1

Excel Spreadsheet as a Tool for Simulating the Performance of

Steam Power Plants
Giuma Fellah

Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering

University of Tripoli

g.fellah@uot.edu.ly

Abstract

The aim of this work is to demonstrate the power of Excel software in simulating
the performance of thermal systems. A steam power plant is taken as an example for the
demonstration. The idea is to show how one can analyze and simulate the performance of
thermal systems within the Excel environment.

The thermodynamic properties are obtained by the Excel tools developed for
thermodynamics. The platform of these tools is the Microsoft Excel. The obtained
properties using these tools are tested and found in good agreements with other sources.

Energy balance is performed on each heater to find the extracted mass flow rates.
The obtained equations are solved simultaneously by using Excel software. The functions
MMULT and MINVERSE are used to multiply the matrices and to find the inverse and
hence the mass flow rates. The solver facility is used to optimize the thermal efficiency
and/or the plant irreversibility.

Keywords: steam power plants, exergy, effectiveness, objective function, optimization

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 Nomenclature
cP specific heat [kJ/kg.K] i inlet
h enthalpy [kJ/kg] k component
İ irreversibility rate [kW] o ambient
𝑚̇ mass flow rate rate [kg/s] P product
P pressure [kPa]
𝑄̇ heat transfer [kW] Abbr.
s entropy [kJ/kg.K] BFP boiler feed pump
T temperature [o C] CEP condensate pump
w work done kJ/kg Cond condenser
𝑊̇ power [kW] CW cooling water
x mass fraction [-] DCA drain cooler approach [o C]
DEA deaerator
Greek HPH high pressure heater
 first law efficiency [-] HPT high pressure turbine
 effectiveness [-] IPT intermediate pressure turbine
Ψ̇ exergy rate [kW[ LHV lower heating value [kJ/kg]
 specific exergy [kJ/kg] LPH low pressure heater
LPT low pressure turbine
Subscript RH reheater
d destroyed RHS right hand side
e exit SG steam generator
F fuel TTD terminal temperature difference [o C]

1. Introduction

Spreadsheets programs are used to analyze many problems in different engineering areas.
They offer an attractive alternative to conventional programming that allows ready
experimentation with numerical algorithms [1].

A method for obtaining a numerical approximation to solutions of systems of nonlinear

differential equations of one variable using spreadsheets was presented by Kabalan, et al.
[2]. The method of solution is illustrated through several examples of non-linear
differential equations which demonstrate its accuracy, flexibility, and simplicity.

Demonstration techniques that enable educators to design animated graphical displays in

their spreadsheet constructions in order to produce powerful demonstrations to enhance
mathematical understanding were introduced by Arganbright [3].

The design and development of a Microsoft Excel-based Power System Load Flow
Analysis tool and its application for system planning and operation were demonstrated by
Musti and Ramkhelawan [4]. They developed a simple desktop tool which provides an
interactive and simplified interface for users to store different systems with different
operating conditions and then to observe the response of the system.

3
Musti [5] presented the design and development of a Microsoft Excel-based tool for Power
System Static State Estimation. The tool can be effectively used to understand the process
of state estimation and its real-time application. It contains Newton-Raphson load flow that
provides system measurements, which are used as inputs to the state estimator that uses the
popular weighted least square (WLS) algorithm.

El-Awad presented [6] an Add-Ins that determines the thermodynamic properties for
various fluids by using Microsoft Excel. The Add-Ins provides property functions for ideal
gases, saturated and superheated water, saturated and superheated refrigerants for vapor-
compression (VC) systems, binary solutions of ammonia-water and water-lithium bromide
for vapor-absorption (VA) refrigeration systems, reacting mixtures, and atmospheric air.

Excel-Thermax platform for performing energy and exergy analyses of the evaporative
regenerative gas-turbine (ERGT) cycle was introduced by El-Awad [7].

A spreadsheet was developed to present a model that uses the effectiveness-NTU method
to explicitly take into consideration the design particulars of the regenerator, such as its
size and overall heat-transfer coefficient was presented by El-Awad [8].

A paper deals with the use of Microsoft Excel as an educational tool for conducting basic
engineering analyses related to thermal-fluid systems was presented by El-Awad [9]. The
paper focuses on using Excel and its Goal-Seek command for solving thermal-fluid
problems that require iterative solutions by presenting three related examples from the
subjects of heat-transfer, fluid dynamics, and thermodynamics.

In this paper, the spreadsheet is utilized to perform a thermodynamic analysis of a

selected steam power plant of 350 MW rated power.

2. Excel in mechanical engineering-using Add-Ins

The thermodynamic properties of water are not included in Microsoft Excel. Those
properties which are needed to perform the thermodynamic analysis can be inserted by
using Add-Ins files. The following steps should be taken to implement the Add-Ins file of
thermodynamic properties of water:

1- Download the fluid packages [10].

2- Click on the thermodynamic menu and follow the instructions.

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 To make sure that it works, for example, find the enthalpy for water at given
pressure and temperature, just write “= h”, choose h_PT_H2O and set the pressure
and temperature in order, and you will have the enthalpy, see Figures 1a and 1b.

All other properties can be generated for any arbitrary two independent properties.

Figure 1a: Typing the property

Figure 1b: Generating the property-enthalpy

3. Tools and methods

The steam power which will be simulated within the Excel software environment
is shown in Figure 2. All properties will be generated by the Add-Ins fluid package
[10]. The seven linear equation which is obtained by taking energy balance on the
seven heaters will be solved by using Excel facilities to obtain the mass fraction
which is extracted from the steam turbine.

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 Figure 2: Schematic of the steam power plant

The plant data is tabulated in Table 1.

Table 1: Design parameters of the 350 MW steam power unit

HPT inlet temperature, T11 [oC] 538 DCA [oC] 5.6
HPT inlet pressure, P11 [kPa] 17490 Bleeding pressures [kPa]
Reheat temperature, T14 [oC] 538 Bleeding (1) , P12 4350
Reheat pressure, P14 [kPa] 4350 Bleeding (2), P15 2030
Pumps efficiency [%] 75 Bleeding (3), P16 977
Turbines efficiency [%] 85 Bleeding (4), P18 549
Generator efficiency [%] 93.5 Bleeding (5), P19 298
o
TTD (HP) [ C] 2.8 Bleeding (6), P20 161
o
TTD (LP) [ C] 0.0 Bleeding (7), P21 69

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3.1. Thermodynamic modeling

For the analysis, steady-state, steady flow processes are assumed. Pressure drop due
to friction, heat exchange with surroundings, the change in kinetic and potential energies
are neglected.

The mass balance can be written as:

∑(𝑚̇𝑖 )𝑘 = ∑(𝑚̇𝑒 )𝑘 (1)

The first law of thermodynamics can be written as:

∑ 𝑄̇𝑘 + ∑(𝑚̇𝑖 ℎ𝑖 )𝑘 = ∑(𝑚̇𝑒 ℎ𝑒 )𝑘 + 𝑊̇𝑘 (2𝑎)

𝑘

The cycle mass flow rate is calculated by:

𝑊̇ (𝑀𝑊)
𝑚̇𝑐𝑦𝑐𝑙𝑒 = (2𝑏)
𝑘𝐽
𝑤( )
𝑘𝑔

And the first law efficiency can be written as:

𝐸𝑛𝑒𝑟𝑔𝑦 (𝑠𝑜𝑢𝑔ℎ𝑡)
𝜂= (3)
𝐸𝑛𝑒𝑟𝑔𝑦 (𝑐𝑜𝑠𝑡)

Exergy is defined as the maximum useful reversible work that can be obtained from a given
mass in a given state when the mass brought reversibly into thermodynamic equilibrium
with the environment.

The exergy flow rate can be written as:

Ψ̇ = 𝑚̇[(ℎ − ℎ0 ) − 𝑇0 (𝑠 − 𝑠0 )] (4)

And the exergy balance for a given component can be written as;

𝑁 𝑁 𝑁
𝑇0
∑ (1 − ) 𝑄̇𝑘 + ∑ Ψ̇𝑖,𝑘 = ∑ Ψ̇𝑒,𝑘 + 𝑊̇𝑘 + 𝐼𝑘̇ (5)
𝑇
𝑖 𝑖 𝑒

By using the definitions of Fuel-Product-Loss (F-P-L). Fuel and Product are expressed by
exergy flow. Exergy balance for a single component (k) is given as:

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𝛹̇̇̇ 𝐹 = 𝛹̇̇̇ 𝑃 + 𝛹̇̇̇ 𝐷 (6)

Where𝛹̇̇̇ 𝐹 , 𝛹̇̇̇ 𝑃 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝛹̇̇̇ 𝐷 are the input exergy (fuel), exergy rate of the desired product, and
the exergy destroyed (irreversibility) during the process, respectively.

The effectiveness of every single component (k) is given by:

Ψ̇𝑃 Ψ̇𝐷
𝜀𝑘 = =1− (7)
Ψ̇𝐹 Ψ̇𝐹

The definitions of F-P (Fuel-Product) for the current power unit are given in Table 2. The
effectiveness of the power cycle is given as:

𝑊̇𝑛𝑒𝑡
𝜀= (8)
𝑚̇𝑓𝑢𝑒𝑙 × 𝜓𝑓𝑢𝑒𝑙

The fuel exergy is approximated as:

𝐿𝐻𝑉
≈ 1.00565 (9)
𝜓𝑓𝑢𝑒𝑙

Table 2: F-P exergy definitions

Comp. Fuel Product Comp. Fuel Product

SG Ψ̇𝐹𝑢𝑒𝑙_𝑆𝐺 Ψ̇11 − Ψ̇10 HPH2 Ψ̇15 + Ψ̇24 − Ψ̇25 Ψ̇9 − Ψ̇8

RH Ψ̇𝐹𝑢𝑒𝑙_𝑅𝐻 Ψ̇14 − Ψ̇13 DEA Ψ̇6 + Ψ̇16 + Ψ̇26 Ψ̇7

HPT Ψ̇11 − Ψ̇12 − Ψ̇13 𝑊̇𝐻𝑃𝑇 LPH1 Ψ̇18 − Ψ̇27 Ψ̇6 − Ψ̇5

IPT Ψ̇14 − Ψ̇15 − Ψ̇16 − Ψ̇17 𝑊̇𝐼𝑃𝑇 LPH2 Ψ̇19 + Ψ̇28 − Ψ̇29 Ψ̇5 − Ψ̇4

LPT Ψ̇17 − Ψ̇18 − Ψ̇19 − Ψ̇20 − Ψ̇21 − Ψ̇22 𝑊̇𝐿𝑃𝑇 LPH3 Ψ̇20 + Ψ̇30 − Ψ̇31 Ψ̇4 − Ψ̇3

Cond Ψ̇22 − Ψ̇34 − Ψ̇1 Ψ̇𝑐𝑤2 − Ψ̇𝑐𝑤1 LPH4 Ψ̇21 + Ψ̇32 − Ψ̇33 Ψ̇3 − Ψ̇2

HPH1 Ψ̇12 − Ψ̇23 Ψ̇10 − Ψ̇9 CEP 𝑊̇𝐶𝐸𝑃 Ψ̇2 − Ψ̇1

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 3.2. Steps of the analysis

The main steps of the analysis by using the Excel spreadsheet is summarized in the
following steps:

(i) Step 1: Assign the properties values for the given states.
(ii) Step 2: Use your knowledge in thermodynamic to generate the properties,
such as the enthalpy, entropy, and specific volume when necessary as shown
in Table 3.

Table 3: Generating the properties

(iii) Step 3: To find the mass fraction for each heater, solve the set of the linear equations
which are developed by taking energy balance on the feed water heaters (Eq. (2a)).
Use MINVERSE to create the inverse matrix, and MMULT to multiply the two
matrices. Here, the generated inverse matrix is multiplied by the original one to
obtain the unknowns (the mass fractions).
(iv) Step 4: Calculate the exergy at the all state points by using Eq. (4).
(v) Step 5: Calculate the irreversibility (Eq. (6)), the first law efficiency (Eq. (3))
and the effectiveness (Eq. (8)).

The results could be optimized by selecting the objective function, which might be the
efficiency (maximizing) or the plant irreversibility (minimizing). Also, the constraints
must be selected, which might be the bleeding pressures by letting them vary in a certain
range, for example, +/- 10 %.

To make the optimization in Excel, follow the following steps:

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(i) Step 1: Select data from the menu.
(ii) Step 2: select solver, see Fig. 3. Solver Add-Ins must be activated through:

𝑂𝑝𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠 → 𝑎𝑑𝑑 𝑖𝑛𝑠 → 𝑔𝑜 (𝑒𝑥𝑐𝑒𝑙 𝑎𝑑𝑑 𝑖𝑛𝑠) → 𝑐ℎ𝑒𝑐𝑘 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑠𝑜𝑙𝑣𝑒𝑟 𝑎𝑑𝑑 𝑖𝑛𝑠 𝑏𝑜𝑥

Figure 3: The Add-Ins solver

(iii) Select maximize (for thermal efficiency), or minimize for the irreversibility.
(iv) Select the objective function cell (efficiency or irreversibility).
(v) Select the constraints cells and set the limits.
(vi) Select the optimization method.
(vii) Push on the solve button to implement the optimization.

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4. Results and discussions

The properties at each state are generated and tabulated in Table 4.

Table 4: The properties at each state

STATE P(kPa) T(oC) h(kJ/kg) s(kJ/kg.K) STATE P(kPa) T(oC) h(kJ/kg) s(kJ/kg.K)
1 7 39 163.3655 0.5591 19 298 209 2883.997 7.3540
2 977 39 164.6685 0.5603 20 161 153 2777.243 7.3987
3 977 90 375.7926 1.1868 21 69 90 2650.336 7.4605
4 977 113 476.7254 1.4563 22 7 39 2367.544 7.6204
5 977 133 560.9334 1.6687 23 4350 216 925.5933 2.4761
6 977 155 655.8304 1.8960 24 2030 213 925.5933 2.4819
7 977 179 758.2299 2.1286 25 2030 188 799.9385 2.2175
8 17490 183 783.0186 2.1426 26 977 179 799.9385 2.2209
9 17490 210 905.063 2.4024 27 549 139 584.5979 1.7278
10 17490 253 1098.458 2.7857 28 298 133 584.5979 1.7287
11 17490 538 3389.603 6.3851 29 298 119 499.9804 1.5180
12 4350 338 3053.422 6.4841 30 161 113 499.9804 1.5187
13 4350 338 3053.422 6.4841 31 161 95 398.7221 1.2519
14 4350 538 3529.322 7.1597 32 69 90 398.7221 1.2526
15 2030 429 3312.014 7.2150 33 69 45 187.3257 0.6351
16 977 337 3130.352 7.2682 34 7 39 187.3257 0.6358
17 977 337 3130.352 7.2682 cw-in 101.325 15 63.07903 0.2245
18 549 271 3003.61 7.3097 cw_out 101.325 32 134.1932 0.4642

Solving the seven linear equations which are developed by taking mass and energy
balance on the feed water heaters (use Eqs. (1 &2a)) will result in the mass fractions (x12,
x15, x16, x18, x19, x20 and x21) which are extracted for each heater. The linear equations are
set in a matrix form. The functions MMULT and MINVERSE are used to multiply the
matrices and to find the inverse, see Tables. 5a and 5b.

Table 5a: Matrix for the seven equations

EQ x12 x15 x16 x18 x19 x20 x21 RHS

1 2127.83 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 193.39
2 125.65 2512.08 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 122.04
3 144.11 144.11 2474.52 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 102.40
4 94.90 94.90 94.90 2419.01 0.00 0.00 0.00 94.90
5 84.21 84.21 84.21 84.62 2384.02 0.00 0.00 84.21
6 100.93 100.93 100.93 101.26 101.26 2378.52 0.00 100.93
7 211.12 211.12 211.12 211.40 211.40 211.40 2463.01 211.12

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 Table 5b: The inverse matrix

4.70E-04 0.00E+00 0.00E+00 0.00E+00 0.00E+00 0.00E+00 0.00E+00

-2.35E-05 3.98E-04 0.00E+00 0.00E+00 0.00E+00 0.00E+00 0.00E+00
-2.60E-05 -2.32E-05 4.04E-04 0.00E+00 0.00E+00 0.00E+00 0.00E+00
-1.65E-05 -1.47E-05 -1.59E-05 4.13E-04 0.00E+00 0.00E+00 0.00E+00
-1.43E-05 -1.27E-05 -1.37E-05 -1.47E-05 4.19E-04 0.00E+00 0.00E+00
-1.65E-05 -1.47E-05 -1.59E-05 -1.70E-05 -1.79E-05 4.20E-04 0.00E+00
-3.20E-05 -2.85E-05 -3.07E-05 -3.28E-05 -3.45E-05 -3.61E-05 4.06E-04

The obtained mass fractions are tabulated in Table 6.

Table 6: Mass fractions

x12 (kg/kg) 0.090888

x15 0.044037
x16 0.033524
x18 0.032621
x19 0.028214
x20 0.032697
x21 0.063251

The heat transfer and work done per kilogram of the steam are calculated by using the
first law of thermodynamics (Eq. (2a)). Those are, heat transfer to the steam generator
(qh), heat transfer in the condenser (qc), work done by the high pressure turbine (whp),
the work done by the intermediate pressure turbine (wip), work done by the low pressure
turbine (wlp), work done by the condensate pump (wcp) and the work done by the feed
pump (wfp). The net work done (wnet) is then calculated and tabulated in Table 7.

Table 7: Specific heat transfer and work

qh 2723.791 kJ/kg
qc -1557.86 kJ/kg
whp 336.181 kJ/kg
wip 354.7077 kJ/kg
wlp 567.7104 kJ/kg
wCP -1.08353 kJ/kg
wfp -24.7887 kJ/kg
wnet 1232.727 kJ/kg

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By knowing the net power output (350 MW), Eq (2b) is applied to calculate the cycle
mass flow rate (283.9234 kg/s).

All other mass flow rates are calculated by multiplying the mass fractions by the cycle
mass flow rate, the results are tabulated in Table 8.

Table 8: Mass flow rates

m12 (kg/s) 25.8053

m15 12.5031
m16 9.5182
m18 9.2620
m19 8.0106
m20 9.2835
m21 17.9584
SUM 92.3412

The rate of heat transfer and power can be calculated and tabulated by multiplying the
specific quantities from Table 7 by the cycle mass flow rate, the results in MW are shown
in Table 9.

Table 8: Rate of heat transfer and power

Qh 773.3480 [MW]
Qc -442.3136 [MW]
Whp 95.4496 [MW]
WIP 100.7098 [MW]
WLp 161.1863 [MW]
WCP -0.3076 [MW]
WFP -7.0380 [MW]
Wnet 350 [MW]

The thermal efficiency (Eq. (3)), fuel exergy (Eq. (9)), effectiveness (Eq. (8)) and all other
heat transfer (Eq. (2a)) is now calculated and tabulated in Table 10.

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 Table 10: Selected results

Eta_thermal 0.452578 mF*LHV 909.8212 MW

W_net 350 MW Fuel Exergy 904.7096 MW
mass_cy 283.9234 kg/s Q_SG 650509.8 kW
TCW_i 25 C Q_RH 122838.2 kW
TcW_e 32 C Q_total 773348 kW
cp 4.18 kJ/kg.K Effectiveness 0.386864
mcw 15114.64 kg/s

Exergy at each state is calculated (Eq. (4)) and tabulated in Table 11.

Table 11: Exergy at each state

Exergy Exergy Exergy Exergy

STATE [kJ/kg] [MW] STATE [kJ/kg] [MW]
1 1.0293 0.2922 19 19.6358 5.5751
2 1.8039 0.5122 20 18.8293 5.3461
3 22.0360 6.2565 21 27.2331 7.7321
4 39.1574 11.1177 22 67.5421 19.1768
5 56.5229 16.0482 23 17.4411 4.9519
6 79.0704 22.4499 24 17.2859 4.9079
7 128.1340 36.3802 25 19.3411 5.4914
8 148.7568 42.2355 26 19.2042 5.4525
9 193.3523 54.8972 27 2.4141 0.6854
10 272.4597 77.3577 28 2.4056 0.6830
11 1490.4327 423.1687 29 3.1610 0.8975
12 102.2267 29.0245 30 3.1481 0.8938
13 1022.5234 290.3183 31 2.8091 0.7976
14 1272.0383 361.1614 32 2.7880 0.7916
15 51.3214 14.5713 33 0.3963 0.1125
16 32.4474 9.2126 34 0.3625 0.1029
17 804.8485 228.5153 cw-in 0.0000 0.0000
18 27.0358 7.6761 cw_out 0.3382 5.1120

The total irreversibility of the steam cycle is found (Eq. (6)) equals to 554.709 MW as
seen in Table 12.

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 Table 12: Irreversibilities of the cycle components.

Component IRR(MW) Component IRR(MW) Component IRR(MW)

SG 419.4946 HPH1 1.6122 Cond. 13.8755
RH 73.6724 HPH2 1.3261 Trap1 0.0440
HPT 8.3762 FWH 0.7348 Trap2 0.0389
IPT 8.1524 LPH1 0.5889 Trap3 0.0024
LPT 21.8229 LPH2 0.4301 Trap4 0.0037
CP 0.0877 LPH3 0.5811 Trap5 0.0059
FP 1.1828 LPH4 2.6667 Trap6 0.0096
TOTAL Irreversibility = 554.7092 MW WNET=350 MW Effectiveness = 0.3869

Optimization:

The next step of the analysis is an attempt to reduce the cycle irreversibility. For
optimization:

 Minimizing the irreversibility is chosen as the objective function.

 The HPT inlet pressure, the maximum and minimum feed water heaters pressures
are chosen as the constraints variables.
 The variables let to vary in the range of -/+ 10%.

To minimize the irreversibility, follow the following steps:

(i) Select data from the menu and then go to the solver.
(ii) Select the objective function (cell contains the total irreversibility).
(iii) Select minimize (for the irreversibility).
(iv) Select the constraints cells as shown in Table 13, and set the limits as shown in
Table 14.

Table 13: The variables

State P [kPa]
11 17490
12 4350
18 549
19 298
20 161
21 69

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 Table 14: Setting the limits

-10% cell Variable 10%

879.3 B3 977 1074.7
15741 B12 17490 19239
3915 B13 4350 4785
1827 B16 2030 2233
494.1 B19 549 603.9
268.2 B20 298 327.8
144.9 B21 161 177.1
62.1 B22 69 75.9

(v) Select the optimization method (GRG Nonlinear).

(vi) Push on the solve button to implement the optimization as shown in Fig. 4.

Figure 4: Add-Ins solver

The new solution after optimization

The new property values are now generated as shown in Table 15.

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 Table 15: Property values after optimization

Selected results are shown in Table 16. As it can be seen both the heat flow rate (and
hence the rate of the fuel consumption) and the rate of the input exergy are reduced to
902.8341 MW and 897.752 MW, respectively. A minor increase in the thermal efficiency
is noticed.

Table 16: Selected results after optimization

17
 Table 17, shows the exergy at each state after optimization, and Table 18, shows the
irreversibility for each component and hence the total irreversibility is calculated.

Table 17: Exergy at each state after optimization

STATE Exergy (MW) STATE Exergy (MW) STATE Exergy (MW)

1 0.2917 13 292.0990 25 6.0325
2 0.5350 14 364.6630 26 5.9877
3 5.7939 15 15.0587 27 0.7335
4 10.6871 16 10.0551 28 0.7309
5 16.5229 17 230.7789 29 0.9564
6 23.2188 18 8.0283 30 0.9519
7 38.4681 19 6.6282 31 0.7989
8 45.0002 20 5.3482 32 0.7924
9 58.1307 21 6.9793 33 0.1152
10 81.7216 22 18.9072 34 0.1056
11 425.8107 23 5.4655 CW-i 0.0000
12 30.6819 24 5.4145 CW_e 5.0821

Table 18: Irreversibilities after optimization

Component IRR(MW) Component IRR(MW) Component IRR(MW)

SG 410.5254 HPH1 1.6254 Cond. 13.6390
RH 75.6554 HPH2 1.3102 Trap1 0.0510
HPT 8.3217 FWH 0.7935 Trap2 0.0448
IPT 8.1494 LPH1 0.5989 Trap3 0.0026
LPT 22.0419 LPH2 0.5669 Trap4 0.0045
CP 0.0948 LPH3 0.6079 Trap5 0.0065
FP 1.3044 LPH4 2.3975 Trap6 0.0096
TOTAL Irreversibility =547.7519 MW WNET =350 MW Effectiveness =0.3899

As it can be seen, the total irreversibility is reduced to 547.7519 with a small increase in
the effectiveness

5. Conclusions

Excel spreadsheet is employed to assess the thermodynamic performance of a steam power

unit. The following points are highlighted:
18
 1. The thermodynamic properties are generated by the Excel tools developed for
thermodynamics.
2. The functions MMULT and MINVERSE are used to multiply the matrices and to
find the inverse and hence the mass flow rates.
3. The spreadsheet is employed to calculate exergy. Irreversibility and cycle
effectiveness.
4. Solver Excel command is used to optimize the cycle performance. The objective is
to maximize cycle efficiency or minimize the total irreversibility, where the
selected constraints for this optimization process are the pressures
5. Excel spreadsheets are a very powerful tool for thermal systems simulation.

REFERENCES

[1] C. J. Van Wyk, “Using Spreadsheets to Learn Numerical Methods,” Spreadsheets

in Education (eJSiE), vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 3–12, 2006.
[2] A. El-hajj, M. Al-Husseini, and K. Y. Kabalan, “Spreadsheet Solution of Systems
of Nonlinear Differential Equations,” Spreadsheets Educ., vol. 1, no. 3, pp. 1–15,
2005.
[3] D. Arganbright, “Enhancing Mathematical Graphical Displays in Excel through
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