Power Plant Simulator

[ak49er]

Greetings to all. I have been enjoying this hobby for some time and am facscinated by simulators of all kinds. I also appreciate and respect all the advice I have received on this and other forums. A little about me as I have never introduced myself, I am 31 live in Alaska and have, through a turn of events, found myself deep into the hobby of cockpit flight simulators.I work in a power plant with six natural gas fired turbines, two of which have their waste heat passed through two boilers which feed a steam turbine. I have tried to find a training simulator I could configure to match/simulate my plant. I have had no luck. One day while changing settings in the .cfg filesof MSFS I wondered if I could model a Gas Turbine Generator in MSFS. I though that one could design a 2D panel to represent the control panel the operators see in the control room, model an aircraft file to represent the plant with six "engines/turbines" and modify the parking brake settings at the contact points to hold no matter what. The prevailing winds could represent the "electrical load" and peak demand hours could be repressented by dawn and dusk. I figure the visual "aircraft" could look like the plant building. The sounds would be easy as well. I would like to create this just for my satisfaction but would offer it as freeware for anyone to use. I beleive it is acheivable as I see ships and FS land vehicles offered. The problem, I have never designed a panel or aircraft, I have just scratched the surface as to what free software is available and I have not found much.

1) To those with experience in this field, is this plausible?

2) What freeware could I use?

3) Would anyone be interested in working with me/ mentoring me in panel and aircraft design.

4) Is this something anyone would download as freeware, just for kicks?

5)Has this hobby finally ate my brain?

[Greg Ebnit EApilot]

Hey AK. I think what you are talking about is possible. It would require alot of time to do and you would need a great understanding of XML coding,Air files ,Gmax modelling and panel design. What I would suggest is first if you are planning making some of your own addons for FS that you get Gmax first. Try doing some modelling and get some experience with exporting models both BGLs and aircraft into the Sim. It takes several months to become familiar with all the programs nesesary to model. Here are some programs to get you started. Also youll need some cashflow for some nonfreeware products you may want to buy to make the design process easier.
Gmax-Turbosquid.com for 3D modelling freeware
DXT bitmap-For converting and making textures freeware
Microsoft Flight Simulater SDKs- these provide parameters and programs for putting models into FS
Model commander- freeware
Middleman-Freeware
Check for tutorials and do the turorials that come with the SDKs to help with Gmax.
Payware programs I use for modelling
Paintshop pro 9
FSpanel designer
Also cruise the Comunity for freeware programs like OBplacer from FSdevelopers and here at SimV
There is alot to it but it sounds like you have already begun in the CFG files thats how I started making some small edits to the aircraft Docs and just using MSpaint. There you go thats what I suggest Greg.

[ak49er]

Thank-you very much for your software suggestions, what are SDK's? and am I too late now that M$ has dropped the link to them?

[JBaymore]

ak49er,

Just wanted to say "hi" and welcome to SimV.  Seems to me I know you from somewhere?  

best,

..................john

[Felix/FFDS]

You bring some interesting points......  Those are going to be some big-(posterior) thrust bearings.

Out of curiosity, who's turbines/generators;  control system?  Black start or motorized generators?  Are the CTs single rotor turbines or aeroderivatives?

I'd have to think you would first have to map out the control logic, using manufacturer's data, which would vary with location and setup.   Are you going to want to model IGV angle effects?

If anything, I'd suggest starting off with a simple cycle, the the steamer alone, THEN try to combine both.

5)Has this hobby finally ate my brain?

Yes.

[ak49er]

Trust me my plans are more simple than my statements reflect ,maybe even more simple than an aircraft simulation, I merely want to simulate the operation of a plant without getting into transmission and distribtuition. We operate 2 GE Frame 5, Two GE Frame 7 (all four w/GE Gen.), 2 ABB 11-DN (Turbodyne, HYDROGEN!!!! cooled Generators), and one BBC Steamer. ICS is the control system for the Fr. 5 and 7, (the new control logic for the 5 is horrible (reliabilty went into the can, we have put more starts into it in a two month period than last year alone.) And the Alstom controls logic for the 11-d's and Decontics control logic for the steamer. All our equipment is circa 1965-1979, we joke that we aren't plant operators but more plant curators. As far as VIGV angles and such , maybe. I am a form follows function guy, as in I want to see it/use it before I make it perfect. Simply put if I could model a building, replace the visual aircraft with a visual plant building, strengthen it's parking brakes/contact points so it wouldnt move, spool up the turbines to 3600rpm, and set the weather to dynamic, and allow th prevaing winds to act as load against the turbines (or maybe I should use turbo prop, whichever is more sensitive to wind), then with my engines set on autohrottle, they would attempt to maintain 3600 as the wind blows around them. and to simulate peak demand hours i could somehow tell the program that dawn and dusk hours are to have less/more wind than any other hours, if I can get that far I would feel preliminarily successful. And my 2d panel would have modified guages that would reflec t the operators staions. And the VC of course would show the (out of) control room.

[Felix/FFDS]

Trust me my plans are more simple than my statements reflect ,maybe even more simple than an aircraft simulation, I merely want to simulate the operation of a plant without getting into transmission and distribtuition. We operate 2 GE Frame 5, Two GE Frame 7 (all four w/GE Gen.), 2 ABB 11-DN (Turbodyne, HYDROGEN!!!! cooled Generators), and one BBC Steamer. ICS is the control system for the Fr. 5 and 7, (the new control logic for the 5 is horrible (reliabilty went into the can, we have put more starts into it in a two month period than last year alone.) And the Alstom controls logic for the 11-d's and Decontics control logic for the steamer. All our equipment is circa 1965-1979, we joke that we aren't plant operators but more plant curators. As far as VIGV angles and such , maybe. I am a form follows function guy, as in I want to see it/use it before I make it perfect. Simply put if I could model a building, replace the visual aircraft with a visual plant building, strengthen it's parking brakes/contact points so it wouldnt move, spool up the turbines to 3600rpm, and set the weather to dynamic, and allow th prevaing winds to act as load against the turbines (or maybe I should use turbo prop, whichever is more sensitive to wind), then with my engines set on autohrottle, they would attempt to maintain 3600 as the wind blows around them. and to simulate peak demand hours i could somehow tell the program that dawn and dusk hours are to have less/more wind than any other hours, if I can get that far I would feel preliminarily successful. And my 2d panel would have modified guages that would reflec t the operators staions. And the VC of course would show the (out of) control room.

GE and ABB?  

Let me know whenever you want to change them out to Siemens (Westinghouse) machines...    I work for Siemens Power Corp in Orlando.


I think your "simple"  proposal may be viable.  ALso, in the context of an FS-X Mission, "load"  could be set to peak at certain times.....

It's not going to be a simple venture, but it will take a good understanding of the engine tables and how to set up the missions.

[ak49er]

I will be using FS9 for my platform, being from Alaska, I'm used to being behind the curve for technology, culture and the likes. Siemens has just built quite the bad boy haven't they,  VIGV w/a couple rows of Variable compressor stators, right? And steam cooling of the transition pieces, pretty damn cool. The bonus of the ABB is that in Alaska, for whatever reason, most likeley the remoteness of the plant, we are grandfathered as far as emissions, so we can puke and snort as Alstom tries new technologies giving us a cut rate on modifications. Our plant is pretty unique, remote, located next to world class salmon streams and bear hunting grounds. Week on/week off schedule. We do our own maintenenace including reblading the turbine rotors, re-statoring the compressor cases, we have our own IRD balance machine, so we balance our own rotors, we have our own machine shop, NDT bays, the only thing we don't do is generator work, that gets subbed out. Oh yeah, we all are IBEW (Local 1547). Do you have acces to any sort of inhouse simulation, be it control or operations of the Siemens machines?