Setting up a Rankine Cycle

CyclePad
Design Library

Setting Up a Rankine Cycle

Using CyclePad

Our Purpose
We would like to outline the steps involved in setting up a typical Rankine cycle, which is a very
common ideal steam power cycle. Using CyclePad, setting up such a cycle is actually very
simple, but it requires that we know some of the basic facts and typical assumptions that apply to
the cycle. We will examine a typical Rankine cycle problem and note the assumptions necessary
to find the problem's solution, many of which will not be stated explicitly in the problem.

A typical Problem:
Let's say we want to set up a typical Rankine Cycle. A typical problem statement is:

Consider an ideal steam cycle in which steam enters the turbine at 5 MPa, 400C, and exits at 10
kPa. Calculate the thermal efficiency and the net work per kilogram of steam.

This may not sound like a very complete problem description, since we are given only three
numbers. However, it is sufficiently described that we can solve it. Here we will detail the other
properties of a Rankine cycle which allow us to complete its design.

What it looks like:

First, an "ideal steam cycle" where we are only told of one turbine is probably a Rankine cycle.
This cycle consists of a heater, a turbine, a cooler (or "condenser"), and a pump, in that order.
We will talk about the properties of each component and the statepoints between them later.
Right now we have enough to set up the cycle's basic layout.

The layout shown below is a clickable image. To jump to the part of this page that details the
assumptions of a particular device or statepoint, just click on it.

1/1
Setting up a Rankine Cycle

Jump To:
Heater
Turbine Inlet
Turbine
Turbine Outlet
Cooler
Pump Inlet
Pump
Pump Outlet
Figure 1: A Rankine cycle

Analyzing our design:

With the design layout complete, we turn to adding the assumptions which allow CyclePad to
solve the cycle. For this example, we will go around the design and add what information we
know as we go, clicking on each device or statepoint to get its meter window to show up. It is
particularly during this stage that our own knowledge of thermodynamics is critical to making
assumptions CyclePad will use in design solution. We start at the heater.

The Heater (HTR1)

Figure 2: possible heater assumptions

We aren't explicitly told anything about the heater, but we know that a Rankine cycle has ideal
components. Heaters are usually a long series of tubes through which the working fluid is forced.
As it moves through the tubes, heat (from a combustion process, for instance) is applied to the
outside of the tubes and the working fluid gains enthalpy. In real heaters, it takes energy to puch
the fluid through all of these tubes and there is a pressure loss for the process. In an ideal heater,
we assume that this pressure loss is negligible and the heater is isobaric.

(When we consider non-ideal components, we are often given a pressure loss (or a relation that
allows us to compute a pressure loss) for the heater. In that case, we could enter the pressure loss
as delta-P for the heater.)

We also notice that we might assume the heater to be isochoric (no change in specific volume or
density). Since we will have liquid water entering the heater but steam (which is far less dense)
leaving it, we know this is not the likely assumption for an ideal heater.

2/2
Setting up a Rankine Cycle

Figure 3: Turbine inlet meter window

The Turbine Inlet (S1)

Looking now at the statepoint after the heater, we know both the pressure and temperature of the
fluid at this statepoint from the problem statement. In addition, we are dealing with a steam
cycle, so our working fluid is made of water.

We are also given the temperature and pressure at this statepoint. Entering their values, this
statepoint's intensive values are completely determined.

When T and P have been entered, CyclePad pauses for a second and figures out the other
intensive properties at this statepoint, like specific volume, specific internal energy, et cetera. If
we were doing this problem by hand, these are all values we would have to look up in tables.

The Turbine (TUR1)

The next component is the turbine. While we aren't told anything explicitly about this turbine, it
is ideal. In general, this means it is isentropic (zero change in entropy) and adiabatic (no heat
transfer).

(Even if we did not know that it was ideal, we would probably assume it to be adiabatic because
we have not been told how much heat transfer takes place and we have no way to figure it out.)

3/3
Setting up a Rankine Cycle

The Turbine Outlet (S2)

At the outlet of the turbine, we notice that the specific entropy is already known. (It is the same
as that for the statepoint before the turbine because the turbine is isentropic.) We are told in the
problem that steam exits at 10 kPa, so we assume the pressure at this statepoint to have that
value. Since we now know both the pressure and the entropy at this statepoint, we know all of
the intensive property values here. (Once again, CyclePad has saved us much time in table
lookup, especially since this statepoint would require interpolation to find.)

Other Turbine Outlet Assumptions

We are told the turbine outlet pressure in this problem, and that is the most common case, but
there are other possibilities as well. We might instead know:

The turbine pressure ratio (PR). In this case, there would be nothing to enter at S2, and
we would assume a value for PR in the turbine's meter window.
The turbine outlet quality. Turbines can typically only handle fluid down to a certain
quality; lower qualities can damage them. But we want the quality to be as low as the
turbine can handle in order to extract the most energy from the working fluid. In such
cases, we often assume a quality at the turbine outlet and let the state be determined by
that and the outlet entropy.

Note that the turbine outlet quality of 80% is dangerously low for practical use. We might wish
to address this problem by adding a reheat stage.

The Cooler (CLR1)

Similar to an ideal heater (and for the same reasons), an ideal cooler has no pressure drop, so we
make the isobaric assumption here as we did with HTR1.

Figure 4: Preparing the fluid to enter the pump

4/4
Setting up a Rankine Cycle

The Pump Inlet (S3)

This is a statepoint when our own knowledge and reasoning about cycles is key to making
assumptions. The only reason we have a cooler before the pump at all is because we know
pumps can be damaged by non-liquids. To avoid this, the cooler must condense all of the steam
leaving the turbine into a liquid before we send it to the pump. So we at least want to cool our
saturated working fluid to 0% quality before sending it to the pump. Figure 4 shows the region to
which we must cool the working fluid before safely using a pump.

Of course, pumps can work with compressed liquids as well, so we could cool the fluid even past
saturated fluid down into the compressed liquid region. We do not do this for several reasons
related to cycle efficiency.

For CyclePad, we can specify that a fluid be saturated by selecting a phase and choosing it to be
saturated. Once we have told CyclePad that the phase is saturated, it adds another property to the
meter window, allowing us to specify a quality. In this case, we want to assume that quality is
zero, since we are forcing the fluid at S3 to be a saturated liquid.

Other Pump Inlet Assumptions

Sometimes we can't cool the working fluid just until it is a saturated liquid. Most often this is
because our cooling source is at a specified temperature and we cannot remove the working fluid
from the cooler early enough. In these cases, we are usually given a temperature for this state.

The Pump (PMP1)

We are given no explicit information about the pump, but, like the turbines, ideal pumps are
adiabatic and isentropic. We assume both of those things here.

Note

CyclePad uses the equation wpump = -vP to calculate reversable pump work because the fluid
(liquid water) is very close to incompressible. Sometimes CyclePad finds a small heat transfer
for the pump and, because this heat transfer isn't quite zero, CyclePad asserts that the pump is
not adiabatic or causes a contradiction when we assert that the pump is adiabatic.

Why does this happen? The reason lays in the approximation that the water in the pump is
incompressible, which is very close to accurate, but the slight variation in v between the saturated
liquid at the inlet and the compressed liquid at the outlet causes this small heat transfer to show
up, confusing CyclePad. This is more likely at low pump inlet pressures (under one atmosphere)
than at higher ones.

For our purposes, this heat transfer is not important (it is typically on the order of 0.1% of the
work done by the pump), so we can just not worry about whether the pump is adiabatic if some
heat transfer has already been found or the adiabatic assumption causes a contradiction.

5/5
Setting up a Rankine Cycle

In general, we might try to change the order in which we make assumptions, just to be certain no
contradictions occur later on. We could, for instance, always choose adiabatic before isentropic,
or make the pump assumptions before those for the pump inlet. In these instances CyclePad will
note the small heat transfer and assume that it is due to round-off accumulation.

The Pump Outlet (S4)

Typically, this state is already known because we know the pressure (the same as for the turbine
inlet for an isobaric heater) and the entropy (the same as for the pump inlet for an isentropic
pump). In cases where this state is not known, it is because we have a non-ideal component in
our system (such as a non-isobaric heater). In those cases the problem statement will typically
include information about the pump outlet pressure or the pump's pressure ratio.

Finishing the problem

Our original problem was to find the thermal efficiency of this cycle. Go to the "Global
Properties" menu and choose "Whole Cycle". Here we see that the thermal efficiency is just over
36%.
However, we notice that CyclePad still does not know the many of the values in this cycle.
Among the unknown values is the net work per kg of steam, which we are asked to find in the
problem statement. The reason is that CyclePad finds some whole cycle properties based on
extensive values, which are not known until we assume a mass flow rate (m-dot). (In other
words, CyclePad needs the whole heat transfer Q, not the specific heat transfer q).

Figure 5: Whole cycle properties

So how do we find the net work per kg of steam? We do know that the only two devices that do
work in this cycle are the pump and the turbine. So we could simply look at the net work per kg
of steam for each of them (w in their meter windows) and add them together. This is how we
would do the problem on paper, so we know it works.

6/6
Setting up a Rankine Cycle

But a more clever solution is just to assume a mass flow rate so that CyclePad can compute the
extensive values it needs to finish the whole cycle calculations. At state S1, we can assume a
mass flow rate of 1 kg/sec. Now, we see that those other properties are calculated and, since we
have assumed a mass flow of 1 kg/sec, these numbers are per kg of steam.

CyclePad Design Files

CyclePad design of the Rankine cycle, rankine.dsn

Sources

Whalley, P.B. 1992. Basic Engineering Thermodynamics. Oxford University Press.

ISBN: 0-19-856255-1

7/7
Reheat in vapor cycles

CyclePad
Design Library

Reheat in vapor cycles

Figure 1: An ideal Rankine Cycle

Why we use reheat

Consider the Rankine Cycle shown in Figure 1. While at first glance this appears to be an
attractive cycle (a thermal efficiency of 40% is quite good), it has two problems considered as a
practical device. First, the pressure ratio assumed across the turbine is unrealistically high (about
1000). Second, the steam coming out of the turbine (at S3) is over 20% wet, which may damage
a real turbine.

We could address the pressure ratio problem by splitting the turbine into two sequential turbines,
each with a PR of about 32.

1/1
Reheat in vapor cycles

The low quality of the steam at the turbine outlet is a more interesting problem, and one that can
occur in many vapor power cycles. When the steam at the outlet of a turbine becomes wet, the
liquid present is in the form of water droplets. If the steam is not very wet, the amount of water is
small and the droplets are not too troublesome to the operation of the turbine. This is because the
liquid drops are formed by condensation from the steam to form a kind of fog. Like atmospheric
fog, this fog contains extremely small drops and the drops move with almost the same velocity as
the surrounding steam.

However, as the quality of the steam decreases, the concentration of these water droplets
increases. The turbine blades move rapidly through the steam and tend to collect the water
droplets. This is because the denser water droplets do not move with quite the same velocity as
the steam, and so get "scooped up" by the blade. Once on the blade, the water forms a film and
runs to the back of the blade. Here the water is re-entrained into the steam. But this droplet
formation method is completely different to the original one. The droplets are a completely
different size: they are much larger and now no longer follow the steam flow. When these large
drops impact with the turbine blades they can do much damage and certainly impair the
efficiency of the turbine. It is often considered unwise to allow steam with qualities of less than
around 85% to 90% to remain in the turbine.

There are two remedies available for this problem.

Mechanically remove the condensate from the turbine. This can be done by sucking
water from the turbine casing or from holes in the turbine blades. Notice that decreasing
the quality of the steam (i.e., allowing more water to condense) improves overall
efficiency, as the sensitivity analysis of Figure 2 illustrates. Since we can accommodate
lower quality steam using this technique, mechanical removal seems attractive.
Unfortunately, as removing condensate from a moving turbine is not a trivial task, this
option significantly complicates turbine design.

Figure 2: Increasing the quality of the steam at the turbine

outlet leads to decreased efficiency in the Rankine Cycle

2/2
Reheat in vapor cycles

Design the cycle so that the steam at the turbine exit is not unacceptably wet. This is
where the reheat process is used.

We will examine the addition of a reheat process to a Rankine cycle, paying attention to the
necessary design assumptions and examining the effect on turbine outlet quality as well as cycle
thermal efficiency.

The Reheat Process

Figure 3: Rankine Cycle with reheat

This second option is not as difficult as it may sound. Consider the cycle shown in Figure 3. It is
a conventional Rankine cycle except that the turbine has been split and an additional heating
process (the "reheat" stage HTR2) has been added between the two turbines.

3/3
Reheat in vapor cycles

The new components

Let's take a quick look at the new components and states that we have added to accommodate the
reheat process. We will examine some of the assumptions that underlay the modified design.

High-pressure turbine outlet (S5)

Here, we can choose to extract the steam for reheat at a lower pressure than it left TUR1 in the
Rankine cycle. We choose 315 kPa, giving a more reasonable (though still high) pressure ratio of
32. We have chosen this pressure primarily to lower the turbine's pressure ratio. However,
keeping our original aim in mind, we check that, though this steam is already starting to
condense, its quality is still above 90%.

Note that we also could have designed this statepoint by assuming the outlet quality to be 90%.
In that case, our outlet pressure would have been near 179 kPa and the high-pressure turbine's
pressure ratio would have been about 56.

Reheat Boiler (HTR2)

Since we are still dealing with an ideal cycle here, we assume the second heater to be isobaric, as
was the first.

Reheat heater outlet (S6)

Now that we have taken the saturated mixture from the high-pressure turbine outlet and add
heated it again in HTR2, we must decide how high to reheat it. In theory, we can reheat the
steam to any temperature we want, bounded by practical considerations of our heat source and
the turbine properties. Of course, we want the low-pressure outlet state to have a quality of at
least 90%. A glance at Figure 4 shows that choosing any temperature over about 220C will
accomplish this.

4/4
Reheat in vapor cycles

Figure 4: outlet quality vs. reheat temperature

We know that we have a heat source good for 500 C, so we will reheat to that temperature. This
also raises the average temperature of heat addition, something which will tend to improve cycle
efficiency. Reheating the steam to this temperature allows it to exit the second turbine still in the
gas phase.

CyclePad Design Files

CyclePad design of the Rankine cycle, rankine .dsn
and the Rankine with Reheat cycle, rankrht.dsn.

Sources

Whalley, P.B. 1992. Basic Engineering Thermodynamics. Oxford University Press.

ISBN: 0-19-856255-1

5/5
Rankine Cycle with Regeneration

CyclePad
Design Library

Rankine Cycle with Regeneration

Our Purpose
In thermodynamic power cycles, an improvement of even 0.5% in overall cycle efficiency is an
important gain. One of the more common ways to improve the efficiency of a steam cycle is to
use regeneration, a process where heat is taken from steam between turbine stages and used to
heat water as it goes through pump stages. Using CyclePad, we will modify a Rankine cycle and
examine the effects of regeneration on the cycle's thermal efficiency.

The basic Rankine cycle

We will compare our regenerative cycle to a typical Rankine cycle. The Rankine cycle to which
we will compare has the following parameters:
The operating limits are

heater pressure of 5 MPa

heater exit temperature of 400 C
cooler pressure of 10 kPa

and its efficiencies are

Carnot efficiency: 52.6%

thermal efficiency: 36.2%

The regeneration cycle we examine will operate under the same limits. For reference, the
Rankine cycle layout is shown below.

Figure 1: a Rankine cycle

1/1
Rankine Cycle with Regeneration

The Rankine Cycle with Rengeration

Improving cycle efficiencies

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.

Figure 2: Carnot cycle T-s diagram

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 / S

and the average temperature of heat rejection is

Tr = Qout / S

For more efficient cycles, we would like to add heat at a higher temperature and reject it at a
lower temperature.

2/2
Rankine Cycle with Regeneration

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:

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

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

How regeneration works

The idea behind regeneration is that we split the turbine into high-pressure and low-pressure
stages and do the same for the pump. Then, we can divert some of the heat in the fluid as it
leaves the high-pressure turbine and add it to the cool fluid leaving the low-pressure pump,
thereby sending fluid with a higher temperature to the heater. We'll look at this in more detail in
a minute, but now we know enough to construct the Rankine cycle with regeneration.

3/3
Rankine Cycle with Regeneration

Figure 4: a Rankine cycle with regeneration

Choosing regeneration assumptions

With the design layout complete, we turn to adding the assumptions which allow CyclePad to
solve the cycle. For this example, there are four places where we have to make new assumptions:
the outlet of the high-pressure turbine (S2), the splitter (SPL1), the outlet of the low-pressure
pump (PMP2), and the inlet of the high-pressure pump (PMP1). We will look at each of these in
turn.

The High-Pressure Turbine Outlet (S2)

What pressure do we choose for the extracted feedwater? We don't know yet, so we'll choose
200 kPa, which gives the two turbines pressure ratios of 25 and 20. This makes them roughly
equal and keeps either one from having an astronomically high pressure ratio. (The original
Rankine cycle had a turbine PR equal to 500!) Later, when we have the cycle solved and we can
let CyclePad do sensitivity analyses, we will see if another pressure works better.

The Splitter (SPL1)

The splitter is used to draw some of the working fluid from the high-pressure turbine stage and
direct it towards the mixer. The assumption we make here is that the splitter is isoparametric.
This means that the stuff exiting the splitter is the same as the stuff entering it.

Quick Note

The other assumption is that the splitter is not isoparametric. This simulates situations when we
use a special splitter that allows us to separate the saturated mixture into two streams that each
have different proportions of liquid and vapor. For instance, we could split 1 kg/sec, 60% quality
stream into a pair of 0.4 kg/sec, 0% quality and a 0.6 kg/sec, 100% quality streams. This allows
each streams to have different specific properties (v, h, and so on), though they still have the
same temperature and pressure.

4/4
Rankine Cycle with Regeneration

We might think that this would be advantageous to regeneration so that we could send only
saturated vapor (which has higher enthalpy) to the low-pressure turbine and get more work out of
it and send the low quality remainder down to heat the water entering the high-pressure pump.
So why not do this? It turns out that such an approach would not improve cycle efficiency. Our
high-pressure pump condition (S6 below) requires that the total enthalpy H (not h) entering the
high-pressure pump is constant, so the lower quality of the steam entering the mixer requires a
higher mass flow into the mixer, negating the benefit of the higher h steam that enters the low-
pressure turbine. That is, we could send lower h stuff to the pump, but we'd have to send more of
it.

The Low-pressure Pump Outlet (S5)

What pressure should the water at this state have? This water, which enters the pump at the
cooler pressure, needs to be pumped up to the pressure of the water extracted from the high-
pressure turbine. This is a matter of simple hydrostatics: if we make it lower, the higher pressure
extract water will flow backward through the low-pressure pump and, if we make it higher, the
low pressure pump water will flow backward through the splitter.

We could just set this pressure at 200 kPa, the pressure we set at the high-pressure turbine outlet.
However, the better approach is to tell CyclePad to make the two pressures equal, using the
"Equate T(S5) to another parameter" option. This way, when we need to experiment with
different feedwater pressures, we don't need to make the change in two places.

The High-Pressure Pump Inlet (S6)

Our whole purpose in adding heat to this water is to raise its temperature before it enters the
heater and improve the cycle efficiency. The water exiting the low-pressure pump is only at 46 C
and the water entering the heater in the original Rankine cycle was at about the same temperature
(adding pressure to an incompressible fluid doesn't raise its temperature much). How high can
we heat the water to improve this?

The only limit we really need to consider is the practical use of the pump. We make sure the
water entering the pump in a simple Rankine cycle is a saturated fluid because pumps cannot
handle vapor very well. We have the same consideration here. We want to heat this water up as
much as we can, but not so much that some of it starts to vaporize again. We recall that this is the
state of a saturated liquid. This is our assumption for the high-pressure pump inlet: it is saturated
with quality = 0.

Examining regeneration efficiencies

The Effect on Cycle Efficiency

We now have made the changes needed to add a regeneration stage to our Rankine cycle. Here
are the new efficiencies and the ones of the plain Rankine cycle for comparison. Also shown is
the percent gain in power output of the modified cycle when supplied with the same heat as the
unmodified Rankine cycle and the mean temperatures of heat addition for both cycles.

5/5
Rankine Cycle with Regeneration

Unmodified Rankine Rankine Cycle

Cycle Efficiencies Cycle with Regeneration
Carnot efficiency 52.6% 52.6%
Thermal efficiency 36.2% 38.4%
% Increase in Power Generation 0% 6.1%
mean temperature of heat addition 226.7 C 251.5 C

Varying Feedwater Pressure

Can we do even better? We made only one decision that was somewhat arbitrary in picking
numbers, choosing the outlet pressure of the high-pressure turbine so that the two turbines would
have similar (and low) pressure ratios. However, while that is a worthwhile choice considering
the economics of turbine purchasing, it may not yield the optimal cycle efficiency.

We can examine the relationship between the thermal efficiency of our regenerative cycle and
the feedwater pressure (the pressure at S2). The sensitivity analysis looks like this

Figure 5: Effect of varying feedwater pressure on

cycle efficiency of Rankine cycle with regeneration.

There appears to be an optimal pressure at about 500 kPa. It is important to pay attention to the
scale of the graph, though, because, while there may be an increase in efficiency by changing the
pressure, the efficiencies shown vary by roughly 0.1%, which may not justify the higher pressure
ratio (about 50) needed in the low-pressure turbine to accommodate a feedwater pressure of 500
kPa.

6/6
Rankine Cycle with Regeneration

Adding Further Regeneration Stages

Of course, the limit on the improvement made by the regeneration stage seems to be that we can
only add so much heat to the fluid entering the high-pressure pump before the fluid begins to
evaporate, damaging the pump. At higher pressures, the working fluid can contain more heat
before it begins to boil away. So, we could repeat the process several times: add some heat until
boiling almost occurs, then pump to a higher pressure, then add more heat, and so on.

For instance, by adding another regeneration stage to the design above, and hunting a little to
find good feedwater pressures, we can improve the cycle's thermal efficiency to about 39.5%,
which is a significant improvement from the 38.4% with one regeneration stage. A third
regeneration stage brings the efficiency to just over 40%. How far can this go? For a Rankine
cycle where the steam enters the boiler as a superheated gas, we can never achieve the efficiency
of the Carnot cycle, even with an infinite number of regeneration stages. (If the steam entered the
turbine as a saturated vapor, we could, in theory, achieve Carnot efficiency with infinite
regeneration stages, but such cycles are impractical for other reasons besides the need for infinite
stages.)

The real limit is economic, since having the extra extraction stages and pumps adds to the cost of
the plant. At some point, the cost of the extra equipment outweighs the savings due to increased
cycle efficiency. Practical plants seldom have more than five regeneration stages.

CyclePad Design Files

CyclePad design of the Rankine cycle, rankine.dsn.
CyclePad design of the Rankine cycle with one regeneration stage, regen.dsn.
CyclePad design of the Rankine cycle with one regeneration stage at the optimal
pressure, regen-p.dsn.
CyclePad design of the Rankine cycle with two regeneration stages, regen2.dsn.

Sources

Whalley, P.B. 1992. Basic Engineering Thermodynamics. Oxford University Press.

ISBN: 0-19-856255-1
Haywood, R.W. 1980. Analysis of Engineering Cycles. Pergamon Press. ISBN: 0-08-
025440-3

7/7
Increasing Efficiency by Raising Boiler Temperature

CyclePad
Design Library

Increasing efficiency by raising boiler temperature

Figure 1: A Rankine Cycle power plant that could use improvement

1/1
Increasing Efficiency by Raising Boiler Temperature

How it works
The Rankine Cycle in Figure 1 is a simple power plant design. The thermal efficiency is a little over 27%, which is very reasonable, but it is
possible to do better. The assumptions that the thermal efficiency depend on are shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2: Assumptions that thermal efficiency depends on in this cycle

2/2
Increasing Efficiency by Raising Boiler Temperature

The operating temperature of the boiler is one of the key parameters in a power plant. By using the sensitivity analysis tool, we can see in Figure 3
that increasing the temperature will lead to an increase in thermal efficiency.

Figure 3: How thermal efficiency varies with boiler temperature

While in principle one can keep raising the operating temperature forever, in practice the material that the boiler is made of sets an upper bound on
how high this temperature can be. We can safely raise the boiler temperature to 500 degrees without changing the boiler from stainless steel to
something more expensive. Figure 4 shows the result of making this change. Notice that this change raises the thermal efficiency by a little less than
2%, which may not seem like that much. However, notice that this would result in a decreased estimating operating cost of $1,170 US$/day, which
would be a substantial savings.

3/3
Increasing Efficiency by Raising Boiler Temperature

4/4
Increasing Efficiency by Raising Boiler Temperature

CyclePad Design Files

CyclePad design of the lower-temperature Rankine cycle, ngrank.dsn and the higher-temperature Rankine cycle, turank.dsn.

Sources

Whalley, P.B. 1992. Basic Engineering Thermodynamics. Oxford University Press. ISBN: 0-19-856255-1

5/5