Thermodynamic properties of humid air and their application in advanced power generation cycles

Abstract: Water or steam is added into the working fluid (often air) in gas turbines to improve the performance of gas turbine cycles. A typical application is the humidified gas turbine that has the potential to give high efficiencies, high specific power output, low emissions and low specific investment. A heat recovery system is integrated in the cycle with a humidifier for moisturizing the high-pressure air from the compressor as a kernel. Based on today’s gas turbines, the operating temperature and pressure in the humidifier are up to about 523 K and 40 bar, respectively. The operating temperature of the heat exchanger after the humidifier is up to 1773 K. The technology of water or steam addition is also used in the process of compressed air energy storage (CAES), and the operating pressure is up to 150 bar.Reliable thermodynamic properties of humid air are crucial for the process simulation and the traceable performance tests of turbomachinery and heat exchanger in the cycles. Several models have been proposed. However, the application range is limited to 400 K and 100 bar because of the limited experimental data for humid air. It is necessary to investigate the thermodynamic properties of humid air at elevated temperatures and pressures to fill in the knowledge gap.In this thesis, a new model is proposed based on the modified Redlich-Kwong equation of state in which a new cross interaction parameter between molecular oxygen and water is obtained from the fitting of the experimental data of oxygen-water system. The liquid phase is assumed to follow Henry’s law to calculate the saturated composition.The results of the new model are verified by the experimental data of nitrogen-water and oxygen-water systems from ambient temperature and pressure to 523 K and 200 bar, respectively. Properties of air-water system are predicted without any additional parameter and compared with the available experimental data to demonstrate the reliability of the new model for air-water system. The results of air-water system predicted using the new model are compared with those calculated using other real models. The comparison reveals that the new model has the same calculation accuracy as the best available model but can be used to a wider temperature and pressure range. The results of the new model are also compared with those of the ideal model and the ideal mixing model from ambient temperature and pressure to 1773 K and 200 bar to investigate the effect of the models on the thermodynamic properties of humid air.To investigate the impact of thermodynamic properties on the simulation of systems and their components, different models (ideal model, ideal mixing model and two real models) are used to calculate the thermodynamic properties of humid air in the simulation of the compressor, humidification tower, and heat exchanger in a humidified gas turbine cycle. The simulation reveals that a careful selection of a thermodynamic property model is crucial for the cycle design. The simulation results provide a useful tool for predicting the performance of the system and designing the humidified cycle components and systems.