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Techno-economic analysis of the influence of different operating conditions on gas turbine centrifugal compressor set performance
Abstract
In today’s world where fuel prices have increased drastically and there are great concerns about environmental issues, there is the need to properly match centrifugal compressors to their Gas Turbine (GT) drivers, so as to achieve an efficient overall package, lower turbine fuel consumption, longer time between overhauls, and most importantly, package operational flexibility in meeting alternate process conditions. This study highlights the influence of operating and environmental conditions on the overall performance of the gas turbine compressor set. GasTurb and CMap simulation softwares were employed to model and simulate the performances of the GT and centrifugal compressors respectively. The outcome of the performance plots show that at a design inlet flow volume of 15928 cubic meters per hour, the compressor required power from the gas turbine drive to transport RaNatGas is approximately 7450kW as against 7065kW and 6500kW for MaNatGas and LaNatGas mixtures respectively. Techno-economic analysis of the gas turbine compressor set shows that the fuel cost of transporting a given volume flow of RaNatGas to a specific location for a year gives about
$13.5million when compared with MaNatGas and LaNatGas mixtures which cost about $13.02million and 12.3million respectively.
Keywords: Natural Gas, Performance Simulations, Polytropic Efficiency, Polytropic Head, Gas Compositions