Adaptive temperature control system for the supply of steam to a steam turbine

Claim 1

In a combined-cycle steam turbine power generating plant including a heat recovery steam generator for outputting steam at an instantaneous temperature and pressure, and a steam turbine having rotor expanding steam therethrough from said steam generator; means providing a signal representative of the temperature of the rotor of the turbine; and means for controlling the generation of steam by said steam generator to control the temperature of steam in accordance with a predetermined temperature gradient, the combination of: function generator means responsive to a signal representative of steam turbine throttle pressure for providing a throttle pressure related steam limit temperature according to a constant enthalpy characteristic; bias means responsive to said rotor temperature representative signal for providing a bias signal in excess of said rotor temperature signal by a predetermined amount; means responsive to the larger of said limit temperature signal and said bias signal for controlling the generation of steam by said steam generator to control the temperature of steam to iteratively raise the temperature of the rotor in accordance with said constant enthalpy characteristic and said bias signal during soaking.