Excel Spreadsheet as a Tool for Simulating the Performance of Steam Power Plants

• Main Author: Giuma Fellah
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Bond University
• Series: Spreadsheets in Education
• Online Access: http://sie.scholasticahq.com/article/7007-excel-spreadsheet-as-a-tool-for-simulating-the-performance-of-steam-power-plants.pdf

The aim of this work is to demonstrate the power of excel software in simulating the performance of thermal systems, a steam power plant is taken as an example for the demonstration. The idea is to show how one can analysis and simulate the performance of thermal systems within Excel environment. The thermodynamic properties are obtained by the excel tools developed for thermodynamics. The tools developed by a University of Alabama research team. The platform of these tools is the Microsoft Excel. The obtained properties using these tools are tested and found in good agreements with other sources. Energy balance is performed on each heater to find the bleeding mass flow rates. The obtained equations are solved simultaneously by using excel software. The functions MMULT and MINVERSE are used to multiply the matrices and to find the inverse and hence the mass flow rates. The solver facility can be used to optimize the thermal efficiency and/or the plant irreversibility.