Optimization Design of Refuse-Incinerating Power Plant With Air-Cooled Heat Exchanger

Abstract

As a newly developed industry, refuse incinerating power plants with air-cooled heat exchanger (ACHE) systems benefit both environment and energy savings. Since the exhaust steam of power plant is cooled in the atmosphere, the pressure of the exhaust steam fluctuates with variation of air temperature. As a result, the generated electric power of a power plant with an ACHE system is considerably influenced by meteorological conditions in the region where this type of power plant is built. The present work studies three different designs of a refuse-incinerating power plant with ACHE for a real project. Under the local meteorological conditions, the overall flow and temperature fields of the air in the whole power plant, especially around the air-cooled heat exchanger, are numerically investigated with the commercial computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code FLUENT and the feasibility of the project is then evaluated. In addition, a comparison of these three designs is also provided, including the performance of the exchangers and the fans, the collocation of the exhaust gas pipe, and the costs of the ACHE system.