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Peer-Review Record

Generic and Open-Source Exergy Analysis—Extending the Simulation Framework TESPy

Energies 2022, 15(11), 4087; https://doi.org/10.3390/en15114087
by Francesco Witte 1,2,*, Mathias Hofmann 3, Julius Meier 3, Ilja Tuschy 1,2 and George Tsatsaronis 3
Reviewer 1: Anonymous
Reviewer 2:
Reviewer 3: Anonymous
Energies 2022, 15(11), 4087; https://doi.org/10.3390/en15114087
Submission received: 8 April 2022 / Revised: 19 May 2022 / Accepted: 23 May 2022 / Published: 1 June 2022
(This article belongs to the Section J3: Exergy)

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors,

in your manuscript the description, as well as the results are provided for chosen cases of your open-source software with the integrated and fully automated exergy analysis tools for thermal power plants. The manuscript is clearly structured and provides thorough overview of all previously done works which led to this research results.

There are issues of minor importance which might further improve the quality of this manuscript:

  • Consider unifying the terminology used throughout the whole manuscript (e.g., Page 1 Line 17 "Thermodynamic power systems" sounds too narrow, while others (P2L71 "thermal engineering systems" and P2L75 "thermal power" and P10L195 "thermal power plant") refer to broader and more common terms).
  • Avoid bulk referencing (e.g. [1-3], [4-6], [10-12], [16-18], etc.). Instead, consider providing specific details for each of the references cited.
  • Correct the typographical and language errors (e.g., P2 L44 "the the", P2 Footnote1 "are operated are operated", P10L197 "blow down", P13L250 "can easily exported", P13L252 "addtion", P18L384 "1 10-9", "1 10-12", etc.).
  • Provide at least the reference(s) providing the claimed statement (P14L277 "Validation using Ebsilon is skipped for the other examples as the simulation data is fully available from literature").

 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

thank you for you comments. Please find the detailed answers in the PDF attached.

Thank you

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This work aims to offer an exergy analysis tool for thermal systems by the open-source software. Three example thermal systems are taken as the study cases. However, the current version is not well prepared. There are several issues to be solved before publication:

  1. What are the obvious differences in terms of methodology compared with existing analysis methods? They need to be explained to prove innovation.
  2. What are the key advantages of the proposed analysis tool over other similar tools? What are the limitations and drawbacks? What type of thermal system is applicable?
  3. According to the research content, this work seems to put the mature exergy analysis process, even the performance calculation formula, into the software. The difficulty of this work seems to be low.
  4. The innovation and academic value of this work need to be supplemented in the introduction section. The important improvements of the proposed analysis tool need to be clearly explained, without a vague summary, such as “integrated” and “fully”.
  5. There are several vague expressions in the paper, difficult to understand. For example, “integrated solution” and “fully automated”. What do they mean? How does the proposed analysis tool achieve the “integrated solution” and “fully automated”?
  6. As open-source software, it is suggested that the authors upload the proposed analysis tool as the supplementary material of this paper to improve the application value.
  7. Why choose “a solar thermal power plant, a supercritical CO2 power cycle and an air refrigeration cycle” as examples? How representative are they? The “air refrigeration cycle” does not belong to the thermal power plant, and it is an academic misconception in this paper.
  8. The keyword “Analysis of thermal engineering systems in Python” is too long.
  9. “The majority of available tools does not offer an out-of-the-box exergy analysis”, how does the analysis tool of this work address this problem?
  10. How to calculate the thermophysical properties of fluids in the exergy analysis? The REPFROP database is not open-source software, which needs to be paid for.
  11. The exergy model of the compressor is missing in “2.3. Component based thermodynamic model”.
  12. Lots of abbreviations in Figure 5 are not in the Nomenclature. They need to be supplemented. The abbreviations in other figures also have the same problem.
  13. What are the meanings of different color curves in Figure 6? They should be explained. The exergy loss percentage of each part also needs to be supplemented.
  14. “Process Simulation and Validation”, it needs to give the detailed calculation results of this paper and its comparison benchmark, and clearly showing the relative deviations in the form of a table.
  15. What version of the REPFROP database is used in this paper?

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

thank you for you comments. Please find the detailed answers in the PDF attached.

Thank you

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The exergy analysis tool for thermal power plants has been integrated into the open-source software Thermal Engineering Systems in Python (TESPy) in this work. Then the implemented tool was fully validated and three examples were followed. The work is important and has great insights. However, some minor revision has to be considered before publishing.

(1) The title needs to be improve to reflect the key scientific questions that can be answered by this work.

(2) In line 107, when the abbreviation TESPy is firstly appeared, please give the full name in the maunscript tex body.

(3) In the section 2.1, the authors prefer the EO approach, so please consider to shorten a little bit on the description of the SM method. 

(4) In section 2.3, have all the components in TESPy been included in the manuscript? If not, please consider to give a link or a supplementary material.

(5) In Fig. 3, please consider to give the calculation order by using some arrows. 

(6) In each application, please also consider to add some discussion points of the motivation and necessity of the exergy analysis. 

(7) In Figs. 6, 8 and 10, please consider to add some data in the diagram besides the lines or a clear legend to show the meaning of the thickness of the line?

(8) Please consider to add more supporting references that how the TESPy can be used to design and optimize the power plant, and discuss whether the exergy can be the optimization object in real application.

 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

thank you for you comments. Please find the detailed answers in the PDF attached.

Thank you

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

  • It can be published.

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