Thermodynamic Analysis of Combined Cycle Power Plant

Air Bottoming Cycle (ABC) can replace the heat recovery steam generator and the steam turbine of the conventional combined cycle plant. The exhaust energy of the topping gas turbine of existing combine cycle is sent to gas-air heat exchange, which heats the air in the secondary gas turbine cycle. In 1980’s the ABC was proposed as an alternative for the conventional steam bottoming cycle. In spite of the cost of reducing hardware installations it could achieve a thermal efficiency of 80%. The complete thermodynamic analysis of the system has been performed by using specially designed programme, enabling the variation of main independent variables. The result shows the gain in net work output as well as efficiency of combined cycle is 35% to 68%.