TERM PAPER

OF
THERMODYNAMICS
ON

APPLICATIONS OF RANKINE CYCLE

SUBMITTED TO: SUBMITTED BY

Mr. SUMIT KUMAR NAME SUNIL
ROLL NO-B49
SEC-C4911
Absract

First and foremost, I thank my teacher who has assigned me this term
paper and give me an opportunity to bring out my creative capabilities. I
express my gratitude to my parents for being a continuous source of
encouragement and for all these financial aid given to me.
I would like to acknowledge the assistance provided to be by the library
staff of lovely Professional University.

My heartfelt gratitude to my friend & my seniors for helping me to

complete my work in time.
CONTENTS:

1. Introduction

2. Theory

3. Related equation

4. Application

4.1 thermal power plant

4.2 regeneration cycle

4.3 organic cycle

INTRODUCTION
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 80% of all electric power used
throughout the world, including virtually all solar thermal, biomass, coal and nuclear power
plants. It is named after William John Macquorn Rankine, a Scottish polymath. The Rankine
cycle is the fundamental thermodynamic underpinning of the steam engine.

A Rankine cycle describes a model of steam-

operated heat engine most commonly found in
power generation plants. Common heat sources
for power plants using the Rankine cycle are
the combustion of coal, natural gas and oil, and
nuclear fission.

The Rankine cycle is sometimes referred to as a

practical Carnot cycle because, when an
efficient turbine is used, the TS diagram begins
to resemble the Carnot cycle. The main
difference is that heat addition (in the boiler)
and rejection (in the condenser) are isobaric in
the Rankine cycle and isothermal in the
theoretical Carnot cycle. A pump is used to
pressurize the working fluid received from the
condenser as a liquid instead of as a gas. All of
the energy in pumping the working fluid through the complete cycle is lost, as is all of the energy
of vaporization of the working fluid, in the boiler. This energy is lost to the cycle in that first, no
condensation takes place in the turbine; all of the vaporization energy is rejected from the cycle
through the condenser. But pumping the working fluid through the cycle as a liquid requires a
very small fraction of the energy needed to transport it as compared to compressing the working
fluid as a gas in a compressor (as in the Carnot cycle).

The efficiency of a Rankine cycle is usually limited by the working fluid. Without the pressure
reaching super critical levels for the working fluid, the temperature range the cycle can operate
over is quite small: turbine entry temperatures are typically 565°C (the creep limit of stainless
steel) and condenser temperatures are around 30°C. This gives a theoretical Carnot efficiency of
about 63% compared with an actual efficiency of 42% for a modern coal-fired power station.
This low turbine entry temperature (compared with a gas turbine) is why the Rankine cycle is
often used as a bottoming cycle in combined-cycle gas turbine power stations.

The working fluid in a Rankine cycle follows a closed loop and is reused constantly. The water
vapor with entrained droplets often seen billowing from power stations is generated by the
cooling systems (not from the closed-loop Rankine power cycle) and represents the waste energy
heat (pumping and vaporization) that could not be converted to useful work in the turbine. Note
that cooling towers operate using the latent heat of vaporization of the cooling fluid. The white
billowing clouds that form in cooling tower operation are the result of water droplets that are
entrained in the cooling tower airflow; they are not, as commonly thought, steam. While many
substances could be used in the Rankine cycle, water is usually the fluid of choice due to its
favorable properties, such as nontoxic and unreactive chemistry, abundance, and low cost, as
well as its thermodynamic properties.

One of the principal advantages the Rankine cycle holds over others is that during the
compression stage relatively little work is required to drive the pump, the working fluid being in
its liquid phase at this point. By condensing the fluid, the work required by the pump consumes
only 1% to 3% of the turbine power and contributes to a much higher efficiency for a real cycle.
The benefit of this is lost somewhat due to the lower heat addition temperature. Gas turbines, for
instance, have turbine entry temperatures approaching 1500°C. Nonetheless, the efficiencies of
actual large steam cycles and large modern gas turbines are fairly well matched
THEORY:
The four forcesess in rankine cycle-

Ts diagram of a typical Rankine cycle operating between pressures of 0.06bar and 50bar

There are four processes in the Rankine cycle. These states are identified by numbers (in brown)
in the diagram above.

• Process 1-2: The working fluid is pumped from low to high pressure, as the fluid is a
liquid at this stage the pump requires little input energy.
• Process 2-3: The high pressure liquid enters a boiler where it is heated at constant
pressure by an external heat source to become a dry saturated vapor. The input energy
required can be easily calculated using mollier diagram or h-s chart or enthalpy-entropy
chart also known as steam tables.
• Process 3-4: The dry saturated vapor expands through a turbine, generating power. This
decreases the temperature and pressure of the vapor, and some condensation may occur.
The output in this process can be easily calculated using the Enthalpy-entropy chart or the
steam tables.
• Process 4-1: The wet vapor then enters a condenser where it is condensed at a constant
pressure to become a saturated liquid.

In an ideal Rankine cycle the pump and turbine would be isentropic, i.e., the pump and turbine
would generate no entropy and hence maximize the net work output. Processes 1-2 and 3-4
would be represented by vertical lines on the T-S diagram and more closely resemble that of the
Carnot cycle. The Rankine cycle shown here prevents the vapor ending up in the superheat
region after the expansion in the turbine, [1] which reduces the energy removed by the condenser
Heat flow rate to or from the system (energy per unit time) Mass flow rate (mass per unit
time) Mechanical power consumed by or provided to the system (energy per unit time) ηtherm
Thermodynamic efficiency of the process (net power output per heat input, dimensionless)
ηpump,ηturb Isentropic efficiency of the compression (feed pump) and expansion (turbine)
processes, dimensionless h1,h2,h3,h4 The "specific enthalpies" at indicated points on the T-S
diagram h4s The final "specific enthalpy" of the fluid if the turbine were isentropic p1,p2 The
pressures before and after the compression process

Equations

In general, the efficiency of a simple Rankine cycle can be defined as:

Each of the next four equations[1] is easily derived from the energy and mass balance for a
control volume. ηtherm defines the thermodynamic efficiency of the cycle as the ratio of net power
output to heat input. As the work required by the pump is often around 1% of the turbine work
output, it can be simplified.

When dealing with the efficiencies of the turbines and pumps, an adjustment to the work terms
must be made.

pump / = h2-h1 ≈ v1Δp/ηpump ≈ v1(p1-p1)/ηpump

• turbine/ = h3-h4 ≈ (h3-h4)*ηturbine

Real Rankine cycle (non-ideal) 0

 Rankine cycle with superheat

.In a real Rankine cycle, the compression by the

pump and the expansion in the turbine are not
isentropic. In other words, these processes are non-
reversible and entropy is increased during the two
processes. This somewhat increases the power
required by the pump and decreases the power
generated by the turbine.

In particular the efficiency of the steam turbine will

be limited by water droplet formation. As the water
condenses, water droplets hit the turbine blades at
high speed causing pitting and erosion, gradually
decreasing the life of turbine blades and efficiency
of the turbine. The easiest way to overcome this
problem is by superheating the steam. On the Ts
diagram above, state 3 is above a two phase region
of steam and water so after expansion the steam
will be very wet. By superheating, state 3 will
move to the right of the diagram and hence produce
a dryer steam after expansion.

Regenerative Rankine cycle

The regenerative Rankine cycle is so named because after
emerging from the condenser (possibly as a subcooled liquid)
the working fluid is heated by steam tapped from the hot portion
of the cycle. On the diagram shown, the fluid at 2 is mixed with
the fluid at 4 (both at the same pressure) to end up with the
saturated liquid at 7. This is called "direct contact heating". The
Regenerative Rankine cycle (with minor variants) is commonly
used in real power stations.

Another variation is where bleed steam from between turbine

stages is sent to feedwater heaters to preheat the water on its way
from the condenser to the boiler. These heaters do not mix the
input steam and condensate, function as an ordinary tubular heat
exchanger, and are named "closed feedwater heaters".

The regenerative features here effectively raise the nominal

cycle heat input temperature, by reducing the addition of heat from the boiler/fuel source at the
relatively low feedwater temperatures that would exist without regenerative feedwater heating.
This improves the efficiency of the cycle, as more of the heat flow into the cycle occurs at higher
temperature

APPLICATIONS:
1. Rankine cycle

In heat engines, ideal cyclical sequence of changes of pressure and temperature of a fluid, such
as water, used in an engine, such as a steam engine. It is used as a thermodynamic standard for
rating the performance of steam power plants. The cycle was described in 1859 by the Scottish
engineer William J.M. Rankine.

In the Rankine cycle the working substance of the engine undergoes four successive changes:
heating at constant pressure, converting the liquid to vapour; reversible adiabatic expansion,
performing work (as by driving a turbine); cooling at constant pressure, condensing the vapour to
liquid; and reversible adiabatic compression, pumping the liquid back to the boiler

2. Improving efficiency

Improving cycle efficiency almost always involves making a cycle more like a Carnot cycle
operating between the same high and low temperature limits. The Carnot cycle is maximally
efficient, in part, because it receives all of its heat addition at the same temperature, which is the
highest temperature in the cycle. Similarly, it rejects all of its heat at the same low temperature.
The T-s diagram below details the working of a Carnot cycle operating between the same
temperature limits as our Rankine cycle.

Most cycles don't have all of their heat addition or rejection

at one temperature. So, when we look to improve a cycle's
efficiency, we often consider the mean temperature of heat
addition, Ta and the mean temperature of heat rejection, Tr.
These reflect what the temperature would have been if the
same amount of heat had been added (or rejected) all at one
temperature. They allow us to treat improving cycle
efficiencies as we would for a Carnot cycle: by raising Ta or
lowering Tr. For reversable heat transfer, the average
temperature of heat addition is

Ta = Qin / DS Figure 2: Carnot cycle T-s diagram

and the average temperature of heat rejection is

Tr = Qout / DS

For more efficient cycles, we would like to add heat at a

higher temperature and reject it at a lower temperature.

Figure 3: Rankine cycle T-s diagram

Knowing this, let's look at Figure 3. In the Rankine cycle, the above equations tell us we are
adding heat between states S4 and S1 at an average temperature of about 226.7 C. The heat
rejection from S2 to S3 occurs at the cooler saturation temperature of 45.8 C. As a quick check,
we can find the Rankine cycle's thermal efficiency by applying the relation for Carnot efficiency
to the mean Rankine cycle temperatures:

h = (Ta - Tr) / Ta = (226.7 - 45.8) / (226.7+273.15) = 36.2%

Which is the same answer we get applying the usual h = Wnet / Qhi relation

3. Organic Rankine cycle

The organic Rankine cycle (ORC) uses an organic fluid such as n-pentane [1] or toluene[2] in place
of water and steam. This allows use of lower-temperature heat sources, such as solar ponds,
which typically operate at around 70–90 °CThe efficiency of the cycle is much lower as a result
of the lower temperature range, but this can be worthwhile because of the lower cost involved in
gathering heat at this lower temperature. Alternatively, fluids can be used that have boiling
points above water, and this may have thermodynamic benefits. See, for example, mercury
vapour turbine.

The Rankine cycle does not restrict the working fluid in its definition, so the inclusion of an
“organic” cycle is simply a marketing concept that should not be regarded as a separate
thermodynamic cycle.