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Techno-economic studies of environmentally friendly Brayton cycles in the petrochemical industry

Brayton cycles are open gas turbine cycles extensively used in aviation and
industrial applications because of their advantageous volume and weight
characteristics. With the bulk of waste exhaust heat and engine emissions
associated, there is need to be mindful of environmentally-friendliness of these
engine cycles, not compromising good technical performance, and economic
viability.
This research considers assessment of power plants in helicopters, and aeroderivative
industrial gas turbines combined-heat-and-power (ADIGT-CHP) in the
petrochemical industry. Thus, it consists of two parts: part A focuses on
performance analysis of helicopter gas turbines, while part B entails technoeconomic
and environmental risk assessment of ADIGT-CHP in the
petrochemical industry. The investigation encompasses comparative
assessment of simple cycle (SC) and advanced gas turbine cycle options
including the component behaviours and the environmental and economic
analysis of the systems. The advanced cycles considered include: recuperated
(RC), intercooled (IC), intercooled-recuperated (ICR), and low pressure
compressor zero-staged (LPC-ZS), cycles.
The helicopter engines are analysed and subsequently converted to small-scale
ADIGT engines. Also, modelling combined-heat-and-power (CHP)
performances of small-scale (SS), and large-scale (LS) ADIGT engines is
implemented. More importantly, a large part of the research is devoted to
developing a techno-economic model for assessing, predicting, and comparing
viability of simple and advanced cycle ADIGT-CHP in the petrochemical
industry in terms of net present value (NPV), internal rate of return (IRR), and
simple payback period (SPBP). The techno-economic performances of the
ADIGT-CHP cycles are measured against the conventional case of grid power
plus on-site boiler. Besides, risk and sensitivity of NPV with respect to uncertain
changes in grid electricity cost, gas fuel cost, emission cost, and electricity
export tariff, are investigated. Two case studies underlie the development of the
techno-economic model. One case study demonstrates the application of the
model for large-scale (LS) ADIGT-CHP, and the other for small-scale (SS)
ADIGT-CHP, all in the petrochemical industry. By so doing, techno-economic
and environmental risk analysis framework (a multi-disciplinary preliminary
design assessment tool comprising performance, emissions, economic, and risk
modules) is adapted to ADIGT-CHP in the petrochemical industry, which is the
aim of this research.
The investigation and results led to the conclusions that advanced cycle
helicopter and ADIGT engines exhibit higher thermal efficiencies than simple
cycle, and that savings exist in operational costs of ADIGT-CHP above the
conventional case. Thus, for both SS ADIGT-CHP, and LS ADIGT-CHP cases,
all ADIGT-CHP cycles are profitable than the conventional case. For LS ADIGT-
CHP category, the IC ADIGT-CHP is the most profitable, whereas for SS
ADIGT-CHP category, the RC ADIGT-CHP is the most profitable. The
contribution to knowledge of this research is the development of a technoeconomic
model for assessing, predicting, and comparing viability of simple and
advanced cycle ADIGT-CHP in the petrochemical industry in terms of NPV,
SPBP, and IRR over the conventional case of grid power plus on-site boiler. A
second contribution is the derivation of simple and advanced cycle small-scale
ADIGT and ADIGT-CHP from helicopter engines.
Cont/D.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:CRANFIELD1/oai:dspace.lib.cranfield.ac.uk:1826/9260
Date10 1900
CreatorsNkoi, Barinyima
ContributorsPilidis, Pericles, Nikolaidis, T.
PublisherCranfield University
Source SetsCRANFIELD1
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeThesis or dissertation, Doctoral, PhD
Rights© Cranfield University 2014. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the written permission of the copyright owner.

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