2011 IEEE Electrical Power and Energy Conference

Optimal Design of Gas Turbine-Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Hybrid Plant

Pooya Hoseinpoori1, Hamidreza Najafi2, and Behzad Najafi3

Abstract-- In the present study, a hybrid solid oxide fuel cell-gas turbine power plant consisting of a compressor, SOFC stack, heat exchangers, combustor and turbines is considered. Individual models are developed for each component through applications of the first law of thermodynamics and the corresponding cost of each component is also presented. Two objective functions including the total thermal efficiency of the system and the capital cost of the plant are defined. Since any effort to decrease the total cost of the plant leads to a less efficient system, the considered objective functions are conflicting. Therefore, multi-objective optimization using genetic algorithm is utilized in order to achieve a set of optimal solutions, each of which is a trade-off between objective functions. The main advantage of this work is providing a wide range of optimal results each of which can be selected by the designer considering available investment and the required efficiency of the system.
Index TermsPower generation, gas turbine, solid oxide fuel cell, multi-objective optimization, genetic algorithm.

STCR T
Uf

Ratio of number ofmoles of steam to carbon Temperature, K

Fuel utilization factor

V
W
WFC,dc

Voltage, Volts
Power, kW
DC power output of the cell stack, kW

Wnet C

Netpower output of the plant, kW

Cost, $

Greek Letters

act
c comb comp conc FC Gen GT Invert ohm Out PT Recup SOFC th

Efficiency Ratio of specific heats

Activation
Cell Combustor Compressor Concentration Fuel cell Generator Gas Turbine DC AC inverter Ohmic Outlet Power Turbine Recuperator Solid oxide fuel cell Thermal

Subscripts

NOMENCLATURE
A
A E
E0

Cell area, cm

2 Area, m Nernst potential or open circuit voltage, Volts

Ideal cell voltage at standard conditions, Volts

Faraday constant 96, 485 C / mole

h I
j0

Enthalpy, kJ / kg Current, mA
Exchange current density, mA / cm 2

j1 LHV m P
Q
R

Limiting current density, mA / cm

Lower heating value, kJ / kg Mass flow rate, kg / s Pressure, kPa

I. INTRODUCTION n the recent years, due to the fast depletion of fossil fuel resources and the growing concerns about global warming and air pollution, exploring innovative power generation systems with high efficiency and low emissions have attracted a lot of interests around the world. Owing to their high temperature and pressure exhaust, solid oxide fuel cells are considered appropriate for integration in hybrid power generation systems in which they are coupled with conventional Brayton cycles. High operating temperature of solid oxide fuel cells also allows use of non-noble catalysts which are less expensive and insensitive to certain fuel contaminants [1].

Heat transfer rate, kW

Heating rate generated within the cell stack, kW. Universal gas constant, 8.314 J / mole K

Q gen,FC

1 P. Hoseinpoori, Department of Mechanical Engineering, K. N. Toosi University of Technology, Tehran, Iran. (email: p.hoseinpoori@gmail.com) 2 H. Najafi, Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL, 35487 USA (email:hamidreza.najafi@ua.edu) 3 B. Najafi, Department of Energy Engineering, Politecnico di Milano, Piacenza, Italy. (email: behzad.najafi@mail.polimi.it)

978-1-4577-0404-8/11/$26.00 2011 IEEE

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Several studies have been carried out involving thermodynamic modeling and analysis of hybrid GT-SOFC systems and various layouts have been proposed in the literature for these plants. Bavarsad [2] analyzed a hybrid IRSOFC-GT power plant based on the first and the second law of thermodynamics. Kuchonthara et al. [1] studied the combination of SOFC with various enhanced gas turbine cycles. Calise et al. [3] presented a full and partial load exergy analysis of a hybrid SOFCGT power plant. A Single-level optimization of such plant was also accomplished by Calise et al [4]. Haseli et al. [5] carried out a thermodynamic modeling of a SOFC-GT power plant in which the corresponding irreversibility generated in each system component was also investigated. Chan et al. [6] analyzed a hybrid IRSOFC-GT system with a particular attention on the effect of operating pressure and flow rates on the overall performance. Few studies focused on economical considerations of hybrid GT-SOFC systems. Cheddar et al. [7] proposed a thermo-economic model for the hybrid SOFC-GT plant. Hawkes et al. [8] studied a techno-economic model of SOFC stacks for micro combined heat and power systems. Optimization of SOFC-GT systems is a rather difficult task due to their complex and highly nonlinear behavior. There are several effective parameters dealing with these systems each of which has their specific constraints. Therefore, conventional optimization methods are not appropriate for dealing with these systems and in the present work, genetic algorithms (GA) is utilized in order to perform the optimization procedure. Genetic algorithms has been successfully utilized for optimization of thermal systems and energy systems such as cooling channels [9], compact heat exchangers [10,11] and heat recovery steam generators [12]. In most of the real-world optimization problems, multiple objectives which are often in conflict with each other should be considered. For this group of problems, optimizing with respect to one objective will lead to inappropriate results with regards to other objectives. Therefore, reasonable solution to a multi-objective problem is to investigate a set of solutions, each of which satisfies the objectives at an acceptable level without being dominated by any other solution [13]. Multiobjective optimization methods have been utilized in complex engineering problems, such as thermal systems, in order to achieve optimal design of the system. Since evolutionary algorithms, particularly genetic algorithms, posses, desirable characteristics for multi-objective problems, this class of search methods has recently been used in multi-objective optimization problems. Gholap and Khan [14] investigated optimal design values for an air forced heat exchanger using multi-objective optimization. Hilbert et al. [15] considered pressure loss and amount of heat exchange as two conflicting objective functions, used multi-objective optimization and found the optimum design values. Najafi et al [11] carried out a multi-objective optimization using genetic algorithms in order to find optimum design values of a plate and frame heat exchanger. In the present paper Individual models are developed for each component, using the first law of thermodynamics.

Overall efficiency, as a proper criterion for performance of the system and the capital cost are defined as two objective functions. Since these objectives are conflicting, no single solution can satisfies both objectives simultaneously. Multiobjective optimization using genetic algorithms (MOGA) is utilized in order to achieve optimal design parameters, which lead to the least possible capital cost and maximum first law efficiency. The advantage of the present work is the wide range of optimal solutions, rather than a single solution, each of which can be selected by the user regarding the projects requirements. In the other word, the designer can select the design parameters which lead to the cheapest system to achieve a specific value of the overall efficiency. II. PLANTS CONFIGURATION As illustrated in Fig. 1 [5], the considered configuration for the SOFC-GT power in this work includes a compressor, a recuperator, a SOFC stack, a combustor a gas turbine and a power turbine. As it is schematically shown in Fig. 1, the ambient air enters the compressor where it is compressed to a higher pressure by the compressor. The pressurized air will subsequently pass through the recuperator in which it is heated by the hot flue gases leaving the power turbine. In the next step, air enters the cathode side of the SOFC stack where it participates in the electrochemical reaction with methane which has entered the anode side of the stack.

Fig. 1. Schematic configuration of the plant

The anode and cathode products will be subsequently mixed and goes into the combustor, where the remaining unused fuel will be burnt. Afterwards, the flue gas passes through the gas turbine to provide the required power of the air compressor and then goes through a power turbine to generate electricity. The output flue gas from the turbine has still remarkable amount of energy which will be utilized to preheat the inlet air flow by passing through the recuperator and completes the cycle. III. THERMODYNAMIC MODELING OF THE SYSTEM COMPONENTS In this section, considering the entropy-temperature diagram of the system given in Fig. 2 [5], thermodynamic models for individual components are presented by employing first law of thermodynamics and the properties of the fluid in each state is determined. Steady state condition and ideal gas assumption are considered through the analysis. The constant

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values associated to each component of the system are obtained from [16] and presented in Table I.

compressor can be found by:

T2 s P2 = T1 P 1

1
(7)

This is noteworthy that the value of ratio of specific heat can be found as [5]:
=1.4197- 5105 T- 3108 T

) (

(8)

Using the energy balance, the required work of the compressor can be determined as:
Wcomp = m1 h2 h1
Fig. 2. Temperature-Entropy diagram of the system TABLE I CONSTANT PARAMETERS OF THE SYSTEM Turbine efficiency Compressor efficiency Power turbine efficiency Recuperator effectiveness Combustor efficiency Air utilization factor Fuel utilization factor Steam to carbon ratio Stack temperature (K) Current density (A/cm2) Cell area (cm2) Ambient temperature (K) Pressure (atm) Lower heating value of CH4 (kJ/kg) 0.84 0.81 0.89 0.8 0.98 0.25 0.85 2.5 1273 0.3 834 288 1 50050

(9)

B. Recuperator The energy balance for the recuperator is:

m2 h3 h2 = m7 h7 h8

(10)

The value of the recuperator effectiveness is given in Table I. This value can be also find as follows: T T (11) recup = 3 2 T7 T2 C. SOFC The main equipment of this plant is the SOFC stack. Some of the characteristics of the stack are given in Table I. The SOFC model which is a lumped model is obtained from [5]. It should be mentioned that in this paper, an internal reforming unit is considered to convert the compressed fuel into hydrogen. The electrochemical reactions in the fuel cell can be given as: Anode:

Considering energy and mass balance for the plant, following relations between variables can be obtained and utilized to simulate the system. m1 = m2 = m3 (1)
m fuel = m fuel , FC + mcomb
(2)

H2 + O CO + O

= =

H 2 O + 2e CO2 + 2e

(12)

m5 = m6 = m7 = m8 (3) Therefore, the mass balance for the overall system can be written as: m1 + m fuel m8 = 0 The overall energy balance can also be expressed by: (4)

= CH 4 + 4O 2 H 2O + CO2 + 8e Cathode: 1 = O + 2e O 2 2 And the net cell reaction can be written as:
CH 4 + 2O2 CO2 + 2 H 2O (14)

(13)

m1h1 + m fuel , FC U f LHVCH + Qcomb m8 h8 QLoss 4 WFC ,dc WPT = 0 (5)

Considering these general equations and the following relations for each individual equipment of the system, the plant is modeled and optimized via MATLAB. A. Compressor The isentropic efficiency of the compressor can be defined as: h h (6) comp = 2 s 1 h2 h1 Where the ideal outlet temperature of the air leaving the

Now, using Nernst equation, the reversible cell voltage, E, can be determined as: 2 P P 0 RT CH 4 O2 E=E + ln (15) 2 8F P CO P H O 2 2 In the above equation, R is the universal gas constant , E0 is the ideal cell voltage at standard conditions, T represents the stack temperature and F is the Faraday constant (96485 C/mole). The value of E0 for high temperature SOFC is 0.91

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V. The DC electric power which is produced by the fuel cell can be found as: WFC ,dc = Vc jAc (16) where j is the rate of electron transfer per unit activation area of the fuel cell and Vc denotes the short circuit voltage of the cell. The difference between the values of open circuit voltage (by Nernst equation) and the short circuit voltage is the sum of the voltage losses due to irreversibilities in the fuel cell which consists of activation polarization, ohmic losses and concentration losses. Vloss = E Vc (17)
Vloss = Vact + Vohm + Vconc Where each components of Eq. 12 can be found as: Vact = A ln Vohm = jr Vconc = B ln 1 (18)

( m3 + U f m fuel,FC ) h4 + QComb
m5 h5 Qloss = 0 And (26)

QComb = m fuel , FC 1 U f + m fuel ,Comb LHV (27) Qloss = m fuel , FC 1 U f + m fuel ,Comb 1 Comb LHV

(28)

j j0
j

(19) (20)

E. Turbines The required power for running the compressor is provided by the gas turbine: WGT = Wcomp (29) The efficiency of the utilized turbine in this work is presented in Table I. Using this value, the outlet enthalpy of the turbine can be calculated using the following equation:
GT =
h5 h6 h5 h6 s (30)

j1

(21)

Where A and B are constant values of 0.03 and 0.08 respectively, j0 is the current density at which the overvoltage begins to move from zero and r represents the area specific resistance. The mentioned irreversibilities in the stack lead to heat generation which can be evaluated as: 6 Qgen, FC = I Vloss = jAc ( E Vc ) 10 (22) The conservation of mass equation for the SOFC can be written as: m3 + m fuel , FC = m4 = m3 + m fuel , FC U f + m fuel , FC 1 U f

The temperature of the outlet gas from the turbine can be found by:
P6 T6 S 1 = (31) P T5 5 Similarly, the outlet temperature from the power turbine can be determined as: 1 T7 s P7 = (32) T6 P6 It is noteworthy that the similar equations can be used for the power turbine and the output power of the power turbine can be calculated as below:
h h7 PT = 6 h6 h7 s (33)

Using the first law of thermodynamics, the equation below can be determined: m3h3 + m fuel , FC U f LHV + m fuel , FC 1 U f h fuel ,in WFC ,dc m4 h4 = 0

(23)

(24)

D. Combustor The non-reacted flow of fuel along with the other products from the SOFC enters to the combustor, where they are heated up by the combustion of the additional fuel which is added to the mixture. The mass conservation equation for combustor can be expressed as:

WPT = m6 h6 h7 (34) The fraction of the total output work on the total input energy to the system gives the total thermal efficiency of the plant and can be shown as below:

th

cycle

m3 + m fuel , FC U f + m fuel ,FC 1 U f + m fuel ,Comb (25)

Where

Wnet Qtot

(35)
(36) (37)

Wnet = WFC ,ac + WGen WFC ,ac = invertWFC ,dc

= m4 + m fuel ,Comb =m5 Applying the first law of thermodynamics:

WGen = GenWPT

(38)

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(39) decrease the total energy input in order to raise the total thermal efficiency of the system results in a more expensive design and a higher capital cost. Hence, these objective functions are in conflict, the fact which necessitates using IV. COST EVALUATION At the present time, the cost of SOFC systems is much multi-objective optimization as a proper alternative. The use of evolutionary algorithms and especially genetic higher than the conventional power generation systems. The algorithms in multiple objective optimization problems have utilized equations for cost estimation in this paper are considered the mass production of SOFC systems [17]. The been successfully tested in several engineering problems in the capital cost for the SOFC stack, inverter, turbines and area of thermal systems [11, 14, 15]. GA uses a natural compressor are estimated by the equations below [17]. In selection mechanism in which stronger species have more addition, the cost of the auxiliary equipments such as mixers, opportunity to pass their genes to the next generation. In GA valves, heat exchangers, pipes, etc is considered as 10 % of terminology, a solution vector x X is called an individual or a chromosome. GA operates with a collection of the cost of SOFC stack. chromosomes called population [13]. Initial population is CSOFC = ASOFC ( 2.96Tstack 1907 ) (40) randomly selected from a given design space. Fitness of each 0.7 individual in the population is evaluated regarding the W 5 FC ,dc Cinverter = 10 (41) considered objective function. Next generation is selected 500 stochastically from the current population. Individuals are selected based on their fitness. Higher fitness leads to higher CSOFC ,aux = 0.1 CSOFC (42) possibility of being selected. Then, selected individuals reproduce to create offspring which are mutated randomly in Cturbine = (WGT + WPT ) 1318.5 98.328 ln (WGT + WPT ) (43) the next step. As the search evolves the population includes fitter and fitter solutions and eventually it converges, meaning 0.67 Wcomp (44) that its dominated by a set of optimal solution. Ccomp = 91562 In this study, three vital variables associated to the 445 thermodynamic cycle of the plant including mass flow rate of The estimated total capital cost of the system is the summation of the above terms which constructs one of the the inlet fuel to the combustor, mass flow rate of the input air objective functions in this work. Although the cost model has to the compressor and the output pressure of the compressor not considered all the financial aspects, it can shows the are considered as optimization parameters. For each variable, variation of the cost by each of the optimization parameters reasonable upper limit and lower limit is defined and and can give a rather good idea about the total capital cost of presented in Table II. Qtot =m fuel , FC U f LHVCH + QComb 4

the system which is adequate for the purpose of multiobjective optimization. V. MULTI-OBJECTIVE OPTIMIZATION VIA GENETIC
ALGORITHMS

TABLE II OPTIMIZATION PARAMETERS AND THEIR CORRESPONDING CONSTRAINTS Variable

Range of variation

Pressure outlet of the compressor, Flow rate of inlet air,

P2
m fuel ,Comb

2 105 8 105
2.5-5 (kg/s)

( Pa )

m1

In most engineering problems, one may faces with conflicting objectives. Where optimizing with respect to a single objective leads to an inappropriate solution with respect to other ones. A reasonable solution to a multi-objective problem is to investigate a set of solutions, each of which satisfies the objectives at an acceptable level without being dominated by any other solution. The goal of multi-objective optimization is discovering a set of solutions known as Pareto solutions which optimize multiple conflicting objectives simultaneously [13]. If all objective functions are for minimization, a feasible solution x is said to dominate another feasible solution y (x > y), if and only if Zi ( x) Zi ( y) , for i=1,,K and

Flow rate of inlet fuel to combustor,

0.01-0.03 (kg/s)

VI. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION The optimization parameters and the corresponding considered constraints for each of them are presented in Table II. The population size is adjusted at 40 and the optimization procedure is converged after 124 generations due to the fact that the average change in the spread of Pareto solutions was less than the considered termination tolerance on the function value which is 10-4. It should be noted that the value of efficiency is multiplied by a minus sign before starting the optimization procedure, owing to the fact that the minimization of both objective functions were regarded. The result is a set of optimal solutions, each of which is a trade-off between objective functions. The generated Pareto front is depicted in Fig. 3.

Z j ( x) < Z j ( y ) for at least one objective function j. A

solution is said to be Pareto optimal if it is not dominated by any other solution in the solution space [13]. In the present work, total thermal efficiency of the system and capital cost are considered as two objective functions. Obviously, any effort to increase the output turbine works or

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VII. CONCLUSION In the present paper, a hybrid solid oxide fuel cell-gas turbine power plant system is considered. Optimization of the system is carried out in order to achieve a set of optimal parameters which can yield the minimum capital cost and maximum total thermal efficiency. Since the objectives are conflicting and owing to the complexity of the governing equations of the system, multi-objective optimization using genetic algorithms is utilized which yields a set of optimal solutions, called Pareto solutions, each of which is a trade-off between objective functions. The main advantage of this work is providing a wide range of optimal solutions, each of which can be selected by the designer, considering projects limits and the requirements. VIII. REFRENCES
[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7]
Cost ($)

Figure 1: Pareto front

Some of the selected optimal values of the considered parameters and the corresponding values for the objective functions are presented in Table III. There are 15 series of optimal results which are selected to provide a nice output scheme which can cover the range of the problem. As depicted in Fig. 3, the capital cost of the system is varying between 5.3 108 9.2 108 $ where the efficiency of the system is changing between 56-63.5 %. The optimal values of the optimization parameters including the inlet mass flow rate of the fuel to the combustor, the outlet pressure of the compressor and the mass flow rate of the inlet air in to the compressor are shown in Table III. The corresponding values of each objective functions are also included in Table III.
TABLE III SOME OF THE SELECTED OPTIMAL RESULTS

m fuel ,Comb
0.01004 0.01019 0.01107 0.01073 0.01089 0.01077 0.01043 0.01135 0.01229 0.01139 0.01061 0.01052 0.01198 0.01086 0.01101

P2 ( Pa )

m1 (kg/s)

- th -0.568 -0.575 -0.578 -0.581 -0.588 -0.592 -0.598 -0.599 -0.605 -0.606 -0.617 -0.628 -0.629 -0.633 -0.635

[8] 5.39E+08 5.49E+08 5.86E+08 6.18E+08 6.5E+08 6.54E+08 6.75E+08 6.79E+08 7.23E+08 7.55E+08 7.7E+08 8.31E+08 8.5E+08 8.72E+08 9.17E+08 [15] [14] [13] [12] [11] [10] [9]

202144.7 201190.5 218338.7 233678.8 242689.1 238215.6 244868.2 257280.3 259090.6 324479.8 334861.1 396885.4 382681 415453.3 498681

2.77531 2.62401 2.512497 2.766003 2.817732 2.83126 2.920349 2.536014 2.691334 2.584347 2.5482 2.526984 2.502595 2.621838 2.549965

The main advantage of this work is providing a rather wide range of optimal solutions, each of which can be selected by the designer, considering projects limits and the requirements. In other words, if the designer concerns a specific value for the efficiency of the plant, the Pareto front can provides the cheapest possible design parameters to meet that value of efficiency.

[16] [17]

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