COMBINED CYCLE POWER

GENERATION
Flaws of Steam as Working
Fluid in Power Cycle

Why Steam is not an ideal working

fluid in Power Cycle
The maximum temperature which could be
gained in steam cycle is limited to 600 C,
known as metallurgical limit.
The critical temperature of steam is 375 C .
This calls for large superheating though heat
addition is insignificant at high temperature.
Since saturated vapour line is sufficiently
inclined expansion of steam from higher
pressure and higher temperature results in
high moisture content in the exhaust steam.

How to prevent
high moisture
content in exhaust
steam
1. Reheating invariably makes the
system layout complicated apart
from uses of costly super heater
tubes.
2. Use of higher pressure ,increases
metal stress which forces the use of
higher wall thickness of boiler
drum, tubes and pipelines .
3. Reheating of steam at some
intermediate pressure .Not more
two stage reheating is allowed.

4. The rate of increase of tube/wall

thickness is much faster than rate of
increase of pressure.
5. The use of higher pressure is due to
weak characteristics of steam.

a. In the low temperature region , heat

rejection temperature is about 40 C, and
the corresponding saturation pressure of
steam is 0.075 bar which is considerably
lower than atmospheric pressure. The
temperature can be further lowered by use
some refrigerant and the corresponding
vacuum will be still higher. To maintain such
high vacuum is biggest challenge.

b. The low temperature heat rejection of

steam which calls for maintaining high
vacuum is disagreeable characteristic of
steam.
c. The saturated vapour line in the T-S
diagram of
d. steam is sufficiently inclined , so that when
steam expanded to lower pressure-for
higher output and cycle efficiency, exhaust
steam becomes very moist and very
undesirable as it damage/erode the turbine
blade.

Characteristics of ideal
working fluid for vapour
cycle
The desirable characteristics of the
working fluid in a vapour cycle are
given in the subsequent slides.

 The fluid should have a high critical temperature so that

the saturation pressure at the maximum permissible
temperature (metallurgical limit ) is relatively low.
It should have large enthalpy of vaporization at that
pressure.
The saturation pressure at the temperature of heat
rejection should be above the atmospheric pressure so
as to avoid the necessity of maintaining vacuum in the
condenser.
The specific heat of liquid should be small so that little
heat transfer is required to raise the liquid to the boiling
temperature.
The saturated vapour line of T-S diagram should be
steep, very close to the turbine expansion process so
that excessive moisture does not does not appear during
expansion.

 The freezing point of the fluid should be below

the room temperature, so that it does not get
solidified while flowing through the
pipelines/pumps.
The fluid should be chemically stable and should
not contaminate the materials of construction at
any temperature.
The fluid should be non-toxic non -corrosive. not
excessively viscous and low in cost.
The characteristics of such a working fluid are
approximated in the T-S diagram. some amount
of superheating is required to account for piping
loss and to improve turbine efficiency.

T-S diagram of an ideal working fluid

for a vapour power cycle

BINARY VAPOUR CYCLES

No single fluid can meet all the
requirements of an ideal fluid.
Water seem to be better fluid in overall
evaluation compared to all other fluids.
However there some better fluids in
the high temperature range. These are
(a) diphenyl ether (b) aluminum
bromide (Al Br) Liquid metals like
mercury,sodium,potassium and so on.

 Among these only mercury has been

tried out
in practice. Diphenyl ether like most
other organic matter decomposes at
high temperature and hence has not
been tried out
.
Table showing saturation temperature
w
of fluids suitable for use in vapour
Saturation temperature
cycle. Fluids
C
Water
Aluminum
bromide
mercury

187
482.5
560

 In the low temperature range,

mercury is unsuitable because its
saturation pressure becomes
exceedingly low, and it would be
impractical to maintain such a high
vacuum in the condenser.
At 30 C the saturation pressure of
mercury is only 2.7x10 cm of Hg
.Its specific volume is very large at
such a low pressure and it will be
very difficult to accommodate such
large flow in the condenser.

 To take advantages of the beneficial features

of mercury in the high temperature range
and to get rid of its deleterious effects in the
low temperature range, mercury vapour
leaving the mercury turbine is condensed at
higher temperature and pressure obviously
at saturation temperature corresponding to
higher pressure .
The heat released during condensation is
utilized to evaporate water to form steam to
operate on a conventional turbine.
To vaporize one Kg of water about 7-8 Kg of
mercury need to be condensed.

 The mercury steam cycle represent two fluid

(binary)cycles where two Rankine cycles are coupled in
series.
The mercury cycle is called topping cycle and the
steam cycle is called bottoming cycle.
If a sulphur dioxide cycle is added in the low
temperature range ,so that the heat released during the
condensation of steam is utilized in forming sulphur
dioxide vapour which expands in another turbine, then
the mercury-steam-sulphur dioxide cycle is three fluid
or tertiary cycle.
Likewise other liquid metals such as molten sodium or
potassium may considered as working fluid in the
topping cycle.
Apart from sodium dioxide, refrigerants such as
ammonia ,Freon etc may be considered in bottoming
cycle.

Failure of wide acceptance of mercury steam

vapour cycle

Mercury is expensive, limited in supply

and highly toxic for which it did not get
wide acceptance.
Mercury has low latent heat of vaporization
which necessitates higher mass flow rate
about 8 times of steam flow rate.
Special precaution needed for prevention
of leakages of mercury.
High capital cost to construct such binary
vapour cycle.