air Driven Tesla Turbine

This paper presents the Computational Fluid Dynamics analysis of a Tesla bladeless turbine using compressed air as the working fluid. Multiple flow configurations are analyzed using both Laminar and the turbulent behaviors. The loading coefficient and the efficiency of turbines is evaluated for both the 2D and 3D cases. Multiples disc is a viable option but it is been observed they result in loss in performance for the laminar and turbulent simulations. In addition the inflection point of the laminar flow vanishes in the turbulent flow; the work presented is an initial step towards the realization of Tesla turbine.

Optimized Energy Recovery in Line With Balancing of an ATES

The present study explores the potential imbalance problem of the Aquifer Thermal Energy Storage (ATES) system at the Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) campus, Eindhoven. This ATES is one of the largest European aquifer thermal energy storage systems, and has a seasonal imbalance problem. Reasons for this issue may be the high cooling demand from laboratories, office buildings and the direct ATES cooling system. Annually, cooling towers use on average 250 MWh electricity for the removal of about 5 GWh of excess heat from the ATES to the surroundings. In addition, the TU/e uses a large amount of natural gas for heating purposes and especially for peak supplies. Recovering the surplus heat of the ATES, a CO2 Trans-critical Heat Pump (HP) system to cover particularly peak demands and total heating demand is proposed, modeled and optimized. The model is validated using data from International Energy Agency. Based on simulation results, 708294 nm3 of natural gas are saved where two different scenarios were considered for the ATES efficiency, cost saving and green house gas reduction. In scenario I, the COP of the ATES increased up to 50% by which K€ 303.3 energy cost and 1288.5 ton CO2 are saved annually. On the other hand, it will be shown that the ATES COP in Scenario II will improve up to 20%. In addition, the proposed energy recovery system results in a 606 ton CO2 -reduction and K€152.7 energy cost saving for the university each year.

Simulations of Pressurized Fluidized Circulating Bed Based Combined Cycle (PFCB)

The Pressurized Fluidized Circulating Bed (PFCB) combined cycle was simulated. The simulations balance the energy between the elements of the unit, which consists of gas turbine cycle and steam turbine cycle. The PFCB is used as a combustor and steam generator at the same time. The simulations were carried out for PFCB combined cycle plant for two cases. In the first case, the simulations were performed for combined cycle with reheat in the steam turbine cycle. While in the second case, the simulations were carried out for the PFCB combined cycle with extra combustor and steam turbine cycle with reheat. For both cases, the effect of steam inlet pressure on the combined cycle efficiency was predicted. It was found that increasing of steam pressure results in increase in the combined cycle thermal efficiency. The effect of the inlet flue gases temperature on the gas turbine and on the combined cycle efficiencies was also predicted. The maximum PFCB combined cycle efficiency occurs at a compression ratio of 18, which is the case of utilizing an extra combustor. The simulations were carried out for only one fuel composition and for a compression ratio ranges between 1 to 40.