Development of APESS Software for Power Plant Simulation

The description of Advanced Plant Engineering and Simulation System (APESS), its practical and potential uses, are discussed in this paper. The APESS is simulation software used in power plant operations developed by Doosan. Several other commercial simulation tools such as APROS, ProTRAX, JADE, etc. are presently used in the industry. These simulation tools are used for examining plant operation characteristics including start up and shutdown, control system design and analysis, plant behavior in emergency situations, evaluation of operating procedures, etc., making it possible to save commissioning time. For this, we developed the APESS based on our experiences as one of the major power plant suppliers in the world. The APESS treats the thermo-hydraulic problems with the well-known three fundamental conservation equation, i.e., the mass, energy and momentum conservation in principle. The process is considered as network composed of nodes and branches, so that a process component is modeled by the flow networks. The mass and energy exchange between systems and boundaries is assumed to take place only at nodes. On the other hand, a branch plays the role of a resistance element. The mass, momentum and energy conservation equations are formulated at each node, and then a set of resultant linear matrix algebraic is established. Some key aspects of the APESS are dealt in this paper. Up to now, we have been performing several dynamic behavior analyses of fossil-fueled power plant projects and modifying the APESS to improve accuracy of predicted dynamic behaviors. Thus making the APESS is reliable to estimate the dynamic behavior of the real fossil-fueled power plant and capable to predict the operation processes. In the future, we will apply the APESS to analyze dynamic behavior of nuclear power plants.