Improvement of Steam Power Plants Performance Using a Heat Exchanger

Abstract

The present work focuses on the improvement of the ideal Rankine cycle performance used in steam power plants. Improving the steam power plant efficiency, or its components performance is desirable where the absence of renewable energy power conversion systems and the shortage of conventional fuels sources take place. The present work studies the possibility of using a counter flow heat exchanger along with the main components of the ideal Rankine cycle. The proposed counter flow heat exchanger will include the flow of compressed liquid exiting the pump and the flow of superheated steam exiting the steam turbine. The advantages of the proposed system which is investigated here include extracting heat through the heat exchanger which can be added to boiler for superheated steam production and thus reduce the amount fuel needed. In addition, since the proposed system assumes a superheated steam at the exit of the steam turbine, so no moisture is expected to form and thus increased effeciency of the steam turbine will be expected. The presents results show that the amount of heat extracted through the proposed heat exchanger for diffrent systematic four test cases of differet exits' temperatures of steam turbines and heat exchanger is systematically increasing when the those temperatures are decreasing suggesting the advantage of the proposed heat exchanger. In addition, however the proposed system eliminated the presence of moisture at the steam turbine which improve the performance of the steam turbine, a systematic reduction reduction in the delivered work by the steam turbine