Evaluation of IPSEpro extended by MATLAB applied to Steam Turbine Cycle analysis

Abstract

This paper investigates thermodynamic optimization of a supercritical coal fired power plant. The main goalof the study was to assess IPSEpro software combined with MATLAB environment, aimed at multiobjectiveoptimization of the thermal cycle in a relatively short timeframe. To verify the methodology, calculations werecarried out using the IPSEpro (standalone) approach and IPSEpro-MATLAB with fmincon function. The decisionfunctions were: thermal eciency, gross power eciency and total power load. It was shown thatthe results obtained with the IPSEpro standalone approach are similar to those obtained with the IPSEpro-MATLAB package. This means that the IPSEpro-MATLAB approach can be successfully used in futurecalculations. The evident benefit of the newly developed methodology is a significant reduction in computationaltime compared to the referenced method. It was shown that the computational time depends on boththe methodology and the chosen objective function. The results show that the detected optimal point also dependson the shape of the objective function distribution. Optimization of the thermodynamic parameters ofthe sample ultra-supercritical power plant enables an increase in output power from 900 MW to 909.44 MW.