Development of a program to simulate the dynamic behavior of heavy-duty gas turbines during the entire start-up operation including very early part

This study presents a simulation tool for the dynamic behavior during the start-up of heavy-duty gas turbines. The simulation was implemented in MATLAB and can accurately predict the full start-up procedure from zero speed to idling. Each component of the system was modeled as a single control volume or multiple control volumes to which mass and energy balances were applied. The governing equations are solved numerically by the multi-variable Newton Raphson method. The compressor and turbine are divided into several groups for the bleeding and turbine cooling model. The program can simulate the early part of the start-up process from zero rpm to ignition by using the starter module in the cranking process, which can be hard to simulate using commercial software. A heat transfer model was applied to each control volume of the major components to consider the heat soakage effect accurately. The full start-up process of an industrial gas turbine was simulated, and the results were compared with actual operating data for validation. The program is expected to be used for various purposes, especially for estimating an adequate starter capacity and scheduling an optimal start-up procedure of heavy-duty gas turbines.