Thermo 2

HEAT ENGINES
Work can be converted to heat directly and

completely, but converting heat to work requires the
use of some special devices. These devices are called
heat engines.
Heat engines differ considerably
from one another, but all can be
characterized by the following:
1. They receive heat from a high-
temperature source (solar energy,
oil furnace, nuclear reactor, etc.).
2. They convert part of this heat to
work (usually in the form of a
rotating shaft).
3. They reject the remaining waste
heat to a low-temperature
sink (the atmosphere,
rivers, etc.).
4. They operate on a cycle.
Heat Engines
Devices or machines that produce work from heat in a
cyclic process. An example is a steam power plant in
which the working fluid (steam) periodically returns to
its original state.
In such a power plant the cycle consists of the
following steps:
Heat reservoirs
Bodies imagined capable of absorbing or rejecting an
infinite quantity of heat without temperature change.
In operation, the working fluid of a heat engine

absorbs heat IQHI from a hot reservoir, produces a
net amount of work IWI, discards heat IQcI to a cold
reservoir, and returns to its initial state. The first law
therefore reduces to:
The thermal efficiency of the engine is defined as:
η = net work output/heat absorbed
η = 1 – Tc/TH
For η to be unity (100% thermal efficiency), I Qc I must be

zero. No engine has ever been built for which this is true;
some heat is always rejected to the cold reservoir.
If a thermal efficiency of 100% is not possible for heat
engines, what then determines the upper limit?
One would certainly expect the thermal efficiency of a
heat engine to depend on the degree of reversibility
of its operation.
Indeed, a heat engine operating in a completely
reversible manner is very special, and is called a
Carnot engine.
THE CARNOT CYCLE
•Reversible Isothermal Expansion
(process 1-2, TH constant)
•Reversible Adiabatic Expansion (process
2-3, temperature drops from TH to TL).
•Reversible Isothermal Compression
(process 3-4, TL constant).
•Reversible Adiabatic Compression
(process 4-1, temperature rises from TL to
TH).
THE CARNOT VAPOR CYCLE
•Consider a steady-flow Carnot cycle
executed within the saturation dome of a
pure substance.
•The fluid is heated reversibly and

isothermally in a boiler (process 1-2)
•Expanded isentropically in a turbine

(process 2-3)
•Condensed reversibly and isothermally in

a condenser(partial) (process 3-4)
•Compressed isentropically by a
compressor to the initial state (process 4-
1).
Several impracticalities are
associated with this cycle:
1.Limiting the heat transfer

processes to two-phase systems
severely limits the maximum
temperature that can be used in the
cycle (it has to remain under the
critical-point value, which is
374°C for water).
Limiting the maximum

temperature in the cycle also limits
the thermal efficiency.
2.During isentropic expansion
process (process 2-3) , the quality of
the steam decreases. Thus the turbine
has to handle steam with low quality,
that is, steam with a high moisture
content.
The impingement of liquid droplets

on the turbine blades causes erosion
and is a major source of wear.
Thus steam with qualities less than

about 90 percent cannot be tolerated
in the operation of power plants.
3. The isentropic compression
process (process 4-1) involves the
compression of a liquid–vapor
mixture to a saturated liquid.
There are two difficulties associated
with this process.
First, it is not easy to control the

condensation process so precisely
as to end up with the desired quality
at state 4.
Second, it is not practical to design

a compressor that handles two
phases.
Some of these problems could be
eliminated by executing the Carnot
cycle in a different way. This cycle,
however, presents other problems
such as isentropic compression to
extremely high pressures and
isothermal heat transfer at variable
pressures. Thus we conclude that
The Carnot cycle cannot be

approximated in actual devices
and is not a realistic model for
vapor power cycles.
RANKINE CYCLE: THE IDEAL CYCLE
FOR VAPOR POWER CYCLES
Many of the impracticalities associated with the
Carnot cycle can be eliminated by:
Superheating the steam in the boiler and

Condensing it completely in the condenser.
The cycle that results is the Rankine cycle, which is

the ideal cycle for vapor power plants.
IDEAL RANKINE CYCLE
The ideal Rankine cycle consists of the following four
processes:
1-2 Isentropic compression in a pump
2-3 Constant pressure heat addition in a boiler
3-4 Isentropic expansion in a turbine
4-1 Constant pressure heat rejection in a condenser
Energy Analysis of the Ideal Rankine
Cycle
All four components associated with
the Rankine cycle (the pump, boiler,
turbine, and condenser) are steady-
flow devices, and thus all four
processes that make up the Rankine
cycle can be analyzed as steady-flow
processes.
The kinetic and potential energy

changes of the steam are usually small
relative to the work and heat transfer
terms and are therefore usually
neglected.
The steady-flow energy equation per unit mass of
steam reduces to
The boiler and the condenser do not involve any

work, and the pump and the turbine are assumed to
be isentropic. Then the conservation of energy
relation for each device can be expressed as follows:
Pump ( q = 0) W pump, in = h2-h1
Boiler ( w = 0) q in = h3 – h2
Turbine ( q = 0) W turb, out = h3- h4
Condenser ( w = 0) qout = h4 – h1
The thermal efficiency of the Rankine cycle is
determined from
Where
In areas where water is precious, the power plants are

cooled by air instead of water. This method of cooling,
which is also used in car engines, is called dry cooling.
Irreversibility is work required and work produced.
Two steps are 2 to 3, and 4 to 1
These lines are no longer vertical but tend in direction
of increasing entropy. Turbine exhaust is still wet, but
as long as moisture contents is less than 10%, erosion
problem are not serious. Slight sub cooling of the
condensate in condenser may occur, but effect is
inconsequential.
The conversion efficiency of power plants in the
United States is often expressed in terms of heat rate,
which is the amount of heat supplied, in Btu’s, to
generate 1 kWh of electricity.
BACK WORK RATIO
Another parameter used to describe power plant
performance is the back work ratio, or bwr, defined
as the ratio of the pump work input to the work
developed by the turbine.

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HEAT ENGINES

Work can be converted to heat directly and

In operation, the working fluid of a heat engine

For η to be unity (100% thermal efficiency), I Qc I must be

•The fluid is heated reversibly and

•Expanded isentropically in a turbine

•Condensed reversibly and isothermally in

1.Limiting the heat transfer

Limiting the maximum

The impingement of liquid droplets

Thus steam with qualities less than

First, it is not easy to control the

Second, it is not practical to design

The Carnot cycle cannot be

Superheating the steam in the boiler and

The cycle that results is the Rankine cycle, which is

The kinetic and potential energy

The boiler and the condenser do not involve any

In areas where water is precious, the power plants are

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