CHAPTER 8

Production of Power from Heat

 HEAT ENGINES
Work can be converted to heat directly and completely, but
converting heat to work requires the use of some special
devices. These devices are called heat engines.
Heat engines differ considerably from
one another, but all can be
characterized by the following:
1. They receive heat from a high-
temperature source (solar energy, oil
furnace, nuclear reactor, etc.).
2. They convert part of this heat to
work (usually in the form of a rotating
shaft).
3. They reject the remaining waste heat
to a low-temperature sink (the
atmosphere, rivers, etc.).
4. They operate on a cycle.
 HEAT ENGINES
Devices or machines that produce work from heat in a
cyclic process. An example is a steam power plant in
which the working fluid (steam) periodically returns to
its original state.
In such a power plant the cycle consists of the following
steps:
Heat Reservoirs

Bodies imagined capable

of absorbing or rejecting
an infinite quantity of
heat without temperature
change.
In operation, the working fluid of a heat engine absorbs
heat IQHI from a hot reservoir, produces a net amount
of work IWI, discards heat IQcI to a cold reservoir, and
returns to its initial state. The first law therefore reduces
to:
The thermal efficiency of the engine is defined as:
η = net work output/heat absorbed

η = 1 – Tc/TH

For η to be unity (100% thermal efficiency), I Qc I must be

zero. No engine has ever been built for which this is true;
some heat is always rejected to the cold reservoir.
•Efficiencyincreases when Tc is lowered and Th is raised.
•In most practical cases Tc is near room temperature

300k, so generally Th is raised to increase efficiency

•If a thermal efficiency of 100% is not possible for heat

engines, what then determines the upper limit?
•One would certainly expect the thermal efficiency of a

heat engine to depend on the degree of reversibility of

its operation.
•Indeed, a heat engine operating in a completely

reversible manner is very special, and is called a Carnot

engine.
 SADI CARNOT
•1796-1832
•A French military engineer and

physicist.

•The Father of
Thermodynamics.

•First
recognize the relationship
between heat and work
 CARNOT ENGINE
A heat engine operating in an ideal reversible cycle (now
called Carnot Cycle), between to reservoirs is the most
efficient engine possible.
Carnot's Theorem: No real engine operating between
two energy reservoirs can be more efficient than a
Carnot engine operating between the same to reservoirs.
 THE CARNOT
CYCLE
•Reversible Isothermal Expansion
(process 1-2, TH constant)
•Reversible Adiabatic Expansion (process

2-3, temperature drops from TH to TL).

•Reversible Isothermal Compression

(process 3-4, TL constant).

•Reversible Adiabatic Compression

(process 4-1, temperature rises from TL to

TH).
THE CARNOT VAPOR CYCLE
•Consider a steady-flow Carnot cycle
executed within the saturation dome of a pure
substance.

•The fluid is heated reversibly and

isothermally in a boiler (process 1-2)

•Expanded isentropically in a turbine (process

2-3)

•Condensed reversibly and isothermally in a

condenser(partial) (process 3-4)

•Compressed isentropically by a compressor

to the initial state (process 4-1).
Several impracticalities are associated
with this cycle:

[Link] the heat transfer processes to

two-phase systems severely limits the
maximum temperature that can be used
in the cycle (it has to remain under the
critical-point value, which is 374°C for
water).

Limiting the maximum temperature in

the cycle also limits the thermal
efficiency.
[Link] isentropic expansion process
(process 2-3) , the quality of the steam
decreases. Thus the turbine has to handle
steam with low quality, that is, steam with
a high moisture content.

The impingement of liquid droplets on the

turbine blades causes erosion and is a
major source of wear.

Thus steam with qualities less than about

90 percent cannot be tolerated in the
operation of power plants.
3. The isentropic compression process
(process 4-1) involves the
compression of a liquid–vapor mixture
to a saturated liquid.
There are two difficulties associated
with this process.

First, it is not easy to control the

condensation process so precisely as
to end up with the desired quality at
state 4.

Second, it is not practical to design a

compressor that handles two phases.
Some of these problems could be
eliminated by executing the Carnot cycle in
a different way. This cycle, however,
presents other problems such as isentropic
compression to extremely high pressures
and isothermal heat transfer at variable
pressures. Thus we conclude that

The Carnot cycle cannot be

approximated in actual devices
and is not a realistic model for
vapor power cycles.
RANKINE CYCLE
 CONTENTs
•Introductionand Defining
•Types of Cycles

•Ideal Rankine Cycle

•Reheat Rankine Cycle

•Regeneration Rankine Cycle

•Why we use Rankine Cycle?

 INTRODUCTION
•A Scottish CIVIL ENGINEER, physicist
and mathematician. He was a founding
contributor, to the science of
thermodynamics, particularly focusing on
the first of the three thermodynamic laws.
•The Rankine cycle is a cycle that

converts heat into work. The heat is

supplied externally to a closed loop,
which usually uses water. This cycle
generates about 90% of all electric power
used throughout the world.
 TYPES OF CYCLES
•Ideal Rankine Cycle

•Re-heat Rankine Cycle

•Re-generation Rankine Cycle

\

RANKINE CYCLE: THE IDEAL CYCLE FOR VAPOR POWER CYCLES

Many of the impracticalities associated with the Carnot cycle
can be eliminated by:

Superheating the steam in the boiler and

Condensing it completely in the condenser.

The cycle that results is the Rankine cycle, which is the ideal
cycle for vapor power plants.
 IDEAL RANKINE CYCLE
The ideal Rankine cycle consists of the following four
processes:
1-2 Isentropic compression in a pump
2-3 Constant pressure heat addition in a boiler
3-4 Isentropic expansion in a turbine
4-1 Constant pressure heat rejection in a condenser
ENERGY ANALYSIS OF THE
IDEAL RANKINE CYCLE
All four components associated with the
Rankine cycle (the pump, boiler,
turbine, and condenser) are steady-flow
devices, and thus all four processes that
make up the Rankine cycle can be
analyzed as steady-flow processes.

The kinetic and potential energy

changes of the steam are usually small
relative to the work and heat transfer
terms and are therefore usually
neglected.
The steady-flow energy equation per unit mass of steam
reduces to

The boiler and the condenser do not involve any work,

and the pump and the turbine are assumed to be
isentropic. Then the conservation of energy relation for
each device can be expressed as follows:
Pump ( q = 0) W pump, in = h2-h1
Boiler ( w = 0) q in = h3 – h2
Turbine ( q = 0) W turb, out = h3- h4
Condenser ( w = 0) qout = h4 – h1
The thermal efficiency of the Rankine cycle is determined from

Where

In areas where water is precious, the power plants are

cooled by air instead of water. This method of cooling,
which is also used in car engines, is called dry cooling.
Irreversibility is work required and work produced.
Two steps are 2 to 3, and 4 to 1
These lines are no longer vertical but tend in direction of
increasing entropy. Turbine exhaust is still wet, but as
long as moisture contents is less than 10%, erosion
problem are not serious. Slight sub cooling of the
condensate in condenser may occur, but effect is
inconsequential.
The conversion efficiency of power plants in the United
States is often expressed in terms of heat rate, which is
the amount of heat supplied, in Btu’s, to generate 1
kWh of electricity.
 BACK WORK RATIO
Another parameter used to describe power plant performance
is the back work ratio, or bwr, defined as the ratio of the
pump work input to the work developed by the turbine.
INTRODUCING VAPOR POWER
PLANTS
FOSSIL-FUELED VAPOR
POWER PLANT.
Description
Vaporization is accomplished in fossil-fueled plants by
heat transfer to water passing through the boiler tubes
from hot gases produced in the combustion of the fuel,
as shown in Figure. This is also seen in plants fueled by
biomass, municipal waste (trash), and mixtures of coal
and biomass.
PRESSURIZED-WATER REACTOR
NUCLEAR VAPOR POWER PLANT.
In nuclear plants, energy required for vaporizing the
cycle working fluid originates in a controlled nuclear
reaction occurring in a reactor-containment structure.
The pressurized-water reactor shown in Figure has two
water loops: One loop circulates water through the
reactor core and a boiler within the containment
structure; this water is kept under pressure so it heats
but does not boil. A separate loop carries steam from the
boiler to the turbine. Boiling-water reactors have a single
loop that boils water flowing through the core and
carries steam directly to the turbine.
CONCENTRATING SOLAR
THERMAL VAPOR POWER PLANT.
Description
Solar power plants have receivers for collecting and
concentrating solar radiation. A suitable substance,
molten salt or oil, flows through the receiver, where it is
heated, directed to an interconnecting heat exchanger
that replaces the boiler of the fossil- and nuclear-fueled
plants, and finally returned to the receiver. The heated
molten salt or oil provides energy required to vaporize
water flowing in the other stream of the heat exchanger.
This steam is provided to the turbine.
GEOTHERMAL VAPOR POWER
PLANT.
Description
The geothermal power plant shown in Figure also uses
an interconnecting heat exchanger. In this case hot water
and steam from deep below earth’s surface flows on one
side of the heat exchanger. A secondary working fluid
having a lower boiling point than the water, such as iso-
butane or another organic substance, vaporizes on the
other side of the heat exchanger. The secondary working
fluid vapor is provided to the turbine.
THE IDEAL REGENERATIVE RANKINE
CYCLE
A careful examination of the T-s
diagram of the Rankine cycle reveals
that heat is transferred to the
working fluid during process 2-2’
at a relatively low temperature.
This lowers the average heat
addition temperature and thus
the cycle efficiency.
To remedy this shortcoming, we look
for ways to raise the temperature of
the liquid leaving the pump (called
the feedwater) before it enters the
boiler.
THE IDEAL REGENERATIVE RANKINE CYCLE…

A practical regeneration process in steam power plants is

accomplished by extracting, or “bleeding,” steam from the
turbine at various points.

This steam, which could have produced more work by

expanding further in the turbine, is used to heat the feed water
instead. The device where the feed water is heated by
regeneration is called a regenerator, or a feed water heater
(FWH).
A feedwater heater is basically a heat exchanger where heat is
transferred from the steam to the feedwater either by mixing
the two fluid streams (open feedwater heaters) or without
mixing them (closed feedwater heaters).
 OPEN FEEDWATER
HEATERS
An open (or direct-contact) feedwater heater is basically a
mixing chamber, where the steam extracted from the turbine
mixes with the feedwater exiting the pump.
Ideally, the mixture leaves the heater as a saturated liquid at
the heater pressure.
THE IDEAL REGENERATIVE RANKINE CYCLE
WITH AN OPEN FEEDWATER HEATER
The Ideal Regenerative Rankine Cycle
With An Open Feedwater Heater

Fraction of steam Extracted

The thermal efficiency of the Rankine cycle increases as a result
of regeneration.

This is because regeneration raises the average temperature at

which heat is transferred to the steam in the boiler by raising the
temperature of the water before it enters the boiler.

The cycle efficiency increases further as the number of feed

water heaters is increased. Many large plants in operation today
use as many as eight feed water heaters.

The optimum number of feed water heaters is determined

from economical considerations. The use of an additional
feed water heater cannot be justified unless it saves more
from the fuel costs than its own cost.
 CLOSED FEEDWATER
HEATERS
Another type of feedwater heater frequently used in
steam power plants is the closed feedwater heater, in
which heat is transferred from the extracted steam to
the feedwater without any mixing taking place. The two
streams now can be at different pressures, since they do
not mix.
In an ideal closed feed water heater, the feed water is heated to
the exit temperature of the extracted steam, which ideally
leaves the heater as a saturated liquid at the extraction
pressure. In actual power plants, the feed water leaves the
heater below the exit temperature of the extracted steam
because a temperature difference of at least a few
degrees is required for any effective heat transfer to take
place.
The Ideal Regenerative Rankine Cycle With A Closed
Feedwater Heater