Power plant design - a generalized system for computer analysis

Includes bibliographical references (pages 56)Currently methods used in the preliminary design and\ud analysis of rankine cycle steam power plant configurations\ud involve tedious and error prone hand calculations or\ud require the development and use of highly specialized\ud computer models of a specific design configuration. These\ud computer models do not readily lend themselves to changes\ud in configuration design. There is then a clear and\ud evident need to create a method and a system of programs\ud which will quickly and accurately analyze general steam\ud power plant configurations. The system of programs should\ud be flexible and versatile allowing changes in design to be\ud incorporated into the analytical model as quickly and\ud easily as possible. The system of programs presented in this report offers a\ud solution to this requirement. The programs are designed\ud and written to be modular; allowing easy modification,\ud deletion or addition of new and more complex modules.\ud They are programmed in ANSI-IV Standard FORTRAN and are\ud thereby highly portable to other computer systems, and\ud above all they are versatile and flexible as to the types\ud of steam power plant configurations that can be analyzed.\ud The steam tables programmed into the system incorporates\ud the time tested alogrithms from Keenan and Keyes. This\ud assures a level of reliability and accuracy unatainable\ud with other methods. The system can also be used for\ud educational purposes, allowing students to quickly analyze\ud several steam power plant systems and make judgments as to\ud the validity and usefulness of each system.\ud Several power plant design configurations are included to\ud demonstrate the versatility and usefulness of the design\ud philosophy used for this project. One configuration, a\ud complex power plant system requiring an iterative solution\ud which would have taken many hours of hand calculations and\ud table look-ups, required only a few minutes to analyze\ud using this system of programs on a microcomputer system