Applied Thermal Engineering 30 (2010) 2378e2385

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Applied Thermal Engineering

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apthermeng

Optimization of re tube heat recovery steam generators for cogeneration

plants through genetic algorithm
Ali Behbahani-nia*, Mahmood Bagheri, Rasool Bahrampoury
Department of Mechanical Engineering, K.N. Toosi university of technology, Mollasadra St., Tehran, Iran

a r t i c l e i n f o

a b s t r a c t

Article history:
Received 23 September 2009
Accepted 5 June 2010
Available online 16 June 2010

In the present paper, a small cogeneration system including a gas microturbine and a re tube heat
recovery steam generator (HRSG) is considered. The HRSG system is optimized considering two different
objective functions. Sum of the exergy losses resulting from the gases leaving the stack and the exergy
destruction due to the internal irreversibility is considered as the rst objective function while the
second objective function is considered to be the sum of annualized values of the capital cost and the cost
of the energy loss. The cost of energy loss includes the cost of the loss by hot gases leaving the stack and
the cost of the reduction in the power production in the microturbine as the result of the pressure drop
in the HRSG. Finally multi-objective optimization method via genetic algorithm is employed to nd the
optimum values of the design parameters. A decision making process based on nding the closest point
to the ideal point is used. Results of different optimum points on the Pareto front are compared and
discussed. The results show that the thermodynamic optimization doesnt lead to major improvement of
the total cost of the HRSG although the thermoeconomic and multi-objective methods improve the total
cost of the system due decrease in the cost of energy loss due to decrease in the pinch point.
2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords:
Firetube HRSG
Cogeneration
Optimization
Genetic Algorithm
Thermoeconomic
Multi-objective

1. Introduction
Due to the daily progress in the gas turbine technology cogeneration systems having gas turbines as their prime movers have
became prevalent. In these systems in addition to supplying the
electricity demand, heating and/or cooling load of the building can
be supplied using absorption chillers and heat recovery steam
generators. This results in lower fuel consumption and lower
emission [1]. Fig. 1 illustrates the schematic view of a small
cogeneration system with a gas turbine prime mover.
Heat recovery steam generators are one of the most important
components of a cogeneration system which have a signicant
impact on its efciency. Heat recovery steam generators are classied into two groups of water tube and re tube. In water tube
boilers water ows inside pipes and gas ows inside the shell while
in re tube ones gas ows inside pipes and two phase water boils
inside the shell. Generally, when the mass ow rate of the output
gas is lower than 7 kg/s, it is not economical to use water tube
HRSGs [2]. For gas microturbines having a power output of
30e800 kW, the use of re tube HRSGs is inevitable. Commercial
buildings, light duty industrial facilities including food processing,

* Corresponding author. Tel.: 98 9123548379; fax: 98 2188677273.

E-mail address: alibehbahaninia@kntu.ac.ir (A. Behbahani-nia).
1359-4311/$ e see front matter 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2010.06.007

chemical industries etc. which have rather simultaneous heat and

electrical demands are among the most appropriate choices for
microturbine-based CHP systems and thus, re tube HRSGs. The
conditions in which exhaust hot gases have a high pressure is
another case where re tube HRSGs are preferred to water tube
ones. Furthermore, when the exhaust gases are dirty and the gas
ow is dry and includes entrainments of particles, it is recommended to use a re tube HRSG. Many of the exhaust gas streams in
the petrochemical applications are examples of this situation [3]. In
all the above-mentioned applications, using re tube HRSGs results
in reduction of the costs.
Different methods have been used in order to optimize heat
recovery steam generators. In references [4,5] second law analysis
of heat recovery generators is presented. In reference [6] optimum
values of some of the operating parameters are found by minimizing exergy loss. Results of aforementioned papers may not be
used in practice because they may lead to a design with unreasonable capital cost. The method which compromises both of the
efciency and capital the cost is thermoeconomic. The objective
functions base on thermoeconomic method depends on application
of the HRSG and local costs of energy and construction of a new
system. In references [7,8], a thermoeconomic objective function
was proposed in order to optimize heat recovery steam generators
for the combined cycle power plants. The method was used to
optimize the pinch point for multi pressure water tube heat

A. Behbahani-nia et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 30 (2010) 2378e2385

Nomenclature
A
Ce, Cf
Cp
D
E_
f
F
ff
h
H
hf
HRSG
I_
k
K
K, Km
L, Le
_
m
nf
NH
Nu
Nw
P
P.P
S
ST, SL
T

heat transfer surface area (m2)

cost of electricity ($/kW h), cost of fuel ($/m3)
specic heat (kj/kg K)
tube diameter (m)
exergy rate (kW)
friction factor
objective function
fouling factor (m2 K/W)
heat transfer coefcient (W/m2 K), enthalpy (kJ/kg)
number of working hours of the HRSG in a year
n height (m)
heat recovery steam generator
irreversibility (kW)
ratio of specic heats, Cp/Cv
unit volume capital costs ($/m3)
gas thermal conductivity, tube metal conductivity (W/
m K)
length (m), equivalent length (m)
mass ow rate (kg/s)
n density (ns/m)
number of tube rows deep
nusselt number
number of rows wide
pressure (kpa)
pinch point
entropy (kj/kg K)
transverse and longitudinal pitch of tubes (m)
temperature (K)

recovery steam generators. As pointed out by the authors the pinch

point obtained in this work were surprisingly lower than what was
suggested by the designers, in addition, the geometrical parameters
were not optimized in this paper. References [9] and [10] have
proposed a two steps algorithm, the rst step of which is minimizing the pressure drop in a constant heat transfer load. The
second step is geometric minimization of HRSGs compactness
factor, while thermal parameters are held constant based on the
former optimization. Although the algorithm which was presented
in this paper demonstrates a great deal of progress compared to the
previous works but the heat transfer rate and therefore, pinch
temperature difference are known in advance while this parameter
is usually considered as a decision variable in the HRSG design. In
other words, a comprehensive algorithm should include a way to
optimize the pinch temperature difference since this parameter
signicantly affects the HRSG performance and cost. In reference
[11] a thermodynamic method was suggested in order to optimize
heat exchanger layout in a HRSG.

U
V
VL

m
DP
DTm
DW
e
h
r

2379

overall heat transfer coefcient (W/m2 K)

volume (m3)
gas velocity in evaporator pipes (m/s)
viscosity (pa s)
pressure drop (kpa)
log-mean temperature difference (K)
reduction of power (kW)
exergetic efciency
efciency
density (kg/m3)

Subscripts
C
convective, compressor
D
destruction
Eco
economizer
Eva
evaporator
F
fuel
f
n
g
gas
i
inner, inside tube, inlet
L
loss
N
non-luminous
o
outer, outside tube, outlet
atm
atmosphere (Restricted dead state)
P
product
s
steam
Sh
superheater
t
turbine
w
water
K
Kth component

In all of the reviewed works, water tube heat recovery boilers

are optimized. The objective functions are used in these works are
base on this assumption that they are used in combined cycle
power plants. This work concerns on optimization of re tube heat
recovery steam generator in order to use in cogeneration systems.
The suggested algorithm in this work is based on multi-objective
optimization method. The rst objective function in this work is
sum of the exergy loss and the exergy destruction inside the HRSG
and the second objective function is a thermoeconomic objective
function introduced in this work for cogeneration systems.
2. Problem statement
Schematic of a cogeneration system which is based on a microturbine is shown in Fig. 1. The heat output from the microturbine is
recovered in a re tube HRSG. The Pressure and the temperature of
the generated steam are constant due to the process requirements.
A deaerator, removes the air from the input water of the inlet feed
water of the HRSG. The objective is to nd optimum values of the
pinch point and some other design variables of the HRSG.
Fig. 2 shows schematic of a re tube HRSG used in the aforementioned CHP plants. In the re tube HRSGs only the evaporator
has a re tube structure and the superheater and the economizer
have water tube structures. In order to reduce costs, economizers
with nned surfaces are often used. The path of the water stream is
illustrated in the gure by dashed lines.
3. Design of the HRSG

Fig. 1. A cogeneration system with a gas turbine prime mover.

Two stages of calculations are needed to design an HRSG. The

rst stage is performance calculations or thermodynamic design. In

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A. Behbahani-nia et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 30 (2010) 2378e2385

Fig. 2. Fire tube HRSG with an economizer, an evaporator and a superheater.

this stage the general conguration of the HRSG and positions of

different surfaces are determined. The second stage is the thermal
design. In this stage, the surface area of thermal surfaces is
determined.


_ g Cpg Tg1  Tg3 m
_ w hs2  hw2
m

(1)

Using heat balances for each of the components, gas temperature at the inlet and exit of each component of the HRSG can be
obtained.

3.1. Thermodynamic design

3.2. Thermal design
Before the thermodynamic design, one needs to select values of
the pinch point and the approach point. Pinch and approach points
are the most important performance parameters of an HRSG. The
pinch point is temperature difference between the gas owing out
from the evaporator and the saturated steam inside the evaporator
(Fig. 3). Reducing the pinch point leads to a lower stack loss.
However, cost of the HRSG and the pressure drop is increased.
Approach point is the temperature difference between the outlet
water from the economizer and the saturated water in the evaporator. In single pressure HRSGs, decreasing the approach point
improves the performance of the HRSG. However, steam formation
in the economizer imposes limits on the approach point [2].
The values of these parameters are determined using the
manufacturers experience. The pinch point is optimized in this
work. Knowing these two parameters, steam mass ow rate is
obtained using the rst law of thermodynamics for a control
volume containing both the superheater and the evaporator.

In the thermal design, once the overall heat transfer coefcient

is determined, the surface area of each component of the HRSG
(economizer, superheater and evaporator) can be obtained. A brief
review of the thermal design of a re tube HRSG is presented in
Appendix A. The radiative heat transfer coefcient is determined
using the method presented in reference [12].
4. Exergy analysis of the HRSG
Exergy is the maximum obtainable work which can be taken
from the inlet energy. Using an exergy analysis, those components
of the system which have the highest thermodynamic inefciencies
are recognized. The exergy intake to an HRSG includes chemical
and physical exergies of the inlet gas ow. The chemical exergy of
the inlet gas ow will not be recovered and will be discharged to
the atmosphere through the stack.
Exergy is not conserved and can be destroyed within a system
due to irreversibility. It can also be lost when there is a material
ow or energy transfer to the surroundings [13]. The exergy loss
equals to the exergy rate of the hot gas leaving the economizer and
is calculated as follows:







_ g hg4  hatm  Tatm Sg4  Satm
E_ L m

(2)

The most important factors of exergy destruction in all

components of the HRSG (economizer, evaporator, and superheater) are the irreversibility resulting from the heat transfer and
friction. Exergy destruction rate at the Kth component of the
system is:

E_ D;K E_ F;K  E_ P;K

Fig. 3. Temperature prole of the HRSG.

(3)

Where E_ P;K and E_ F;K are exergy rates of the product and the fuel of
the Kth component, respectively, which are evaluated considering
the desired outcome of using that component and the resources

A. Behbahani-nia et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 30 (2010) 2378e2385

spent for that outcome. In [13] and [14], fuel and product exergies
are determined for each component, using the following equations:







_ g hg;in;K  hg;out;K  Tatm Sg;in;K  Sg;out;K
E_ F;K m

(4)







_ w hw;out;K  hw;in;K  Tatm Sw;out;K  Sw;in;K
E_ P;K m

(5)

One of the main parameters in evaluating performance and

optimization of thermal systems is the exergetic efciency. It is
dened as the ratio of product to fuel for each component:

E_

eK _ P;K
EF;K

(6)

5. Economical analysis
Total annual cost of an HRSG is dened in this work as sum of
the cost of heat transfer surface area and the cost of energy loss as
follows:

Ctot Ccc Closs

(7)

Construction cost of thermal surfaces in an HRSG depends

mainly on its weight. The total cost of construction of an HRSG
includes other costs such as shell, the casing and the pipe work. The
annualized capital cost for construction of an HRSG is as follows

Ccc CRF  PEC

(8)

where CRF is the capital recovery factor. PEC is cost of heat transfer
surface area and other costs such as casing and equipments. It is
assumed that PEC to be a function of heat transfer surface area and
may be calculated as follows

PEC Keco Veco Keva Veva Ksh Vsh

(9)

in which K is cost of unit volume of the heat transfer surface

area. In the estimation of the Keva, all costs related to the shell,
insulation and machining which are functions of its size and
conguration of thermal surfaces are taken into account.
There is two main source of energy loss in an HRSG. The stack
loss and reduction of power generation in gas turbine due to
pressure loss in the HRSG.

Closs Csl Cpl

(10)

2381

Table 2
Variation intervals of decision variables.
Item

Value

Ce
Cf
H
CRF
Keco
Keva
Ksh

0.078 $/Kw hr
0.168 $/m3
5840 h/year
0.2385
39 195 $/m3
42 425 $/m3
115 146 $/m3
0.915

hBoiler

Csl


_ g Cpg Tg;out;eco  Tatm H
m

Cf
hBoiler  LHV

where LHV is the lower heating value of natural gas, H is the

number of working hours of the HRSG in a year and hBoiler is efciency of a typical conventional boiler.
In the third part of the cost of reduced power production in the
turbine due to pressure drop is accounted for. This pressure loss is
neglected in some of previous works [7,8]. In references [9,10], the
pressure loss is minimized but the effect of it on the gas turbine was
neglected. In references [2,3], this reduced power production is
considered equivalent to a power of a fan required to overcome the
friction. The optimum value of gas-side velocity in HRSGs such as
the other kind of heat exchangers may be found by trade-off
between the weight or cost of heat transfer surface area and the fan
power work required to overcome the pressure loss. The methods
which dont consider the pressure loss may not be used to nd an
optimum value for the gas-side velocity. In this work, reduction of
power generated in the gas turbine is modeled simply by assuming
that the mass ow of the gas and efciency of the turbine dont
change. This assumption is base on this fact that the pressure loss in
HRSGs is very small with respect to the pressure in the outlet of
combustion chamber of the gas turbine. The power loss in the
turbine is calculated as follows:

_ g Cpg ht T3
DW m

!




Patm k1=k
Patm DP k1=k

P3
P3

Table 1
Coefcients required for calculation of costs.

P.P ( K)
Pressure drop (kpa)
Evaporator
VL (m/s)
di (m)
Economizer
L (m)
ST/do
SL/do
hf (m)
nf (ns/m)
Superheater
L (m)
ST/do
SL/do

Lower limit
0.001
e

Upper limit
40
5

15
0.015

50
0.040

1
1.5
1.5
0.005
75

3.5
4.15
4.15
0.020
275

1
1.5
1.5

2.5
4.15
4.15

(12)

where T3 and P3 are respectively the temperature and pressure

of exhaust gas of the combustion chamber which enters the
turbine [16].
Finally, costs of this power loss are obtained via (13), where Ce is
the cost of electricity in Iran.

The discharge of hot gases through the stack results in loss of

energy. The cost of the equal fuel equivalent to wasted energy by
these losses is given by:

Variables

(11)

Fig. 4. The general structure of problem solving by genetic algorithm.

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A. Behbahani-nia et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 30 (2010) 2378e2385

Table 3
Continuous output of the gas turbine in ISO condition.
Item

Value

Output power
Pressure ratio
Mass ow rate
Exhaust temperature
Fuel
Compressor efciency
Turbine efciency

600 Kw
8.6
5 kg/s
570  C
Gaseous
0.8
0.8

Cpl DW H Ce

(13)
Fig. 5. Pareto optimal frontier.

Constants used in economic analysis are given in Table 1.

6. Optimization
The considered set of optimization parameters and their associated constraints, considering practical restraints, are presented in
Table 2. In addition, the temperature of the dew point of the stack
output gas is limited to 110  C.
6.1. Objective function
Dening an appropriate objective function is a vital step in
optimization of any system. Considering a single thermodynamic
objective function, which can be minimizing the irreversibility
within the system, might leads to uneconomical design. Since the
economical considerations have a great importance in design of
engineering systems, the designer must consider the total cost of
the project alongside achieving the maximum thermodynamics
efciency. Therefore, one of the common objective functions which
simultaneously contain both capital cost and energy or exergy cost,
is thermoeconomic objective function. In this work, a multiobjective optimization method is used to consider both of the
above objective functions.
6.1.1. Thermodynamic objective function
A suitable objective in thermodynamic optimization is
minimizing the sum of irreversibility within the HRSG. In the
HRSG, irreversibility is sum of the total exergy loss and exergy
destruction in each single component of the system. By minimizing this objective function the efciency will be maximized.

I_

E_ D;K E_ L

(14)

6.1.2. Thermoeconomic objective function

In the thermoeconomic approach, sum of the levelized values of
energy or exergy and capital costs are selected as the objective
function. The objective function used in this work is sum of the
capital cost and energy costs introduced in equation (7).
Table 4
Operational conditions of the HRSG.
Item

Value

HRSG Pressure
Output steam temperature
Blow down
Supply water temperature
Supply water pressure
Dew point temperature
Deaerator pressure

550 kpa
196  C
5%
21  C
100 kpa
110  C
100 kpa

6.1.3. Multi-objective optimization

Weighted values of the thermodynamic objective function and
the thermoeconomic objective function is considered as the
objective function as follows

F a
I_

I_
ref

Ctot
1  a
Ctot; ref

(15)

Considering a 0 and a 1 leads to optimization of the thermoeconomic and thermodynamic objective functions respectively.
The result is a set of optimum solutions, called Pareto solutions,
each of which is a trade-off between considered objective functions. The designer can choose any set of optimal solutions, by
selecting desired value of a between 0 and 1.
6.2. Optimization method
Genetic algorithm is utilized as the optimization method in the
present work. Genetic algorithm, thanks to its evolutional nature,
can work with any type of objective function, constraints and in any
sort of space. In this algorithm, the solution space is exhaustively
searched and there is less possibility to be trapped in a local
optimum. In genetic algorithms, any possible answer is represented
by a series of genes, called a chromosome. A selected population of
chromosomes is called a society and a society in a specic segment
of time is called a generation. After dening the objective function,
an initial society is generated. This initial population is evaluated
and each chromosome is given a ranking. If the solution requirements are not met, the step of going to a new generation including
selection, mating and mutation with the aim of improving the
Table 5
Results of optimization.
Variables

Base
case

P.P (K)
19
Pressure
1.66
drop
(kpa)
Evaporator
29
VL (m/s)
0.029
di (m)
Economizer
L (m)
1.77
2
ST/do
2.3
SL/do
0.0132
hf (m)
98
nf (ns/m)
Superheater
L (m)
1.6
1.7
ST/do
2
SL/do

Thermodynamic Multi-Objective
opt.
opt.

Thermoeconomic
opt.

5.63
1.24

6.59
2.28

6.26
3.22

15
0.04

29.36
0.022

36.48
0.020

3. 5
1.81
2.62
0.0168
275

3.5
1.84
2.69
0.0105
275

3.35
1.9
2.83
0.0203
216

2.5
2.64
4.15

2.37
2.19
4.15

2.24
2.14
3.43

A. Behbahani-nia et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 30 (2010) 2378e2385

2383

Fig. 6. Exergetic efciency of components of the HRSG, before and after optimization.
Fig. 7. Comparison of annual costs of the HRSG before and after the optimization.

answers is taken. The general structure of problem solving by

genetic algorithm is shown in Fig. 4 [15].
7. Results
In this work, a cogeneration system is considered base on
a 600 kW microturbine made by NIIGATA POWER. Specication of
the gas turbine is given in Table 3. Some operational parameters of
the system to be designed are given in Table 4.
Fig. 5 presents the generated Pareto front base on dimensional
values. The ideal point shown in the gure is dened a point in
which both objectives have their optimum values independent to
the other objective. As shown in Fig. 5 this point is not located on
the Pareto curve. In fact minimizing sum of exergy loss and
destruction increases the capital cost which leads to increase in the
thermoeconomic objective function. Therefore this ideal point may
not exist and there is not any weighting function correspond to this
ideal point. The multi-objective point is selected as the closest point
to the ideal point. The three specic points which represent thermodynamic, thermoeconomic and the multi-objective function
optimum points are also shown.
The results of optimum designs based on three objective functions are presented in Table 5 and are compared to an existing
HRSG. The optimum value of the gas-side velocity may be found by
trade-off between capital cost and the pressure drop. The thermodynamic objective function in which the capital cost is not taken
into account, may not be used to nd an optimum value for the gasside velocity and as can be seen the optimum value base on this
objective function is on the boarder of the interval.
Fig. 6 compares exergetic efciencies of components of the
HRSG for four different designs. The lowest amount of improvement happened in the evaporator, meaning that the major part of
the exergy destruction in the evaporator is inevitable. Table 6
compares different components of the exergy analysis for four
designs. The results show increase of the production in all three
optimum points with respect to the base case. This improvement is
Table 6
Comparison of the values of exergy destructions for components and exergy loss
between the base case and various optimization approaches.
Item

Base
case

Thermodynamic
opt.

Multiobjective
opt.

Thermoeconomic
opt.

EDeco (kW)
EDeva (kW)
EDsh (kW)
EL (kW)
EP (kW)

22.94
619
24.49
286.05
597.37

19.37
593.49
20.62
237.8
678.7

18.72
595.1
21.87
239.3
675

18.49
605.8
22.09
239.5
664.12

due to decrease in the pinch point in all the three designs with
respect to the existing design as presented in the Table 5. In
references [2,3], pinch point temperatures for evaporators with
bare tubes are suggested to be 70  C. This is due to the need to
achieve an economical thermal area with a reasonable pressure
drop. As can be seen in Fig. 7, most of the costs in the thermoeconomic function are related to the thermal losses. By decreasing the
pinch point temperature to 6.26  C correspond to thermoeconomic
optimum point at the expense of increasing the capital costs and
reduction of power production of the turbine, more heat is recovered and annual costs of the heat loss have signicantly reduced. At
the same time, by optimizing other thermal variables of the HRSG,
the lowest thermal surface area is obtained for this pinch point.
Fig. 7 compares different components of the economic analysis
of the HRSG for four designs. As can be seen, the thermodynamic
optimization doesnt lead to major improvement of the total cost of
the HRSG as compared to the base case. The results show using
multi-objective optimization improves the cost of the work loss in
the HRSG as compared to the thermoeconomic optimization. This
improvement is obtained by decreasing the gas-side velocity (Table
5) via increasing the capital cost.
Table 5 shows that the optimum designs are obtained mostly by
improvements in design variables of the evaporator. This is due to
the fact that thermal variables in the economizer and the superheater have considerably lower effects on the nal cost.
8. Conclusion
In this paper, a re tube HSRG is successfully optimized. Two
different objective functions were suggested. The rst one is sum of
the exergy destruction and exergy loss and the second objective
function is sum of the capital cost and energy loss in term of money.
Finally, a multi-objective optimization is carried out in order to nd
optimum values of the design variables. Three optimum points
based on three objective functions were compared and discussed.
The results show that the design base on the thermodynamic
objective function is not capable to nd optimum values for
the gas-side velocity. This design doesnt improve the total cost of
the HRSG with respect to the existing design due to increase in the
capital cost. The thermoeconomic and multi-objective functions are
capable to nd optimum values for all of decision variables.
The results of economic analysis shows that during the life time
of an HRSG, fuel expenses constitute the major part of its costs. This
show that the pinch point suggested in existing references is higher
than the optimum value. It was also found that costs involving
pressure drop in an HRSG also have a considerable amount. The

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A. Behbahani-nia et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 30 (2010) 2378e2385

results of multi-objective optimization decrease the pressure loss

via increasing capital cost of the HRSG as compared to thermoeconomic optimization.
In all three designs, the major optimization is due to change in
design variables of the evaporator. In this type of optimization,
variables moved towards reducing the operational costs of the
HRSG, by reducing the heat loss. The optimal value of the pinch
point based on multi-objective optimization was obtained as
6.26  C. It is evident that while fuel costs increase, manufacturers
should move towards a higher heat recovery in re tube HRSGs.
Appendix A
The second step in designing an HRSG is designing its thermal
surfaces. In this step, the surface area of the evaporator, economizer
and superheater surfaces are determined. In this section, the
thermal design of a re tube HRSG is briey explained.
A.1. Economizer


_ w h2  h1 m
_ g Cpg Tg3  Tg4 UADTm
m

(A-1)

A.1.1. Overall heat transfer coefcient

AT
hi Ai

  
 
 
1
AT
do
do
A
ln
ffi T ffo

hf ho
Aw
2Km
di
Ai
(A-2)

where AT, AW, and Ai are the total area, average area and the tubes
wall area and hf is the n efciency.
A.1.2. Convective heat transfer coefcient inside tube
The convective heat transfer coefcient inside tubes is calculated via DittuseBoelter relationship [17].

hC 110:9u0:8

F1

CP

0:4

F1
d1:8
i

(A-3)

K 0:6

(A-4)

A.1.3. Heat transfer coefcient outside tube (gas-side)

The heat transfer coefcient outside tube has two terms of
convection and radiation.

ho hN hC

(A-5)

A.1.3.1. Convective heat transfer coefcient outside tube. ESCOA

equation is used here to determine the convective heat transfer
coefcient outside tube in nned surfaces.

Ao do 2nf bhf

(A-8)

Where b is the n thickness, hf is the n height, nf is the n density,

G is the mass velocity of gas, and Ao is the obstruction area [3].
A.1.3.2. Non-luminous heat transfer coefcient. The inuence of nonluminous heat transfer is negligible at low temperatures. Determining this coefcient requires the use of very accurate charts
which are given in [12].
A.1.4. Gas-side pressure drop
The pressure drop of the gas moving through economizer tubes
is:

DPg

f aG2 NH
500rg

do 2hf
do

f C2 C4 C6

(A-9)

0:5

Tg
Tf

!0:25


GCp

K
mCp

0:67
(A-6)



do 2hf
do

(A-10)

Coefcients C1 to C6 are given in [2].

A.2. Evaporator
In re tube evaporators, the hot gas ows in the tubes. heat
transfer coefcients inside and outside tube are required to calculate the overall heat transfer coefcient.
A.2.1. Heat transfer coefcients inside and outside tube
The heat transfer coefcient inside tube of the tube (gas-side)
contains two parts of convective heat transfer coefcient and
radiative heat transfer coefcient. The heat transfer coefcient
inside tube is calculated using (A-3), whereas the thermophysical
properties of the gas should be in the equation. Proper values of the
water side heat transfer coefcient are given in [2].
A.2.2. Pressure drop of the gas-side
The pressure drop of the gas ow inside evaporator tubes is
calculated via:

DPg

Where u is the mass ow rate of water in each tube and di is the

tube inner diameter.

hC C1 C3 C5

(A-7)

The friction factor for in-line arrangement is:

Economizers are used to preheat the inlet water of the HRSGs

evaporator and usually contain nned surfaces. After the thermal
balance and obtaining heat transfer coefcients and calculating the
Log-mean temperature difference, the area of the evaporator can be
calculated [3].

Uo

_g
m
ST  Ao LNw

8:098  104  f Le u2
rdi

(A-11)

friction factor for turbulent ow is:

0:316

(A-12)

Re0:25

A.3. Superheater
Thermal design of the superheater is similar to the evaporator,
except that the convective heat transfer coefcient is calculated as
follows:
A.3.1. Convective heat transfer coefcient outside tube
There are a variety of methods for obtaining convective heat
transfer coefcient outside tubes of the superheater. One of the
suitable methods for obtaining Nusselt number is using Grimson
equation:

Nu BReN

hC do
K

(A-13)

A. Behbahani-nia et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 30 (2010) 2378e2385

Coefcients N and B are given in [3] for bare tubes and for in-line
and staggered arrangements.
A.3.2. Pressure drop of the gas ow in the superheater

DPg

fG2 NH
495:69rg

(A-14)

The friction factor (fg) is obtained using the following relationship for a in-line arrangement and 2000 < Re < 40000:

"
0:15

fg Re

0:044

0:08ST =do
SL =do  10:431:13do =SL

#
(A-15)

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