30 Thermal power plant simulation and control

Equation (2.1 1) can be written as:

O(po(t), h(., t)) dp°(t) - wi(t) - Wo(t) + F(po(t), h(., t), h(., t)) (2.13)
dt

where the functions 69 and F correspond to the second and first integral of (2.11),
respectively, while h(., t) and/;t (., t) are the enthalpy profile and its derivative on the
whole domain 0 < x < L.
Equation (2.12), in turn, can be written as:

Po - Pi + g L ~ ( p o , h(., t)) + kwilwilO(po, h(., t)) = 0 (2.14)

where ~p and ~ are suitable functions and k = (LCfogi)/(2A~), Cf obtained from

suitable correlations. If any spatial approximation of the enthalpy profile is assumed,
for example the finite element approximation

N
h(x, t) ~ ha(x, t) := Z hj(t)otj(x)
j=l

then 69, F, ~ and fi become functions of the nodal enthalpy vector H ( t ) =

[hl (t), hz(t) . . . . . hu(t)]' and of its derivative i-/(t). Applying the finite element
approximation with a Petrov-Galerkin type method (Morton and Parrot, 1980;
Quarteroni and Valli, 1997), to equations (2.7) and (2.9), one obtains a couple of
N-vector equations to be used for the computation of the fluid and metal temper-
ature profiles. In the most general case, if weak boundary conditions are imposed
(Quarteroni and Valli, 1997), such equations take the form

AI-I + w i B H + E H : A dp° V - D T + D T w + MhIN

dt
K T w : G ( T - Tw) + C ~ e

where T and Tw are the fluid and metal nodal temperature vectors, ~e is the nodal
external heat flux vector, and the matrices A, B, C, D, E, G, K and vectors V,
M depend on dimensional data, on the fluid properties and on the specific finite
element method chosen (applied to the interpolating functions otj and on the weighting
functions used for computing the residual over the whole domain 0 < x < L). Details
are omitted for brevity and can be found in Lunardi (1999), but it is important to note
that weak boundary conditions do not constrain the first and last element of H to equal
the terminal enthalpies. Moreover, the matrix E and vector M enforce the boundary
condition on the side where the fluid enters the heat-exchanger segment (with enthalpy
hiN). As such, they have only one non-zero element. The position of this element
depends on the sign of the flow rate, but even despite this, the vector equations are
affected only by the input and output structure, while the state variables (vector H )
remain the same and cannot undergo change. Assuming a positive direction flow that
from the 'i' terminal to the 'o' terminal, and indicating by m and e the non-zero