DEVIATION OF ACTUAL VAPOR POWER

CYCLES FROM IDEALIZED ONES

Due to irreversibilities in various components.
Two common sources of irreversibilities are fluid
friction and heat loss to the surroundings.
Fluid friction causes pressure drops in the boiler, the
condenser, and the piping between various
components. Also, the pressure at the turbine inlet is
somewhat lower than that at the boiler exit due to the
pressure drop in the connecting pipes. Pressure drop in
the condenser is usually small.
To compensate for these pressure drops, the water
must be pumped to a sufficiently higher pressure than
the ideal cycle calls for. This requires a larger pump
and larger work input to the pump.
Deviation of actual vapor power cycle The effect of pump and turbine
from the ideal Rankine cycle. irreversibilities on the ideal Rankine cycle.
The other major source of irreversibility is the heat
loss from the steam to the surroundings as the steam
flows through various components.

•To maintain the same level of net work output, more

heat needs to be transferred to the steam in the boiler
to compensate for these undesired heat losses. As a
result, cycle efficiency decreases.
•Of particular importance are the irreversibilities
occurring within the pump and the turbine.
• A pump requires a greater work input, and a turbine
produces a smaller work output as a result of
irreversibilities.
Under ideal conditions, the flow through these devices
is isentropic.

The deviation of actual pumps and turbines from the

isentropic ones can be accounted for by utilizing
isentropic efficiencies, defined as
HOW CAN WE INCREASE THE
EFFICIENCY OF THE RANKINE
CYCLE?
The basic idea behind all the
modifications to increase the
thermal efficiency of a power
cycle is the same:

Increase the average

temperature at which heat is
transferred to the working fluid
in the boiler, or decrease the
average temperature at which
heat is rejected from the
working fluid in the condenser.
Lowering the Condenser Pressure
(Lowers Tlow,avg)
Steam exists as a saturated
mixture in the condenser at the
saturation temperature
corresponding to the pressure
inside the condenser.

Therefore, lowering the

operating pressure of the
condenser automatically lowers
the temperature of the steam,
and thus the temperature at
which heat is rejected.
 Lowering the Condenser Pressure
• To take advantage of the increased efficiencies at low
pressures, the condensers of steam power plants usually
operate well below the atmospheric pressure. This does not
present a major problem since the vapor power cycles
operate in a closed loop.
• However, there is a lower limit on the condenser pressure
that can be used. It cannot be lower than the saturation
pressure corresponding to the temperature of the cooling
medium.
• Consider, for example, a condenser that is to be cooled by a
nearby river at 15°C. Allowing a temperature difference of
10°C for effective heat transfer, the steam temperature in the
condenser must be above 25°C; thus the condenser pressure
must be above 3.2 kPa, which is the saturation pressure at
25°C.
Disadvantages
•It creates the possibility of air leakage into the
condenser.
•More importantly, it increases the moisture content
of the steam at the final stages of the turbine.

• Fortunately, this problem can be overcome by

increasing steam temperature.
Superheating the Steam to High
Temperatures (Increases Thigh,avg)
• The colored area on this diagram
represents the increase in the net
work.
• The total area under the process
curve 3-3 represents the increase in
the heat input.
• Thus both the net work and heat
input increase as a result of
superheating the steam to a higher
temperature.
• The overall effect is an increase in
thermal efficiency, however, since
the average temperature at which
heat is added increases
•Superheating steam also
decreases the moisture content of
the steam at the turbine exit.
•Metallurgical considerations.
Presently the highest steam
temperature allowed at the turbine
inlet is about 620°C (1150°F).

•High temperature resistant

material. e.g Ceramics. Nickel-base
alloys are extremely resistant even
at high temperatures.
•Efficiencies of over 50% possible in
steam power plants in the future.
Increasing the Boiler Pressure
(Increases Thigh,avg)
Another way of increasing the
average temperature during the
heat-addition process is to
increase the operating pressure
of the boiler, which
automatically raises the
temperature at which boiling
takes place.

This, in turn, raises the average

temperature at which heat is
transferred to the steam and thus
raises the thermal efficiency of
the cycle.
The moisture content of steam at the turbine exit
increases. This undesirable side effect can be
corrected, however, by reheating the steam
 A Supercritical Rankine Cycle.
•Operating pressures of
boilers have gradually
increased over the years from
about 2.7 MPa in 1922 to
over 30 MPa today.
•Today many modern steam
power plants operate at
supercritical pressures
(P>22.06 MPa) and have
thermal efficiencies of about
40 percent for fossil-fuel
plants and 34 percent for the
nuclear plants.
There are over 150 supercritical-pressure steam
power plants in operation in the United States. The
lower efficiencies of nuclear power plants are due to
the lower maximum temperatures used in those
plants for safety reasons.
THE IDEAL REHEAT RANKINE CYCLE

How can we take advantage of the increased

efficiencies at higher boiler pressures without facing
the problem of excessive moisture at the final stages
of the turbine?
Two possibilities come to mind:

1. Superheat the steam to very high temperatures

before it enters the turbine. This would be the
desirable solution since the average temperature at
which heat is added would also increase, thus
increasing the cycle efficiency.

This is not a viable solution, however, since it

requires raising the steam temperature to
metallurgically unsafe levels.
2. Expand the steam in the turbine
in two stages, and reheat it in
between. In other words, modify
the simple ideal Rankine cycle with
a reheat process.

Reheating is a practical solution to

the excessive moisture problem in
turbines, and it is commonly used
in modern steam power plants.

The ideal reheat Rankine cycle

differs from the simple ideal
Rankine cycle in that the expansion
process takes place in two stages.
High Pressure Turbine
In the first stage, steam is expanded isentropically to
an intermediate pressure and sent back to the boiler
where it is reheated at constant pressure, usually to
the inlet temperature of the first turbine stage.
Low Pressure Turbine
Steam then expands isentropically in the second
stage to the condenser pressure. Thus the total heat
input and the total turbine work output for a reheat
cycle become
The incorporation of the single reheat in a
modern power plant improves the cycle
efficiency by 4 to 5 percent by increasing the
average temperature at which heat is
transferred to the steam.
The reheat cycle was introduced in the mid-
1920s, but it was abandoned in the 1930s
because of the operational difficulties. The
steady increase in boiler pressures over the
years made it necessary to reintroduce single
reheat in the late 1940s and double reheat in
the early 1950s.
If the turbine inlet pressure is not high
enough, double reheat would result in
superheated exhaust. This is undesirable as
it would cause the average temperature for
heat rejection to increase and thus the
cycle efficiency to decrease. Therefore,
double reheat is used only on supercritical-
pressure (P 22.06 MPa) power plants.
Remember that the sole purpose of the reheat cycle is
to reduce the moisture content of the steam at the
final stages of the expansion process.
If we had materials that could withstand sufficiently
high temperatures, there would be no need for the
reheat cycle.
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.
Example 8.1 from J.M. Smith
Example 10.1, 10.2, 10.3, 10.4 from Yunus A. cengel
(Thermodynamics: An Engineering Approach 5th
Edition)