Week 8.

Vapor And Combined

Power Cycles III

GENESYS Laboratory
 Objectives
1. Analyze vapor power cycles in which the working fluid is alternately
vaporized and condensed.
2. Investigate ways to modify the basic Rankine vapor power cycle to
increase the cycle thermal efficiency
3. Analyze the reheat and regenerative vapor power cycles
4. Analyze power cycles that consist of two separate cycles known as
combined cycles and binary cycles
5. Analyze power generation coupled with process heating called
cogeneration

GENESYS Laboratory
The Ideal Regenerative Rankine Cycle
• Shortcoming of basic Rankine cycle: The low average heat addition temperature
reduces the cycle efficiency

The first part of the heat-addition process in the boiler takes place at relatively low temperatures
• Solution: Need to raise the temperature of the liquid leaving the pump before it
enters the boiler
• The steam is used as feedwater instead of expanding further in the turbine
• Regeneration
- Improves cycle efficiency
- De-aerates the feedwater to prevent corrosion in the boiler
- Helps control the large volume flow rate of the steam at the final stages of the turbine
• Open feedwater heater vs. closed feedwater heater
GENESYS Laboratory
Open Feed-water Heaters
• An open feedwater heater is basically a mixing chamber, where the steam extracted
from the turbine mixes with the feedwater exiting the pump
• The heat and work interactions are
qin  h5  h4
m6
qout  1  y  h7  h1   y  (fraction of steam extracted)
m5
wturb,out   h5  h6   1  y  h6  h7 
wpump,in  1  y  wpumpⅠ,in  wpumpⅡ,in  wpumpⅠ,in  v1  P2  P1  , wpumpⅡ,in  v3  P4  P3 

 th,reg  1 
qout
 1
1  y  h7  h1 
qin h5  h4

The ideal regenerative Rankine cycle with an open feedwater heater

GENESYS Laboratory
Closed Feed-water Heaters
• The heat is transferred from the extracted steam to the feedwater without any mixing
taking place

 th,reg  1 
qout
 1
1  y h8  h1 
qin h6  h5

The ideal regenerative Rankine cycle with a closed feedwater heater

GENESYS Laboratory
Open vs Closed Feed-water Heaters
• Open feed-water heater
- simple and inexpensive
- good heat transfer characteristics
- pumps are required to handle the
feedwater
A steam power plant with one open and three closed feedwater heater
• Closed feed-water heater
- complex and expensive due to the internal
tubing network
- less effective since the two streams are not
allowed to be in direct contact
- do not require a separate pump for each
heater
The condensed steam is
then pumped to the
feedwater line or routed
to another heater or to the
condenser through a
device called a trap, which
allows the liquid to be
throttled to a lower
pressure region but traps
the vapour.
GENESYS Laboratory
Ex 5) The Ideal Regenerative Rankine Cycle

GENESYS Laboratory
Ex 5-1) The Ideal Regenerative Rankine Cycle
Consider a regenerative cycle using steam as the working fluid. Steam leaves the boiler
and enters the turbine at 4 MPa, 400C. After expansion in the turbine to 400 kPa, some
of the steam is extracted from the turbine to heat the feedwater in an open feedwater
heater. The pressure in the feedwater heater is 400 kPa, and the water leaving it is
saturated liquid at 400 kPa. The steam not extracted expands to 10 kPa.
Determine the cycle efficiency.

GENESYS Laboratory
Ex 6) The Ideal Reheat-Regenerative Rankine Cycle

GENESYS Laboratory
Cogeneration

• The production of more than one

useful form of energy (such as
process heat and electric power)
from the same energy source
-Process heat: require energy input
in the form of heat

• The process heat has high quality of

energy that can be used for certain
industrial process, for example,
textile, food processing, steel making,
and refining industries

An ideal cogeneration plant

GENESYS Laboratory
Cogeneration
• All the energy transferred to the steam in the boiler is utilized as either process heat or
electric power
• Utilization factor: how much energy transferred to the steam in the boiler is utilized as
either process heat or electric power
Net work output+Process heat delivered Wnet  QP Q
u   or 1  out
Total heat input Qin Qin
tradition Cogeneration
Korean Electricity

Electricity
87/159 87/100

Boiler
Heat

Loss Loss

Energy saving

GENESYS Laboratory
Combined Gas-Vapor Power Cycles
• The gas-turbine (Brayton) cycle topping a steam turbine (Rankine) cycle
• It has a higher thermal efficiency than either of the cycles executed individually

Combined gas-steam power plant

GENESYS Laboratory
Binary Vapor Cycles
• Water is the best working fluid presently available, but it is far from being the ideal one
• The binary cycle is an attempt to overcome some of the shortcomings of water and to
approach the ideal working fluid by using two fluids
• A combination of two cycles, one in the high-temperature region and the other in the
Low-temperature region

Mercury-water binary vapor cycle

GENESYS Laboratory