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Laterre_27121600_2021.pdf
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- Our energy system is shifting from conventional and centralised power generation to a more distributed and renewable architecture. To balance the intermittences involved with the transition to renewable energy sources, small-scale combined heat and power (CHP) units are expected to play an important role. Micro gas turbines (mGTs), which are generally considered as gas turbines with a power output smaller than 500kW, are a promising technology for such application and present numerous advantages over their main competitor, the internal combustion engine (ICE). Some of their main assets are the low emissions levels, low maintenance requirements and high fuel flexibility. These have enabled them to attract a great deal of interest over the last two decades. The application of mGTs as compensators for intermittency forces them to satisfy transient and part-load flexible operations. Therefore, a full characterization of their dynamic behavior is required for the development of suited and efficient control systems. For that aim, the present Thesis proposes the complete development, from scratch, of a modular and flexible numerical tool, implemented in the Python open-source programming language, to simulate transients in mGTs. The model is calibrated with experimental results issued from the VUB Turbec T100 test rig and with additional data published in the literature. A first attempt of control system implementation is also achieved. The compressor, recuperator, turbine and shaft models are successfully validated. Key assets of this tool are the accurate model established for the turbomachinery performance maps, which highlighted a discordance between the manufacturer compressor map and its actual performances, and the low complexity highly efficient recuperator model, which perfectly reproduces the experimental results measured during transient maneuvers.