Optimization of power plant control on minimum fuel consumption taking into account weather conditions

Modern automated marine electrical power systems have low generated power load factor and, as the result, low efficiency. It can be explained not only by power plant configuration but also imperfect setup of power plant control modes. So far such tasks are being solved using approximate and in some cases rough methods tending to increase power redundancy in main ship operation modes. During the calculation of power and load limits of power plant usually mean or critical values of uncontrollable variables (power demand, pressure, temperature and ambient humidity) are used without taking into account the changes in such parameters. The most specific changes in parameters when ship sails in tropics are the following: reduction of engine power, increase of specific fuel consumption and exhaust gas temperature caused by decrease of air weight charge and increase of its temperature. The goal of this research is to work out the algorithms of calculation and continuous control of permissible power plant engine loads as well as the algorithms of automatic control of engine operating parameters in accordance with changes of ambient parameters. Power plant internal combustion engines air to fuel ratio calculation method is proposed in the paper taking into account wet and dry air consumption which can be defined using given nomograms. Fuel-air ratio optimization algorithms are developed. Power plant control optimization algorithms on minimum fuel consumption taking into account weather conditions are synthesized. The fulfilled research allows to develop marine power plant control systems, optimal during changes in load, generator engines technical condition and weather condition

electrical power plant control; air-fuel ratio; algorithms synthesis; fuel consumption; optimization