Development of Chilled Water Turbine Inlet Air Cooling

Model for Enhancement of Turbine Performance

Didi Asmara Salim1,*, Mohd Amin Abd Majid1, and Adzuieen Nordin2
1
Mechanical Engineering Department, Universiti Teknoologi PETRONAS, Tronoh, Perak, Malaysia
2
Mechanical Engineering Department, Politeknik Ungku Omar, Ipoh, Perak, Malaysia
Corresponding author: [email protected]

Abstract. The research presents a study on Turbine inlet air cooling (TIAC) technology for
enhancement of turbine performance for Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS (UTP) Gas District
Cooling (GDC) plant. Using the analytical model, the performance of the Gas Turbine (GT) were
analysed and the size of the heat exchanger also were determined. Results of the analysis indicate
that by implementing the TIAC technology to the plant, there is an increasing pattern of 19% to
the power generated, with the size of the heat exchanger that can cope to decrease the inlet
temperature of the inlet of GT to 15oC is 3208 m2. The size of the TES were calculated as
1156.3m3 to meet the cooling requirement..

1. Introduction
There are a number of Gas Turbine used in Malaysia in order to generate electricity. In UTP, the
electricity is generated by its own GT to meet the needs of the campus. It is known that the GT
performance is depending on its input air inlet temperature [1, 2]. Every GT operated influenced by the
mass flow rate of air that entering the compressor [3]. Hence, by increasing the volumetric efficiency, it
contributed to the GT power augmentation. The volumetric efficiency of a GT can be improved by
decreasing the GT inlet temperature. The GT inlet temperature is the same as the ambient temperature
of the location GT are operated. Several studies also have proven that by implementing the TIAC the
power generated by GT could be enhanced [4-7]. Thus, a study on efficiency improvement of GT at
UTP GDC plant was carried out. The objectives of this study are to size the heat exchanger needed to
cool down the ambient temperature, and also to determine the power that can be enhanced by
implementing this technology.

2. Methodology
This study uses the acquired hourly temperature data for Sitiawan, Perak, Malaysia for the year of 2016.
The GT understudied were Solar Taurus 60-T7300 installed at UTP District Cooling (DC) plant. The
chiller and coil sized were based on Ashrae 0.4% Evaporation Design Point. The configuration of the
proposed Model is as shown in Figure 1, consisting heat exchanger, GT, electric chiller and a chilled
water storage. The methodology adopted for this research is shown in Figure 2.
 Figure 1: Configuration of proposed model.

The acquired hourly temperature data were used to calculate the cooling load to size of the chilled water
storage. The calculation of the cooling load was based on ASHRAE Handbook 2009 [8]. Based on the
ISO rated inlet temperature of a GT, the sizing of heat exchanger was determined by using the Number
of Transfer Unit (NTU) method [9].

Figure 2: Research flowchart

As given in ASHRAE Handbook 2009 [8], the cooling load was calculated as per equation (1).
𝐶𝐶𝐿 = 𝐴𝐹𝑚 (𝐻𝑎 − 𝐻𝑐 ) (1)
Where CCL is Chiller Cooling Load, AFm is Mass Flow Rate of Cooled Air, Ha is Enthalpy of
Ambient Air and Hc is Enthalpy of Cooled Air.
As for the chiller water storage, the size can be determined as per equation (2)
𝐶𝑜𝑜𝑙𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑐𝑎𝑝𝑎𝑐𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑥 𝑆𝑡𝑜𝑟𝑎𝑔𝑒 ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑟𝑠 𝑥 3.024𝑀𝑐𝑎𝑙/𝑅𝑇ℎ (2)
= 𝑀𝑐𝑎𝑙
𝐶ℎ𝑖𝑙𝑙𝑒𝑑 𝑤𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝑑𝑒𝑙𝑡𝑎 𝑥 1.0 3 𝑥 𝑇𝑎𝑛𝑘 𝑆𝑡𝑜𝑟𝑎𝑔𝑒 𝑒𝑓𝑓𝑖𝑐𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑦
𝑚 𝑜
𝐶

Where, the cooling capacity were extracted from the heat balance done in equation (1), storages hours
is set to 10hours and tank storage efficiency is 85%.

Gas Turbine efficiency

Figure (3) shows a schematic diagram of a standard GT cycle. Each part of it has been labelled
accordingly and tabled in table (1).

Figure 3: Gas Turbine Cycle

Table 1: Operating parameters of Gas Tubine

State Substance Mass Temperature Pressure
flow rate (K) (kPa)
(kg/s)

Atmospheric
1 - - -
condition.
Air at ideal outlet
2 𝑚̇01 𝑇01 𝑃01
temperature.

Fuel enters
3 𝑚̇02 𝑇02 𝑃02
combustor chamber.

Combustion gas
4 𝑚̇03 𝑇03 𝑃03
enters the turbine.

Exhaust gas leaves

5 𝑚̇04 𝑇04 𝑃04
the turbine.

The performance of the GT was determined by calculating its energy efficiency as per equation (3)
𝑊𝑛𝑒𝑡𝑡 (3)
𝜂𝑒 =
𝑚̇𝑓𝑢𝑒𝑙 𝑥 𝐿𝐻𝑉

With, 𝑊𝑛𝑒𝑡 is the power output (kWatt) and calculated using equation (4), 𝑚̇𝑓𝑢𝑒𝑙 is the mass flowrate
of fuel (kg/s) and LHV is the lower heating value.
 (4)
𝑊𝑛𝑒𝑡𝑡 = 𝑊𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑏𝑖𝑛𝑒 − 𝑊𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑝

Work turbine was calculated by using equation (5)

𝑊𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑏𝑖𝑛𝑒 = 𝑚̇𝑒𝑥ℎ𝑎𝑢𝑠𝑡 𝑔𝑎𝑠 . 𝐶𝑝𝑔 . (𝑇𝑖𝑛𝑙𝑒𝑡 𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑏𝑖𝑛𝑒 − 𝑇𝑜𝑢𝑡𝑙𝑒𝑡 𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑏𝑖𝑛𝑒 ) (5)

And work of the compressor was calculated using equation (6)

𝑊𝑐 = 𝑚̇𝑎𝑖𝑟 𝐶𝑝(𝑎) (𝑇𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑠𝑜𝑟 − 𝑇𝑖𝑛𝑙𝑒𝑡 𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑠𝑜𝑟 ) (6)

Heat Exchanger

The Heat Exchanger sizing was determined by dividing the exchanger to 3 main parts, which
are the air side, water side and fin efficiency. As the flow arrangement was crossflow, the NTU was
given as per equation (7) and it was assumed to be of the same value of the effectiveness, 𝜀 [9]:

𝑈𝑜 𝐴𝑜
𝑁𝑇𝑈 = (7)
𝐶𝑚𝑖𝑛
Where 𝑈𝑜 is overall heat transfer coefficients which were later introduced in equation (4), 𝐴𝑜 is the
area of air and 𝐶𝑚𝑖𝑛 is the minimum value of unit thermal conductance.

The calculation of the overall heat transfer coefficient, 𝑈 was based on the air-side area using
equation (3) and was divided mainly into 3 main areas; water capacity, fluid capacity and fin
efficiency.
1 1 1
= + (8)
𝑈0 ℎ0 𝜂𝑠0 ℎ𝑖 (𝐴𝑖 /𝐴0 )
Where ℎ0 =Heat transfer coefficient on the outside, ℎ𝑖 = Heat transfer coefficient on the inside,
𝐴
𝜂𝑠𝑜 =Surface effectiveness, 𝑖 =Ratio of water side to air side areas.
𝐴𝑜
The equation (5) (Dittus-Boelter equation) can be used to calculate heat-transfer correlation if the
𝑅𝑒𝐷 > 10,000, and the Prandtl number is in the range of 0.7 < Pr < 100:
ℎ̅𝐷
= 0.023 (𝑅𝑒𝐷 )0.8 (Pr)𝑛 (9)
𝑘
Where 𝑛 is 0.4, as the 𝑡𝑤𝑎𝑙𝑙 > 𝑡𝑏𝑢𝑙𝑘

The NTU value was obtained from the effectiveness of cross-flow exchanger with fluids unmixed
graph with the need of ratio of conductance value and the effectiveness, 𝜀 as per equation (10):
𝑡𝑐𝑜 − 𝑡𝑐𝑖
𝜀= (10)
𝑡ℎ𝑖 − 𝑡𝑐𝑖
Fluid Capacity
The Reynolds number was calculated using equation (11):
𝐺𝑐 𝐷
𝑅𝑒𝐷 = (11)
𝜇
J-factors were extracted from heat transfer correlation graph from ASHRAE with the Correlating
parameter, JP given by Equation (12):

𝐴 −0.15
𝐽𝑃 = 𝑅𝑒𝐷 −0.4 [ ] (12)
𝐴𝑡
Hence, the heat transfer coefficient were determined as:

ℎ𝑜 𝜇𝐶𝑝 2/3
𝑆𝑡 𝑃𝑟 2/3 = ( )( ) (13)
𝐺𝑐 𝐶𝑝 𝑘

Fin Efficiency
For the Fin efficiency,
tanh(𝑚𝑟𝜙) (14)
𝜂= 𝑚𝑟𝜙

Where 𝑚 is given as per equation 11,

2ℎ 1/2 (15)
𝑚 = (𝑘𝑦)

𝜙 was obtained using,

𝑅
𝜙 = ( − 1) [1 + 0.35ln(𝑅⁄𝑟)] (16)
𝑟

Water Capacity
The Reynolds number was calculated using equation (17):
𝜌𝑉̅ 𝐷
𝑅𝑒𝐷 = (17)
𝜇
Water velocity was assumed at 4 ft/sec (to reduce high head loss), and 𝜌 and 𝜇 was evaluated at 15oC.
The Prandtl number was calculated using equation (14):
𝜇𝑐𝑝
𝑃𝑟 = (18)
𝑘
3. Results and Discussions
The results from the analytical model shows that the size of TES is 1156.3m3. The cooling capacity of
the TES were 325 RT extracted from the heat balance done in equation (1). For the heat exchanger
analysis, using Eq. (1) to Eq. (14), the results of heat exchanger sizing is tabulated as Table 2.

Table 2: Results of heat exchanger sizing.

Cooling load 325 RT

Chiller Size 198 kW

Water Cooled Storage 1156 m3

Heat Exchanger Size
3208 m2
(Surface area)
No. of rows 17

No. tubes per row 74

Total tubes 1258

Based on the results, the cooling load capacity is estimated around 325 RT with chiller size needed
198kW, water cooled storage, 1156 m3, heat exchanger size (surface area), 3208 m2, number and rows
and number tubes per row are 17 and 74, respectively. The total tubes for the heat exchanger is 1258
tubes. The illustrated graphic of the heat exchanger design is shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4: Proposed heat exchanger sizing.

Based on historical data for year 2016, using Eq. (3) to Eq. (6), the efficiency of the GT is shown as
Figure 5.

Efficiency of GT
100.00
Efficiency 50.00
0.00

109
10
19
28
37
46
55
64
73
82
91
100

118
Days

Input air (ambient) Input air (ISO 15deg C)

Figure 5: Efficiency of GT.

Figure 5 shows when the input air to the GT is taken from the ambient temperature, the efficiency of
the GT is lower compared the input air at 15 oC. It was proven that the input air is the main factor in
order to increase the efficiency of the GT.

4. Conclusions
The use of heat exchanger in order to decrease the temperature of inlet air of the GT enhanced the
efficiency of the plant. From this study, it is noted that the sizing of the heat exchanger is one of the
important factor to be considered in order to enhance the GT power output and increase the efficiency
of the plant.

Acknowledgements
Authors would like to acknowledge the support of British Council’s Newton as this work represents a
collaborative research between Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, Malaysia, and Heriot-Watt
University, U.K., and was funded by the British Council’s Newton Institutional Links entitled “Building
institutional links to deliver sustainable cooling energy demand.”

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