The Potential of Fuel Reforming and Water Evaporation in Gas Turbine Cycles

Abstract

A general 2-step approach for advanced gas turbine cycle design and finding optimal layouts is used to study chemically recuperated and evaporative gas turbine cycles. The analysis assumes compression with intercooling, the possibility of reheat in the turbine and no bottoming cycle. In a first step, different cycle layouts are first optimized for pressure ratio by considering a general black box heat recovery system while its exergy destruction is monitored. In a second step, after cycle optimization, corresponding heat recovery systems are designed using insights provided by a composite curve analysis. All cycle simulations are performed with ASPEN+, enhanced with in-house exergy subroutines, composite curve tools and a general gas turbine cooling model. Comparative results from this analysis are presented and the important role of pressure ratio is discussed.