Improvement of Gas Turbine Performance Using Multi-Stage Inlet Air Cooling System

Gas turbines play a significant role as an energy source if it has been designed according to the ISO operating conditions taking into consideration the operating conditions varied with the variation of the ambient conditions. This work aims to determine the effect of many parameters like the temperature at the compressor inlet, relative humidity, pressure ratios, and polytropic efficiency on each component of gas turbine performance (compressor, combustion chamber, and turbine). In this work, the Engineering Equation Solver (EES) software is used to calculate exergy destruction, net power, and all efficiencies (1st law and 2nd efficiency). After that, the validation of the code generated through EES software is performed using the actual performance data from the Heliopolis gas turbine power plant 25 MW. model, (GE GT-TM) made by GE. The results show the performance of the overall gas turbine behaves with and without a multi-stage cooling system.  In addition, the effect of using the new inlet air cooling system on the gas turbine performance improvement under different conditions is determined. It is worth mentioning that the maximum power output increase is about 14.3% at the maximum ambient temperature (313oK). While the change of the 1st low efficiency and the 2nd low efficiency are so small it could be neglected. Also, the results illustrate that first and second law efficiencies provide quantitative and qualitative compressor performance assessments. The present multi-stage cooling system reduces the back-period cost if it uses a chiller system. Adding a chilling system before the fogging cooling system reflects the downsizing of the chilling system. This means low initial capital investment costs and low total annual costs. In addition, the multi-stage cooling system capital cost will be cashback during the first year regarding recovered power pric