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Energy 31 (2006) 26522664 www.elsevier.com/locate/energy

Performance improvement of a gas turbine cycle by using a desiccant-based evaporative cooling system
Amir Abbas Zadpoor, Ali Hamedani Golshan
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Iran University of Science and Technology, Narmak, Tehran 16844, Iran Received 6 October 2005

Abstract This paper focuses on power augmentation of a typical gas turbine cycle by using a desiccant-based evaporative cooling system. This technique requires a desiccant-based dehumidifying process be used to direct the air through an evaporative cooler, which could be either media-based or spray type. This could assist the evaporative cooling cycle to make necessary adjustment for any possible installation defects in a hot and humid climate. We make a comparison between performance improvement achieved by this technique and those of other evaporative cooling systems in different climatic conditions. We will show that our proposed technique, at least for hot and humid climates, is more effective than other evaporative cooling techniques. r 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Power augmentation; Gas turbine; Desiccant cooling; Evaporative cooling

1. Introduction Several gas turbines are being widely used for power generation in several countries all over the world. Obviously, many of these countries have a wide range of climatic conditions, which impact the performance of gas turbines. Problems rise when a gas turbine is used in a geographic location with hot summers. Hot inlet air results in a gas turbines generating less power, during summer season, when the demand for electricity is possibly higher. In such conditions, power augmentation techniques are highly desirable. Indeed, a little increment of thermal efciency could result in a signicant amount of fuel being saved and a higher level of power being generated. The simplest remedy to this problem is to reduce the temperature of the inlet air. Several different inlet cooling methods are currently employed in various systems. As Boyce [1] discusses, power augmentation methods, which could be applied to existing gas turbines, can be divided into two main categories. The rst category includes inlet air cooling techniques and the second involves techniques based on the injection of compressed air, steam, or water. Since our objective, in this paper, is to study inlet air cooling techniques, we will only review techniques employed in the rst category.
Corresponding author. Tel.: +98 21 88848414; fax: +98 21 88826064.

E-mail address: azadpour@bme.aut.ac.ir (A.A. Zadpoor). 0360-5442/$ - see front matter r 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.energy.2005.11.004

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Nomenclature ZThermal thermal efciency of the gas turbine cycle (%) mf 1 ; mf 2 fuel ow of the rst and the second combustor (kg/s) ma air mass ow rate (kg/s) W Turb:I ; W Turb:II produced work of the rst and the second turbine (W) ZTurb:I ; ZTurb:II efciency of the rst and the second turbine (%) W Comp:I ; W Comp:II consumed work of the rst and the second compressor (W) ZComp:I ; ZComp:II efciency of the rst and the second compressor (%) Q1, Q2 input heat of the rst and the second combustor (W) ZCmbst:I ; ZCmbst:II efciency of the rst and the second combustor (%) W net net produced work of the gas turbine cycle (W) Qin sum of inputted heat (W) LHVI low heat value of the rst combustors fuel (kJ/kg) LHVII low heat value of the second combustors fuel (kJ/kg) Cp isobaric specic heat of humid air (kJ/kg K) T absolute temperature (K) Zi indirect evaporative cooling effectiveness (%) Zd direct evaporative cooling effectiveness (%) T db;i dry bulb temperature of evaporative coolers inlet air (K) T wb;i wet bulb temperature of evaporative coolers inlet air (K) T db;o dry bulb temperature of evaporative coolers outlet air (K) T wb;o wet bulb temperature of evaporative coolers outlet air (K) hi enthalpy of evaporative coolers entering air (kJ/kg) ho enthalpy of evaporative coolers exiting air (kJ/kg) wi humidity ratio of evaporative coolers entering air (kg/kg) wo humidity ratio of evaporative coolers exiting air (kg/kg) Tc combustion temperature (K) P combustion pressure (atm) w humidity ratio (kg/kg) Cair isobaric specic heat of dry air (kJ/kg K) Cvapor isobaric specic heat of water vapor (kJ/kg K) Ti absolute temperature of stage ith of the cycle (see Fig. 1) (K) Pi pressure of stage ith of the cycle (see Fig. 1) (Pa) n1 ratio of pressure of the rst turbines inlet to the ambient pressure n2 ratio of pressure of the rst turbines inlet to the second turbines inlet pressure ZRegenerator regenerators effectiveness (%) ZIntercooler intercoolers effectiveness (%) k ratio of specic heats h enthalpy (kJ/kg) Tw absolute temperature of the intercoolers water (K) T Cmbst:I outlet temperature of the rst combustor (K) T Cmbst:II outlet temperature of the second combustor (K)

1.1. Evaporative cooling methods Evaporative methods are among the most widely used power augmentation techniques. This is primarily because the machinery is cheaper, and the installation and operating costs are also lower. These methods and related technical issues have been subject of several studies [210]. Evaporative coolers are divided into two main subcategories: the rst subcategory includes media-based methods in which the inlet air passes through a

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wet media causing the water to evaporate. The evaporating water needs to absorb its evaporation enthalpy, and the absorbed enthalpy decreases the dry bulb temperature of the air. The humidity ratio is increased while the enthalpy remains constant. Fogging is another evaporative cooling method in which demineralized water is converted to the fog by means of high pressure nozzles. This fog cools the air down in a manner similar to the previous method. Evaporative cooling techniques are most effective in hot and dry climates but not so effective in humid climates. This paper suggests that a desiccant-based dehumidifying system can be used for absorption of air humidity before the air is passed to the evaporative cooler. Absorption of water by desiccant causes the dry bulb temperature of the air to increase. Then, the air is cooled by using an evaporation-based system. Addition of the desiccant-based system improves capabilities of the evaporative cooler making it suitable even for hot and humid climates. Desiccant cooling systems are currently used in air-conditioning systems [1115] and are proven to be effective and practical. Commercialized versions of desiccant cooling systems are currently massproduced and studies are being conducted to development of more effective systems. 1.2. Refrigerated inlet cooling systems Refrigerated inlet air cooling systems are more effective than evaporative cooling systems; because air dry bulb temperature is lower in these systems. However, the price of the machinery, and the installation, and operating costs are much higher. Two main subcategories of refrigerated cooling systems are mechanical refrigeration and absorption cooling. In mechanical refrigeration, a centrifugal, screw, or reciprocating compressor is utilized for compression of refrigerant vapor. These systems have extremely high power consumption and so many auxiliary equipments such as heat exchangers, pumps, compressors, and expansion valves are also needed. Chlorouorocarbon refrigerants are normally used in these systems. These systems cause certain environmental problems too. In addition to environmental issues, high power consumption, high capital and maintenance cost, and poor part load performance are other deciencies of mechanical refrigeration systems. For a literature review of mechanical refrigeration systems see [16]. Absorption chillers use the heat provided by gas, steam, or gas turbines exhaust for cooling the water which acts as refrigerant. Lithium bromide is used as absorber in these systems. Part load performance of these systems, in comparison with mechanical refrigeration systems, is fairly good. Some researchers have recently conducted studies dealing with the absorption cooling systems [17,18]. Depending on the specics of the project, a combination of evaporative and refrigerating cooling systems might be the best choice. Possibility of such combination should be studied prior to selection of any particular type of inlet cooling system. 1.3. Thermal energy storage systems In these systems, extra power of off-peak hours is used for generating ice pieces to be used in peak hours. The inlet air is channeled through a path where it comes into contact with these ice pieces. This causes the inlet air to cool down. There are some problems associated with these systems, one of which is the need for auxiliary ice generating equipment and large insulated spaces for stocking of the ice. There are other procedures for cooling off the inlet air which can be found in the literature on this topic [1921]. This paper studies power augmentation of a gas turbine by using a desiccant-based evaporative cooling (DBEC) system. A code was developed for thermodynamic simulation of a typical gas turbine cycle. The code was used for the computation of indicators of thermodynamic performance of the gas turbine cycle and its NOx emissions. The addition of a DBEC system was also suggested. This system consisted of three stages. These stages were a desiccant wheel accompanied by one direct evaporative cooler (DEC) and one indirect evaporative cooler (IEC). A comparison was made between the performances of the gas turbine when no inlet cooling technique was applied and when different versions of evaporative cooler were employed. Different climatic conditions, each represented by a single town, were considered and the effect of the inlet cooling techniques on performance improvement of the gas turbine cycle was simulated. It was shown that the DBEC system can improve performance of the gas turbine especially in hot and humid climates.

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2. Gas turbine model A typical gas turbine was used for evaluation of several inlet cooling techniques. Fig. 1 depicts a schematic of the gas turbine model. Two compressors, two turbines, one regenerator, one compressor intercooler, and two combustors are included in this model. Our assumption was that the traveling air can be approximated by ideal gas relations. Using relations of classical thermodynamic, we could calculate the governing equations of the cycle. There are some design variables by which the cycle can be solved. A code was developed for simulation of the gas turbine cycle. Numerical integration techniques, approximate experimental correlations, iterative computations, and classic thermodynamic relations were all used to simulate this typical gas turbine (see Appendix A for thermodynamic relations used in the code). In addition to design parameters, one should introduce the inlet air conditions. This gas turbine thermal performance simulation program (GTTPSP) will compute temperatures, pressures, gross generated power, compressor work, net work, cycles thermal efciency, and intermediate values of state variables. This program along with some other codes was used to study the effect of different inlet air conditions on thermal performance of the gas turbine cycle. The other codes produced conditions of the inlet air for GTTPSP. An empirical correlation was used to estimate NOx emission of the gas turbine. Several other correlations are available for predicting other pollutants such as CO, UHC, and smoke but they tend to be less reliable; therefore, they were not used. According to Lewis [22], NOx emission of gas turbine could be predicted by following relation: p NOx 3:32 106 e0:008T c P ppmv: (1) This empirical equation was used in the aforementioned code for prediction of the gas turbines NOx emission in terms of g/kWh. Conversion form unit ppmv to unit grams per kilogram of fuel (EI), which should be used in computation of the NOx emission in terms of g/kWh, cannot be undertaken unless the equivalence ratio is known; however, as a rough guide, 1 EI is equivalent to around 12 ppmv [23]. This equivalence ratio was used for conversion from ppmv to EI. As previously stated, performance of the gas turbine is dependent on thermodynamics properties of the inlet air. It was assumed that specic heat of the traveling air is a function of the specic heat of the dry air, the specic heat of the water vapor, and the humidity ratio. This function could be stated as follows: C p C air wC vapor . (2)

In order to have a qualitative understanding of the gas turbines performance, the code was used for producing two graphs in which performance indicators of the gas turbine were plotted vs. the inlet air properties. Fig. 2 depicts these indicators vs. the inlet air temperature. In computing values of this gure, the inlet air was assumed to be dry, i.e. w 0, and other parameters were xed as per ISO. Fig. 3 is to depict how

1 Regenerator 5 Cmbst. I 6 4 Comp. I 2 1 Intercooler Turb. II 7 Cmbst. II 8 9

Comp. II 3

Turb. I

Fig. 1. Schematic representation of the typical gas turbine cycle.

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the gas turbines performance indicators change as a result of variations in the inlet air humidity. Other thermodynamics parameters of inlet air were as per ISO. All values were normalized with respect to ISO conditions in both of Figs. 2 and 3. It could be seen in Fig. 2 that all performance indicators of the gas turbine cycle were worse for higher values of the inlet air temperature. Specically, output power and thermal efciency were decreased and specic NOx emission was increased by increasing the temperature of the inlet air. In Fig. 3, it could be seen that mass of the ow-through air decreased as the humidity ratio increased; however, the output power increased. Thermal efciency increased and specic NOx emission decreased by increasing the humidity ratio. However, the rates of the change of these two indicators were smaller than the rate of the change in output power. It was concluded that dry bulb temperature and humidity ratio have different effects on the thermal performance of the gas turbine cycle. This fact is more important when dealing with desiccant cooling systems. Simulations had to be carried out to see which effect is predominant when a desiccant cooling system is being used for cooling of the inlet air. These simulations were carried out and are discussed in following sections.

1.05

0.95

0.9

Output Power Thermal Efficiency NOx Emission Air Mass

0.85

10

15

20 25 30 35 40 Inlet Air Temperature, C

45

50

Fig. 2. Gas turbine cycle dependency on inlet air temperaturedry air.

1.1 1.05 1 0.95 0.9 0.85 0.8 0.75

Output Power Thermal Efficiency NOx Emission Air Mass

4 5 6 7 8 Humidity Ratio, kg/kg

10 11 x10-3

Fig. 3. Gas turbine cycle dependency on humidity of the inlet air.

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3. Desiccant cooling system Materials that absorb and hold water vapor are called desiccant materials. Commercial desiccants absorb and release large amounts of water vapor depending on moisture available in their environment. The process of absorbing moisture in the desiccant material is classied as either absorption or adsorption depending on whether the material goes through a chemical or a physical change. Absorbing materials require strictly careful precautions during storage and operation especially in warm and humid environments and are not commercially used. Desiccant wheels are normally made of adsorptive materials such as silica gel, activated alumina, lithium chloride, lithium bromide, etc. A structure, in which the substance is deposited, supports adsorptive material and a honeycomb-like pattern is formed. A desiccant cooling system is a system utilizing a desiccant wheel to remove humidity from the ambient air. The resulted dry air is hot due to the latent heat of dehumidication and must be brought back to a lower dry bulb temperature by allowing the excess heat to escape. This is done, in our study, by using an IEC. Then, the air can be cooled by a DEC in which air becomes re-humidied by spraying water. To ensure the continuous operation of the plant, it is necessary to regenerate the desiccant material. Regeneration of the desiccant is by heating in an unsaturated air stream. After drying, it should be cooled so that it will be able to adsorb the moisture again. The regeneration of the air, in our system, is performed by using the exhaust air of the gas turbine. In combined cycle systems, steam can be utilized for regeneration purpose. Furthermore, because of the fact that inlet cooling systems are used only in summers, it is also possible to use solar assisted desiccant cooling systems in which regeneration is by means of solar energy [24]. As previously mentioned, a rotary desiccant wheel partitioned into two sections is employed in the solid desiccant systems. Normally, the processed air sheds off its moisture to the desiccant through one of these sections. Hot air is passed through the other section to regenerate the desiccant and to maintain the plants operation. The processed air is then cooled by using DES and/or IEC. Desiccant wheels are commercially available from several manufactures all over the world and are currently used in commercial systems already shipping and running here and there. For underlying theories of adsorption see [2528]. In most systems, a wheel that contains a desiccant turns slowly to pick up humidity from inlet air and discharge it to the outdoors through the regeneration air, which warms the desiccant up and removes its moisture. Conditions of the air exiting the desiccant wheel can be determined by solving the governing equations or by use of the performance curves supplied by wheels manufactures. Novelaire Technologies [29] desiccant wheel simulation software was used in our study for determining the conditions of the wheels exiting air.

Regeneration Air

Desiccant Wheel

Direct Evaporative Cooling

Indirect Evaporative Cooling

Outdoor Air

Gas Turbine Inlet

Water from and to Cooling Tower

Fig. 4. Schematics of the desiccant-based evaporative cooling system. This system was consisted of indirect evaporative, direct evaporative, and desiccant wheel stages. Functionality of desiccant wheel is maintained by using the regeneration air.

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Fig. 4 gives a schematic of DBEC system proposed and studied in this paper. Two path lines are depicted in this gure. While solid lines demonstrate paths of the air, dashed lines are for water paths. Desiccant wheel rotates by a low rotational speed. Entering air is rst passed through the wheel. Consequently, its dry bulb temperature increases to a signicantly higher value while its humidity diminishes drastically. The air is, then, passed through a cooling coil. Circulating water of this cooling coil comes from cooling tower and runs back to it. The dry bulb temperature of the cooling towers exiting water is close to wet bulb temperature of the installation site. IEC performs a sensible cooling on the traveling air, and conditions of the air after passing through it could be computed as follows: T db;o T db;i Zi T db;i T wb;i , wo wi . 3 After indirect cooling, dry bulb temperature of the air is decreased but its humidity does not change. The third stage is the DEC in which water is sprayed into the traveling air. Spraying of water causes dry bulb temperature of the air to decrease. The humidity ratio, however, increases. DEC is completely similar to adiabatic saturation process and preserves the wet bulb and the enthalpy of the processing air. But, the dry bulb temperature of the air is reduced because sensible enthalpy is replaced by latent enthalpy. Thus, conditions of air after passing through DEC process could be computed as follows: T db;o T db;i Zd T db;i T wb;i , T wb;o T wb;i , ho hi . 4 In this paper, the effectiveness of the IEC was assumed 70% while the effectiveness of the DEC was assumed 90%. The air is, then, directed to the gas turbine inlet. In order to maintain functionality of the desiccant wheel, some amount of the regeneration air should be passed through upper half of the desiccant wheel. The regeneration air must be hot. Exhausting air of the gas turbine can be used for heating of the regeneration air. 4. Simulation results Simulations were carried out for three different geographic locations of Iran: Siri, a hot and humid island; Chabahar, a hot and moderately humid town; and Qom, a hot and dry town. Table 1 gives climatic conditions of these locations. Four different cases were studied for each location: simple gas turbine cycle (default), DEC applied gas turbine, indirect and direct evaporative cooling (IDEC) applied gas turbine, and DBEC applied gas turbine. Table 2 summarizes design variables of the gas turbine cycle for which simulations were carried out. Table 3 summarizes specications of desiccant wheel used for simulation of the desiccant-based system. Conditions of the inlet air for all cases were entered to GTTPSP and results of simulation were presented in Tables 46. Table 4 summarizes simulation results for Qom. Tables 5 and 6 do the same for Chabahr and Siri. These tables give thermal conditions of simulated gas turbine cycle as well as predicted NOx emission. Three

Table 1 Climatic conditions of geographic locations ISO standard Dry bulb (1C) Wet bulb (1C) Altitude (m) Relative humidity (%) Humidity ratio (kg/kg) Dew point (1C) Specic volume (m3/kg) Enthalpy (kJ/kg) 15 10.8 0 60 0.00637 7.27 0.82 31.11 Qom 42.2 22.7 918 19.70 0.01145 14.24 1.02 71.71 Chabahar 40 32.2 6.1 58.41 0.02777 30.32 0.93 111.46 Siri 37.22 32.22 17.06 70.86 0.02908 31.07 0.92 111.91

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A.A. Zadpoor, A.H. Golshan / Energy 31 (2006) 26522664 Table 2 Gas turbine cycle design data Inlet air volume (m3/s) LHV (kJ/kg) Ratio of pressure of the high-pressure turbine to ambient pressure Ratio of pressure of the high-pressure turbine to the low-pressure turbine First combustors outlet temperature (1C) Second combustors outlet temperature (1C) Temperature of the intercooling uid (1C) Regenerators effectiveness (%) 10 43,000 20 2 1600 1500 22 95 Intercoolers effectiveness (%) First compressors efciency (%) Second compressors efciency (%) First turbines efciency (%) Second turbines efciency (%) First combustors efciency (%) Second combustors efciency (%) 70 85 85 83 83 87 87 2659

Table 3 Desiccant wheel design data Desiccant media Regeneration/process air volume ratio Wheel diameter (m) Wheel depth (m) Regeneration portion (%) Wheel speed (rph) Regeneration side face velocity (m/s) Wound silica gel 0.333 3.0505 0.20 25 24 1.823 Hub diameter (m) Cassette height (m) Cassette width (m) Cassette depth (m) Heater outlet temperature (1C) Process side face velocity (m/s) Air ow (m3/s) 0.254 3.3528 3.3528 0.45212 100 1.823 10

rst rows of each table specify conditions of the inlet air and, thus, demonstrate how effective each cooling technique was for that location. Table 6 gives performance indicators of the gas turbine cycle for ISO conditions. These results were used for comparison purposes. One could see that the gas turbine cycles performance was improved for all the inlet air cooling techniques. However, magnitude of the improvement was not the same. It depends not only on the cooling technique but also on climatic conditions of the installation site. Several conclusions were made from simulation results of Tables 46. First, regardless of the evaporative cooling technique being used, the performance improvement was better for dry climate. Second, it became clear that the smaller the site altitude, the greater the produced work. It conrms what we mentioned previously, namely that smaller altitude means greater ambient pressure and greater ambient pressure results in the greater air density. Since produced work of the gas turbine is dependent on mass ow rate of the air, increment of inlet mass ow rate causes the produced work to be improved. Tables 46 showed that the net produced work is increased by using DEC. It improves by employing IDEC. The results are even better for desiccant-based inlet air cooling. By application of inlet cooling techniques, NOx emission was also improved. Thermal efciency behaved like output power except from IDEC to DBEC for Qom. For power, simulation results showed that desiccant-based cooling is better than other cooling techniques. But, it does not necessarily hold true for emissions. For example, NOx emission for IDEC is in some cases better than desiccant-based cooling technique (see Table 4 and 5). One can see that in Qom, a dry location, addition of a desiccant wheel to the IDEC improves the performance slightly. Besides, we observed that thermal efciency decreases. But, Table 5 shows a larger improvement of the produced power from IDEC to DBEC. Thermal efciency and specic NOx emission were also improved. These simulations show that desiccant-based cooling has a little advantage over IDEC for dry climates. Thus, it is not feasible to use desiccant wheel for such climates. Instead, the desiccant wheel has an improving effect on the gas turbine cycle in humid climates. Therefore, it can be feasible to implement such a system in the inlet of the gas turbines installed in humid climates. In hot and dry climate, i.e. Qom, it was seen that the produced work of the gas turbine cycle was increased by 8.45% for DEC, by 10.54% for DEC and IEC and by 10.57% for DBEC. Drop in dry bulb temperature

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2660 A.A. Zadpoor, A.H. Golshan / Energy 31 (2006) 26522664 Table 4 Qom conditions gas turbine cycle performance Default standard Dry bulb (1C) Wet bulb (1C) Altitude (m) Relative humidity (%) Humidity ratio (kg/kg) Dew point (1C) Specic volume (m3/kg) Specic NOx (g/kWh) Thermal efciency (%) Air mass ow rate (kg/s) Net produced work (W) Power output improvement (%) 42.2 22.7 918 19.70 0.01145 14.24 1.02 0.8221 65.8879 9.8390 8.6751e6 NA DEC 24.65 22.70 918 85.29 0.01876 21.96 0.97 0.8063 67.1730 10.3000 9.4087e6 8.45 IDEC 19.91 18.95 918 91.81 0.01504 18.45 0.95 0.8025 67.4933 10.5277 9.5896e6 10.54 Desiccant 20.05 18.66 918 88.27 0.01453 18.04 0.94 0.8032 67.4812 10.5443 9.5927e+006 10.57

Table 5 Chabahar conditions gas turbine cycle performance Default standard Dry bulb (1C) Wet bulb (1C) Altitude (m) Relative humidity (%) Humidity ratio (kg/kg) Dew point (1C) Specic volume (m3/kg) Specic NOx (g/kWh) Thermal efciency (%) Air mass ow rate (kg/s) Net produced work (W) Power output improvement (%) 40 32.2 6.1 58.41 0.02777 30.32 0.93 0.8655 66.1216 10.7825 9.8709e6 NA DEC 32.98 32.2 6.1 94.1 0.03083 32.09 0.91 0.8588 66.6348 10.9781 1.0197e7 3.30 IDEC 31.48 31.14 6.1 97.61 0.02912 31.11 0.90 0.8575 66.7337 11.0611 1.0252e7 3.86 Desiccant 31.13 30.17 6.1 93.28 0.02709 29.95 0.89 0.8576 66.7495 11.1149 1.0261e7 3.95

Table 6 Siri conditions gas turbine cycle performance Default standard Dry bulb (1C) Wet bulb (1C) Altitude (m) Relative humidity (%) Humidity ratio (kg/kg) Dew point (1C) Specic volume (m3/kg) Specic NOx (g/kWh) Thermal efciency (%) Air mass ow rate (kg/s) Net produced work (W) Power output improvement (%) 37.22 32.22 17.06 70.86 0.02908 31.07 0.92 0.8625 66.3255 10.8482 9.9895e6 NA DEC 32.72 32.22 17.06 96.58 0.03104 32.18 0.91 0.8582 66.6542 10.9747 1.0199e7 2.1 IDEC 31.76 31.55 17.06 98.48 0.02993 31.56 0.91 0.8574 66.7174 11.0280 1.0235e7 2.45 Desiccant 31.30 30.41 17.06 93.77 0.02755 30.21 0.90 0.8571 66.7395 11.0856 1.0242e7 2.52

was 17.55 1C for DEC technique. This is in agreement with Alhazmy and Najjars [16] ndings. In hot and moderately humid conditions, i.e. Chabahar, output power was increased by 3.30% for DEC, by 3.86% for DEC and IEC, and by 3.95% for DBEC. In hot humid climate, i.e. Siri, it was seen that output power was increased by 2.1% and dry bulb temperature of inlet air was dropped by 4.5 1C for DEC. These results, too,

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A.A. Zadpoor, A.H. Golshan / Energy 31 (2006) 26522664 Table 7 ISO conditions gas turbine cycle performance Default standard Dry bulb (1C) Wet bulb (1C) Altitude (m) Relative humidity (%) Humidity ratio (kg/kg) Dew point (1C) Specic volume (m3/kg) Specic NOx (g/kWh) Thermal efciency (%) Air mass ow rate (kg/s) Net produced work (W) 15 10.8 0 60 0.00637 7.27 0.82 0.8445 67.8050 12.1316 1.0902e7 2661

agree with Alhazmy and Najjars [16] ndings in which a 1.95% improvement in output power and 3.95 1C drop in dry bulb temperature is reported for DEC applied in hot and humid climate. Improvement of the output power was 2.45% for IDEC. Application of the DBEC increased the output power by 2.52%. For dry climates, there was only a little difference between simulation results of IDEC and those of the desiccant-based cooling system. Furthermore, thermal efciency of the gas turbine was decreased slightly from 67.4933% to 67.4812% by application of DBEC. In humid climates, instead, desiccant cooling showed a larger improvement in the output power comparing with the two other techniques. Thermal efciency of the gas turbine was increased from 66.7337% to 66.7495% for hot and moderately humid climate and from 66.7174% to 66.7395% for hot and humid climate. Pressure drop due to existence of the desiccant wheel in process and the regeneration paths was computed between 154 and 214 Pa. Simulations showed that there existed only a little dependency on parameters of the desiccant wheel. Although conditions of the exiting air for different wheels with different design parameters were different, after indirect and direct cooling, the condition indicators became very close. Thus, design parameters of desiccant wheel did not have a signicant affect on the performance of the DBEC system. Several design parameters were examined in this dependency analysis including regeneration portion, heater outlet temperature, entering air conditions, etc. The same adsorptive material was used in all simulations of the parameter dependency analysis. Energy consumed in desiccant-based evaporative cooler is comparable with other evaporative coolers and remains signicantly below what is consumed in refrigeration systems such as vapor compression and absorption chiller systems. However, initial investment is much higher comparing with other evaporative cooling systems but comparable with initial payload of refrigeration systems. Maintenance problems are less for desiccant-based systems as they normally have fewer moving parts. Comparing two last columns of Table 4 with Table 7, we may conclude that thermal efciency of the inlet air cooling applied gas turbine in Qom is completely close to ISO conditions. This conrms the fact that evaporative cooling systems work much better in dry climates. However, it should be noted that utilization of evaporation-based cooling techniques is difcult by the fact that in some dry climates it is difcult to nd enough water resources for operation of cooling apparatus. 5. Conclusions Application of DBEC systems for the inlet air cooling of gas turbines was studied in this paper. A simulation code was developed and used for simulation of different evaporation-based inlet air cooling techniques including DEC, IDEC, and DBEC. Improvement of performance of the gas turbine cycle for each of these methods was studied for different climatic conditions. In some cases of study, we observed that improvement of output power caused by desiccant-based cooling technique was better than other techniques. It should be noted that in comparison with IDEC (see Tables 5 and 6), additional performance improvement caused by desiccant-based cooling technique is limited. From

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economy viewpoint, initial payload of desiccant-based cooling systems is much higher comparing with other evaporative cooling systems. So, it seems that advantage of the desiccant-based cooling technique over IDEC is not obvious. Accurate feasibility studies are required for individual projects to determine that if it is feasible to introduce such a system or not. Specic NOx emission was decreased by application of the inlet air cooling techniques. It was concluded that implementation of the desiccant-based cooling system can be feasible only in humid climates. Simulation results showed that performance of the desiccant-based cooling system slightly depends on design parameters of the desiccant wheel provided that the same adsorptive material is being used. Acknowledgements We would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their professional review and helpful comments. Furthermore, we wish to express our gratitude and sincere thanks to Dr. S.M. Soleiman-Panah for his proofreading. Appendix A This appendix is devoted to mathematical basis and thermodynamics relations used in the code GTTPSP. Parameters of the cycle are dened in the nomenclature section of the paper. Index s is appeared as a part of subscripts of some parameters. This index stands for isentropic value of those parameters. Real thermodynamic processes deviate from isentropic value and this deviation is accounted for by utilization of efciency. 1. Calculation of the turbines produced work W Turb:I ZTurb:I ma mf 1 hT 6 hT 7 , W Turb:II ZTurb:II ma mf 1 mf 2 hT 8 hT 9 . 2. Calculation of compressors consumed work W CompI 1 ma hT 2 hT 1 , ZComp:I 1 ma hT 4 hT 3 . ZComp:II

W CompII

3. Calculation of the cycles net produced work W net W Turb:I W Turb:II W Comp:I W Comp:II . In order to estimate real produced work of the gas turbine power plant, losses caused by mechanical and electrical apparatuses as well as losses caused by other sources of power loss should be subtracted from this value. 4. Calculation of thermal energy consumed in the combustors Q1 mf 1 LHV I , Q2 mf 2 LHV II , Qin Q1 Q2 .

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A.A. Zadpoor, A.H. Golshan / Energy 31 (2006) 26522664 2663

5. Calculation of thermal properties of the traveling air when it is passed through the combustors Z T6 mf 1 LHV I ZCmbst:I ma mf 1 C p dT ,
T5

T8

mf 2 LHV II ZCmbst:II ma mf 1 mf 2
T7

C p dT .

6. Calculation of thermal efciency of the cycle ZThermal W net . Qin

7. Pressures and temperatures of different stages of the cycle (numbers of the stages are shown in Fig. 1) p P2 P1 P4 ; P2 P3 ; P6 n1 P1 ; P6 P5 P4 ; P6 =P8 n2 , P9 P1 ,  T 2s T 1 P2 P1 k1=k ; T2 T1 T 2s T 1 , ZComp:I

T 3 ZIntercooler T w T 2 T 2 ,  T 4s T 3 P4 P3 k1=k ; T4 T3 T 4s T 3 , ZComp:II

T 5 ZRegenerator T 9 T 4 T 4 , T 6 T Cmbst:I ; T 7s T 8 T Cmbst:II ,  k1=k P8 T 8= ; T 9 T 8 ZTurb:II T 8 T 9s . P9 P6 T 6= P7  k1=k ; T 7 T 6 ZTurb:I T 6 T 7s ,

T 9s

8. Ambient pressure of the cycles site, which is also pressure of the rst stage of the cycle, was calculated by relations given in the ASHRAE handbook [30]. Density of inlet air was computed by using relations given in the ASHRAE handbook for specic volume of humid air [30]. 9. Specic heat of dry air and water vapor were calculated by using relations given in Ref. [31]. 10. An iterative procedure was used for determination of temperature of the traveling air after it is passed through the regenerator. 11. Enthalpy of the Rair was calculated by numerically integrating the specic heat of the humid air, i.e. T hT 2 hT 1 T 12 C p T dT .

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