Patent Document ID: 20130238149
Application ID: 13508719
Patent Flag: 0

Claim One:
1. A computer implemented method of controlling any energy conversion plant, in particular power plants of all kinds, having a plurality of measured parameters (which may include temperatures, pressures, partial pressures, mole numbers, as well as flows ,in and out electrical and/or mechanical powers, position of valves, and other actuators), that maximizes the plant's thermal efficiency with respect to a subset of the plant's measured parameters which can be manipulated, hence termed Variables, subject to operational structural financial and environmental constraints; this constrained maximization is called optimizing; said computer is either integral part of the plant's control system (DCS or other) in the sense that it both reads measured parameter from the DCS's Data Acquisition System (DAS) and writes the Variables maximizing values into the DSC as set-points (closed loop optimization), or just reads measured parameter from the DAS whilst human operators apply maximizing value of the Variables as set-points or by modifying the plant itself (open loop optimization), said method constitutes the following steps: (a) Determine set of all relevant measured thermodynamic properties throughout the plant (e.g. temperatures, pressures, partial pressures, mole number, liquid and gas flows and electrical input and output values position of valves and other actuators), and its Variables subset (that is, those measured parameters which can be independently manipulated), by reading them via an interface with the DAS, or manual input, (b) derive from the measured parameters in accordance to step (1a) and corresponding thermodynamic properties (e.g. specific volume enthalpy and entropy), the state of the plant which constitutes all relevant thermodynamic properties throughout the plant, as well as energy mass and entropy flows, temperatures, pressures, partial pressures, mole numbers, liquid and gas flows and electrical input and output values, real velocity vector fields, by way of relevant balance equations and particular expressions; (c) from the plant state determined in step (1b) partition the plant into a finite number of real, irreversible physical continuums in the context of continuum-mechanics, which may or may not deliver useful work, and which correspond to discontinuities of measured and derived parameters making up the state of the plant as established in step (1b), and satisfying conservation-of-mass condition(s), (d) construct an isometric (in the thermodynamic metric) map in the context of differential geometry, of each real continuum as established in step (1c) from the thermodynamic manifold which is spanned by thermodynamic coordinates (for example pressure temperature and chemical potentials) and time, to a region of the Galilean manifold spanned by the spatial and time coordinates (for example Cartesian x,y,z,t), (e) construct the plant model using the partition into physical continuums determined in accordance to step (1c) and in accordance of the physical real arrangement of the plant's actual hardware, as interfacing (i.e. incedenting) physical continuums, exhibited as a graph in the context of graph theory which can be reduced to a planar graph, wherein each boundary plays the role of an edge and each continuum the role of a node, (f) convert each partitioned real, irreversible physical continuum into a (virtual) corresponding reversible continuum or Reversible Masking of the real continuum, subject to the constraint(s) that the real continuum and reversible continuum assume the same boundary values of thermodynamic properties in accordance to all previous steps and that their derivatives are continuous and equal at the boundaries, as well as mass-flow-rate, such that the partitioned irreversible real continuums which are governed by a system of conventional balance equations and constituent (phenomenological) equations, are converted into partitioned Reversible Maskings substitute which are governed by a system of (partial) differential equations excluding any constituent equations, but including either the equation of Thermodynamic Geodesic Field (TGF) in the thermodynamic metric, or a direct Reversible Energy Conservation (REC), uniquely describing the reversible continuum (called a Mathematical Model of the reversible continuum), (g) construct an equivalent reversible (virtual) plant by mapping the partitioned Reversible Masking substitute equations from step (1f) into the plant model constructed in step (1e), such that the graph of step (1e) is maintained, that is, map the partition of the real plant of irreversible real continuums, into a partition of Reversible Maskings substitute equations, with the same incidence matrix in the context of graph theory, (h) solve the mapped equations from step (1g) for the current plant state in terms of velocity (vector) fields across the reversible continuums and store the values of the solutions within the spaces defined by the reversible continuums, (i) construct the objective function (called Loss) to be minimized by a surface integral of kinetic energy obtained from the velocity field derived according to step (1h) over the boundary of each Reversible Masking, inputting to the (numerical) integration the velocity field, density field(s) of (1e) values at the boundary, outputting the difference in kinetic energy between boundaries where matter leaves and enters the Reversible Masking, subtracting from the sum of all kinetic energy increment the actual work delivered by the real plant, (j) simulate the plant using the solved equations from step (1g) using the reversible model and adjust the control set-points in the simulation to determine the Variables (control inputs) defined in 1 that correspond to the minimization of the Loss constructed in step (1i) resulting in maximizing the efficiency of the plant according to a predetermined objective function, (k) apply the Variables (control inputs) derived according to step (1j) that minimize the objective function constructed according to step (1i) to the real thermal power plant.