A computer implemented method of controlling any energy conversion plant, including power plants of all kinds, having a plurality of measured parameters that include one or more temperatures, pressures, partial pressures, mole numbers, flows, in and out electrical and/or mechanical powers, position of valves, and other actuators, the method maximizing thermal efficiency of the plant with respect to a subset of the measured parameters that can be manipulated, termed Variables, subject to operational, structural, financial, and environmental constraints, wherein the constrained maximization is called optimizing, wherein the computer is either an integral part of the a control system of the plant in that it reads measured parameters from a Data Acquisition System (DAS) and writes the Variables maximizing values into the control system as set-points in a closed loop optimization, or reads measured parameters from the DAS whilst human operators apply maximizing values of the Variables or modify the plant itself in an open loop optimization, comprising:
- (1a) determining a set of [all relevant] measured thermodynamic properties throughout the plant and its Variables subset including those measured parameters that can be independently manipulated via an interface with the DAS, or via manual input;
- (1b) deriving, from the measured parameters in accordance with (1a) and corresponding thermodynamic properties, a state of the plant that constitutes [all relevant] the set of measured thermodynamic properties throughout the plant, as well as energy mass and entropy flows, temperatures, pressures, partial pressures, mole numbers, liquid and gas flows and electrical input and output values, real velocity vector fields, by way of relevant balance equations and particular expressions;
- (1c) from the derived plant state, partitioning the plant into a finite number of real irreversible physical continuums in accordance with continuum-mechanics, and which correspond to discontinuities of measured and derived parameters making up the derived state of the plant and satisfying conservation-of-mass condition(s);
- (1d) constructing an isometric, in a thermodynamic metric, map in accordance with differential geometry of each real continuum established in (1c) from a thermodynamic manifold, which is spanned by thermodynamic coordinates and time, to a region of a Galilean manifold spanned by spatial and time coordinates;
- (1e) constructing a plant model using the partitions into physical continuums determined in accordance with (1c) and in accordance with a physical real arrangement of actual hardware of the plant, as incedenting physical continuums, exhibited as a graph in accordance with graph theory, which can be reduced to a planar graph, wherein each boundary of a real continuum plays a role of an edge and each real continuum a role of a node;
- (1f) converting each partitioned real, irreversible physical continuum into a virtual corresponding reversible continuum or Reversible Masking of the real continuum, subject to constraint(s) that each real continuum and corresponding reversible continuum assume same boundary values of thermodynamic properties in accordance with (1a) through (1e) and that their derivatives are continuous and equal at the boundaries, as well as mass-flow-rate, wherein the partitioned irreversible real continuums, which are governed by a system of conventional balance equations and constituent phenomenological equations, are converted into partitioned Reversible Maskings substitutes, which are governed by a system of partial differential equations excluding any constituent equations, but including either an equation of Thermodynamic Geodesic Field (TGF) in the thermodynamic metric or a direct Reversible Energy Conservation (REC), uniquely describing the reversible continuum (called a Mathematical Model of the reversible continuum),
- (1g) constructing an equivalent reversible virtual plant by mapping the partitioned Reversible Masking substitute equations from (1f) into the plant model constructed in (1e), such that the graph of (1e) is maintained, wherein the partition of a real plant of irreversible real physical continuums is mapped into a partition of Reversible Maskings substitute equations, with a same incidence matrix in accordance with the graph theory of (1e);
- (1h) solving the mapped equations from (1g) for a current plant state in terms of velocity vector fields across the reversible continuums and storing the values of the solutions within the spaces defined by the reversible continuums;
- (1i) constructing an objective function (called Loss) to be minimized by a surface integral of kinetic energy obtained from the velocity vector field(s) derived according to (1h) over the boundary of each Reversible Masking, inputting to a numerical integration the velocity field(s) and density field(s) of values at each? boundary according to (1e), outputting a difference in kinetic energy between boundaries where matter leaves and enters the Reversible Masking, subtracting, from the sum of all kinetic energy increment, actual work delivered by the real plant;
- (1j) simulating the plant using the solved equations from (1g) using the constructed virtual reversible plant and adjusting the set-points of the control system in the simulation to determine the Variables defined in (1a) that correspond to minimization of the Loss constructed in (1i) resulting in maximizing efficiency of the plant according to a predetermined objective function;
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- (1k) applying the Variables derived according to (1j) that minimize the objective function constructed according to (1i) to the real thermal power plant.