District heating system simulation considering consumer and pump operation features

Introduction. The purpose of this investigation is to show what changes introduced in the mathematical model of a district heating system are capable of considerable improving the convergence of simulation results and actual data. The study evaluates the work of heating supply establishments with their customers as well as analysis of the ways of enhancing pump equipment efficiency that allows saving electric energy or increasing output at the same energy consumption. Materials and methods. Engineering acceptance of newly introduced and reconstructed facilities is conducted, heat loads are corrected, disconnections and recurrent connections of indebted consumers are carried out. Studying data submitted by a local heat supply establishment shows that pump seals made from iron and steel are subject accelerated wear in the course of operation. Results. Three variants of the problem solution are suggested: making seals from bronze or stainless steel, prevention of unjustified increase of seal clearances as well as using labyrinth pump seals. This will allow increasing pump equipment efficiency by 5 to 7 % and save about 2 × 105 kW∙h of electrical energy for every pump or increase of output at the same energy consumption. Taking into account that a pump station is a part of the district heating system and unmachined inner surfaces of the pumps have a significant roughness, grinding of these surfaces can improve their hydraulic characteristics of the pumps. In the scope of the suggested method, the entire district heating system is considered not in the situation when actual load is equal to the sum of all the design loads and the pump equipment has manufacturer’s parameters, but accounting actual loads and characteristics. Conclusions. Mathematical model of district heating system heating and hydraulic mode that takes issues mentioned above into consideration would allow simulating joint operation of the heating and hot water supply systems at transient operation modes with higher accuracy.