Thermoeconomic investigation of basic and intercooled gas turbine based power utilities incorporating air-film blade cooling

In present work thermoeconomic features of two different gas turbine power utility configurations, namely basic gas turbine cycle (BGT) and intercooled gas turbine cycle (IcGT) are presented and compared thermoeconomically. A computer code has been developed using various models comprises governing equations, in order to obtain the results for particular power utility and operating parameters. The analytical model also contains blade cooling phenomenon, which is described schematically in this paper. Among numerous thermoeconomic methodologies, the average cost theory approach has been adopted for the present investigation. The current work focuses on thermoeconomic comparison of power utilities based on above mentioned cycles. Also, the behavior of cycle performance parameters, with cycle operating parameters (compressor pressure ratio and turbine inlet temperature) of proposed cycle has been reported. Results obtained showed that IcGT based power utility requires 47.34% higher fuel during operation and delivers near about 40% higher plant specific work. The total cost rate of IcGT cycle is slightly higher in the base case parameters (compressor pressure ratio = 36, turbine inlet temperature = 1500 K, isentropic efficiency of compressor = 88% and isentropic efficiency of turbine = 90%) compared to BGT and at the same time it delivers lower electricity cost (2.872 cents/kWh), which is 28% less due to higher plant specific work.