Model Steam Pro -Conventional Steam Power Plant Creation
STEAM PRO® automates the process of designing a conventional (Rankine cycle) steam power plant, guiding the user to rapidly and easily attain an optimal configuration and its technical parameters. The user inputs design criteria, starting with the big picture and progressing in a logical sequence into greater details. Built-in expert logic automatically selects appropriate options and inputs for the various details, based on the user’s high level selections. The program designs the new plant, computes its performance, its detailed heat and mass balance, and creates its major equipment physical sizes and design details. When combined with the optional PEACE module, it also creates the plant’s preliminary engineering details, estimates its cost, and finds its cash flow and economic pro-forma.
The scope, flexibility, and level of detail in STEAM PRO has been continuously growing since it was first released in 1990; and the 2018 version has over 3,500 user-adjustable inputs. What makes it so easy to use is that most inputs are automatically created by intelligent design procedures within the program, while granting the user the flexibility to make any changes or adjustments. As a result, it typically requires only a few minutes to create a new plant design, allowing the user to create and compare many plant options, and variations within each, to find the most suitable design, both technically and economically.
STEAM PRO’s variety of plant configurations is very broad. From back pressure units for cogeneration, to small/medium plants with straight-condensing turbines, to medium/large plants with single reheat cycles, to larger supercritical double-reheat plants. The model can accommodate up to twelve feed water heaters of various types, and a broad array of boiler feed water pump types and drive arrangements. A broad range of condenser and cooling tower types are included within the program. STEAM PRO will create preliminary designs for all typical boiler types, including pulverized coal, circulating and bubbling fluidized beds, and various grate-fired arrangements. The boiler preliminary designs, and their estimated costs when the PEACE module is used, take into account the type of fuel and its characteristics; including a broad range of coal types, biomass, or municipal solid waste, besides gaseous or liquid fuels of different grades. The program includes a data base of typical fuels, including almost 200 types of coal from around the world.
Features that have been built into STEAM PRO over the years include CO2 capture, as well as the main types of desalination systems, MSF, MED, and RO. The automated top-down design logic of STEAM PRO extends into these specialized features, creating their internal details based on the user’s high level selections of configuration and parameters.
Examples: Click on the links below to view the heat balance diagrams of examples of conventional steam power plant cycles. Each was created by STEAM PRO within 15 minutes, from start to finish. In each case, all the user had to do was enter about a dozen key, high-level selections and inputs from amongst the thousands available in STEAM PRO; then leave the automatic logic built into STEAM PRO to deal with the rest of the design creation process.