Comparative Analysis of Thermodynamic Cycles of Selected Nuclear Ship Power Plants With High-Temperature Helium-Cooled Nuclear Reactor

This paper presents a comparative analysis of thermodynamic cycles of two ship power plant systems with a high-temperature helium-cooled nuclear reactor. The first of them is a gas system with recuperator, in which classical gas chamber is substituted for a HTGR reactor (High Temperature Gas-cooled Reactor). The second of the considered cycles is a combined gas-steam system where working medium flux from gas turbine outlet is directed into waste heat boiler and its heat is utilized for production of superheated steam to drive steam turbine. Preliminary calculations of the combine cycles showed that it is necessary to expand the system by adding to its steam part an inter-stage overheat for secondary steam, owing to that a required degree of steam dryness at outlet from the turbine can be reached, ensuring its correct operational conditions. The analyzed power systems were compared to each other with regard to efficiency of their thermodynamic cycles. Also, efficiency of particular cycles were subjected to optimization in respect to such parameters as : working gas temperature at outlet from reactor in gas system as well as steam pressure at outlet from waste heat boiler and partition pressure in steam part of combined system. Advantages of nuclear power plants compared with the classical power systems dominating currently in sea transport were also discussed

Comparison Analysis of Selected Nuclear Power Plants Supplied With Helium from High-Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactor

The article presents results of efficiency calculations for two 560 MW nuclear cycles with high-temperature gas-cooled reactor (HTGR). An assumption was made that systems of this type can be used in so-called marine nuclear power plants. The first analysed system is the nuclear steam power plant. For the steam cycle, the efficiency calculations were performed with the code DIAGAR, which is dedicated for analysing this type of systems. The other system is the power plant with gas turbine, in which the combustion chamber has been replaced with the HTGR. For this system, a number of calculations were also performed to assess its efficiency. Moreover, the article names factors in favour of floating nuclear power plants with HTGRs, which, due to passive safety systems, are exposed to much smaller risk of breakdown than other types of reactors which were in common use in the past. Along with safety aspects, it is also economic and social aspect which make the use of this type of systems advisable

Comparable analysis of PID controller settings in order to ensure reliable operation of active foil bearings

In comparison to the traditional solutions, active bearings offer great operating flexibility, ensure better operating conditions over a wider range of rotational speeds and are safe to use. In order to ensure optimum bearing performance a bearing control system is used that adapts different geometries during device operation. The selection of optimal controller parameters requires the use of modern optimization methods that make it possible to quickly achieve the assumed parameters. This article presents the method that has been employed to select the parameters of a proportional integral derivative (PID) controller, in which both stochastic algorithms and hybrid methods have been compared. The results show that all of the used algorithms were able to reach the global optimum but only the hybrid algorithm was repeatable in all runs within a low value of the standard deviation. The best solution will be proposed in the future to control an active foil bearing. Analysing of this paper would help to prevent failures of active foil bearing used in the designed rotating machine

Monitoring regenerative heat exchanger in steam power plant by making use of the recurrent neural network

Artificial Intelligence algorithms are being increasingly used in industrial applications. Their important function is to support operation of diagnostic systems. This paper presents a new approach to the monitoring of a regenerative heat exchanger in a steam power plant, which is based on a specific use of the Recurrent Neural Network (RNN). The proposed approach was tested using real data. This approach can be easily adapted to similar monitoring applications of other industrial dynamic objects