Need Contact for School Project Using In-operation Power Plant

You can't expect to have free access to an operating power plant, nor can you expect a working engineer to answer endless questions about the plant they work at, it's absurd...I can't believe any professor would make that demand, and I believe you are mistaken about what's expected from you as a student...It would seem to me this is a theoretical exercise to be carried out according to accepted principles of power plant operation....You must choose the type of power plant you are going to evaluate...

https://www.slideshare.net/upasana_panigrahi/thermodynamics-of-power-plant

https://www.nuclear-power.net/nuclear-engineering/thermodynamics/thermodynamic-cycles/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rankine_cycle

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined_cycle

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/93d7/08fcbd9effb4da20115c76edd0bda5915b95.pdf

Maybe I am thinking to hard about it. This is the instructions via the handout:

select a power plant in operation and perform an overall thermal and fluid analysis of the system, such as energy balance, entropy, pressure drop estimation, etc. Preliminary cost analysis of the power plant and the cost per KWh will be performed. Advanced analysis such as consideration and an analysis of alternative technologies associated with each subsystem will be favorably evaluated. For instance, the impact of the type of feedwater heater on the system overall performance, or the effect of the number of feedwater heaters on the system overall performance. Likewise, the performance of the power plant under variable operating conditions, such as variable flow rates, variable heat transfer rate, reduced performance of a subsystem (e.g., feedwater, boiler, etc.) will be considered as an advanced analysis

I want to do an analysis on a working nuclear plant. I have some good articles and research papers on the cycles of nuclear power plants.

I take this to mean a power plant type in operation rather than an unproven or new theoretical design....so nuclear would be fine...choose a size and type of nuclear reactor design....

Yes, It can't be theoretical and he wants us to do an analysis on an actual working plant. I need to be able to at least give a theoretical/approximation of the efficiency of the whole plant as well as a subsystem. Maybe just start off getting the P-V and T-S diagrams and a schematic would be best place to start.

Yeah might not be a bad idea to compare the cycle types and efficiencies of power generating sources from common power plants as a forward...

Where are you located? Maybe a local plant would help you.

You must realize that nuclear power plants have many security restrictions that may make your assignment difficult.

Again, where are you?

I'm located in Orlando, Florida (UCF). I've emailed the local nuclear plants but I haven't even got a response. The security restrictions is one of my concerns for wanting to do a nuclear plant.

I might be able to help you here. You won't get into the nuclear plants, but the GT plants....maybe. PM me.

Email can be, and is being ignored, so try using that wonder of the modern world, the telephone, instead.

Your (school project) should clearly be a capstone-type of group-project for its' complexity, etc., and could take a full year, or more, to complete, in-detail... unless you get substantial participation from the plant personnel and/or administration, itself...

Such plants are typically a part of a larger public agency, or a private company, which might be a source of much relevant information from which to start...

In any case, include production of as many waste products, as possible, in the over-all process/system flow, especially if the plant is nuclear... with the knowledge that France is a much smaller country, but has been safely handling nuclear waste, for decades...

Have you considered writing them a handwritten letter, maybe they will be impressed by your sincerity and devotion. What have you got to lose ? A sheet of paper, an envelope and a 44 cent stamp ?

Such information is readily available, but not from the sources that you are contacting. Quite frankly, the operators of a power plant generally are responsible for the day-to-day functioning of the plant, not its design or the decisions that go into it.

You may have greater success if you start contacting the ECPs (Engineering, Construction, Procurement) firms that do the actual design work for the O/Os (Owner/Operator) of the plants. There are quite a few out there, and many of them have really great literature libraries that address almost all of your questions (aka sales literature and/or technical papers).

For technical info, start with the ASME, then drill down into the consulting engineers and manufacturers that specialize in these projects. The data is out there, Google is your friend. Good luck in your endeavors.