Using novel integrated Maisotsenko cooler and absorption chiller for cooling of gas turbine inlet air

Abstract

Performance reduction of gas turbine power plants during the hot seasons has persuaded the specialists to propose different inlet air temperature reducer techniques. Accessible free heat at the exhaust of the turbine justifies the absorption chiller as a potential solution. However, based on the evaluations of present research, almost for all climate conditions a huge capacity/size/number of absorption chillers are required to reach the ISO condition (15 °C and RH 100% which is the design point of gas turbine) which means considerable amount of initial, operating and maintenance cost. As the M-cycle cooler (which has very simpler structure and lower costs) is able to reduce the air temperature toward the dew point temperature without adding any moisture, present research proposes an integrated cycle of M-cycle and absorption chiller (which notably reduces the whole cost of the cooling process) for said aim. In present novel cycle, the air is precooled by M-cycle toward its dew point temperature before entering to the absorption chiller which significantly reduces the required capacity of absorption chiller for the rest of the cooling process. The most amazing feature of the integrated cycle is that the condensed water from the air during the cooling process by absorption chiller can be employed as the M-cycle water consumption. For some climate conditions, M-cycle is able to provide ISO condition (or colder temperatures) without the requirement of absorption chiller. Many other outstanding results are obtained which can be used in real industrial applications.