Rankine Cycle

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.

Rankine cycle is a heat engine with vapor power cycle. The common working fluid is water. The cycle consists of four processes:

1 to 2: Isentropic expansion (Steam turbine) 2 to 3: Isobaric heat rejection (Condenser) 3 to 4: Isentropic compression (Pump) 4 to 1: Isobaric heat supply (Boiler)

Work output of the cycle (Steam turbine), W1 and work input to the cycle (Pump), W2 are: W1 = m (h1-h2) W2 = m (h4-h3) where m is the mass flow of the cycle. Heat supplied to the cycle (boiler), Q1 and heat rejected from the cycle (condenser), Q2 are:

Q1 = m (h1-h4) Q2 = m (h2-h3) The net work output of the cycle is: W = W1 - W2

The Rankine cycle is sometimes referred to as a practical 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. The four processes in the Rankine are explained as follows: 1. Working fluid is pumped from low to high pressure, as the fluid is a liquid at this stage the pump requires little input energy. 2. 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. 3. 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. 4. The wet vapor then enters a condenser where it is condensed at a constant pressure to become a saturated liquid.

Turbine
A turbine is a rotary engine that extracts energy from a fluid flow and converts it into useful work. The type of turbine used in the Rankine cycle is the steam turbine. The steam runs through a huge and very carefully designed multi-stage turbine to spin an output shaft that drives the plant's generator. The heat that comes from burning the fuel expands air, and the high-speed rush of this hot air spins the turbine.