Real-Time Simulation of a Gas Turbine Driven Power Plant for Control System Design

Abstract Development of control systems for power plants must demonstrate satisfactory real-time performance in both, the development and the target platforms, before going into actual operation. This paper presents the simulation of a gas turbine driven electric generator and its control system to assess their performance in a real-time PC-based development platform. All programming was built with the Matlab/Simulink technical computing environment. The combustion turbogenerator 14th order model reproduces the whole dynamics in all operating stages, at start-up, from turngear-speed up to synchronization-speed, synchronization, and generation, from minimum-load up to peak-load conditions. The control system comprises the automation sequences and the feedback control loops, including speed, voltage, active power and reactive power controls. Real-time simulation experiments are presented for each operating stage. Results reveal appropriate real-time performance of the combustion turbogenerator and the control system models.