Dynamic simulation of turbomachinery by Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) real-time systems has become an essential practice, due to the high cost of real equipment testing and the need to verify the control and diagnostic systems’ reaction to emergency situations. HIL testing consists in interfacing the real prototype or final control system product with a computing platform simulating in real time the dynamic behaviour of the controlled machine or process as if it were the real one in full feedback behaviour.

TGSim Plus™ was developed as a software for the dynamic simulation of a full GT power generation plant, including gaseous and liquid flow auxiliary systems, to verify and validate the GT Control System (GTCS) for Doosan Heavy Industries and Construction (DHIC, Changwon, South Korea) by HIL simulations before its commissioning. The real-time model was integrated in a MATLAB^®/Simulink^® simulation suite that allows simulating steady state and operational transient conditions, such as start-up and shutdown operations, and load rejection, and was tested and delivered for a Multi-Processor HIL platform (MPHILP) by dSPACE GmbH (Paderborn, Germany).

Benefits

TGSim Plus™ allows simulating steady-state and transient conditions, such as complete start-up and shutdown operations, as well as emergency and contingent operations, and artificially injected fault scenarios

TGSim Plus™ component libraries allow building customisable models by selecting and connecting elementary blocks. This guarantees high use flexibility, increasing the model complexity only as necessary by a stepwise approach

TGSim Plus™ can be used either online for HIL simulation of real-time models, or offline with standalone models for GT design and analysis, and verification of control strategies

TGSim Plus™ real-time models can run on any HIL platform compatible with MATLAB®/ Simulink® at millisecond time scale. Tested and delivered to DHIC integrated with dSPACE DS1006 Multi-Processor architecture

Features

TGSim Plus™ implements the thermodynamics of compressors with interpolation of performance maps, computation of the operating point, and management of the mass flow rates for bleeding and cooling

Modelling the combustor according to a two-zone approach, TGSim Plus™ considers the stoichiometric combustion of fuel with dry air and the mixing of products with the excess inert humid air

TGSim Plus™ expander modelling accounts for interpolation of performance maps, active torque calculation, and cooling streams warm-up due to equipment heat leakage along the bleed lines from compressor to expander

TGSim Plus™ considers two mutually-exclusive functional operative modes: the EM mode, driving the variable-speed electric motor, and the EG mode, simulating the GT load applied before and after grid connection.

TGSim Plus™ simulates the GT thermodynamic process based on a 0-D lumping, including compressor maps variation with the IGV angle, bleed management, and the modelling of an electric starter motor-generator

TGSim Plus™ thermodynamics is based on mapped properties of ideal gas mixtures of air and combustion products base species, namely argon, carbon dioxide, nitrogen, oxygen, water vapour, methane, ethane, propane, n-butane, and i-butane

System Architecture

The product is intended to be a simulation tool that can be easily customised according to the user’s modelling needs in terms of accuracy and runtime constraints.

TGSim Plus™ provides ready-to-use libraries of basic components such as compressor, combustor, expander, manifolds, valves, and restrictions.

The software includes a user-friendly graphic interface, which allows to load input data, run simulations, and visualise the time histories of all the state variables and main operational and thermodynamic properties obtained as output.

TGSim Plus™ can be used either standalone or integrated within a multi-processor Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) platform to be interfaced with the real gas turbine control system (GTCS).

A typical GT plant model developed in TGSim Plus™ includes four main blocks:

• GT Main Model, including the GT machine and the electric motor-generator;
• GTCS, accounting for the real or simulated control system;
• Gaseous-flow Auxiliaries Model (Aux 1);
• Liquid-flow Auxiliaries Model (Aux 2).