CHAPTER ONE

Introduction
• One only has to experience a power outage to be reminded of
how much we take electricity for granted.
• Our lighting, heating, and cooling systems no longer operate.
Computers, televisions, videos, and other communication
systems become unusable.
• Traffic control lights become useless; elevators no longer move
people; and industries, schools, and commercial buildings become
virtually inoperable.
 Intro…

• We are clearly dependent on electricity for most of our

everyday activities.
• This dependence also demonstrates why electricity is regarded as
one of the most significant sociological inventions of the 20th
century.
• A power plant is assembly of systems or subsystems to generate
electricity, i.e., power with economy and requirements.
• The power plant itself must be useful economically and
environmental friendly to the society.
Intro…
Intro…
Intro…
Boiler
A Typical Coal-fired Thermal Power Station
 Fundamentals of Power plant
• Power plant is assembly of systems or subsystems to generate
electricity, i.e, to produce power with economy and
requirements.
• So the power produced must be :
1. Economically useful
2. Environmental friendly to society
Power plant can be defined as :
1. A machine or assembly of equipment that generate and deliver
a flow of mechanical or electrical energy.
The main equipment for the generation of electric power is
generator.
• When coupling it to a prime mover runs the generator, the
electricity is generated.
 Fundamentals of Power plant…

The type of prime mover determines, the type of power plants.

• The Steam Power Plant, Diesel Power Plant, Gas Turbine
Power Plant and Nuclear Power Plants are called THERMAL
POWER PLANT, because these convert heat into electric
energy.
 Working Principle of Steam power plants
Steam power plant is also known as Thermal power plant.
• A steam power plant converts the chemical energy of the fossil
fuels (coal, oil, gas) into mechanical /electrical energy.
• This is achieved by raising the steam in the boilers, expanding it
through the turbines and coupling the turbines to the generators
which convert mechanical energy into electrical energy as shown
in fig. 1.1.

Fig.1.1 production of electric energy by steam power plant

Working Model of Stephenson's STEAM ENGINE
made of GLASS
The ancient invention of the steam engine by the Hero of
Alexandria
 Working principle of Steam power plants

The following two purposes can be served by a steam power plant:

1. To produce electric power
2. To produce steam for industrial purposes besides producing
electric power. The steam may be used for varying purposes in the
industries such as textiles, food manufacture, paper mills, sugar
mills and refineries.
Classification of Power Plant
Methods of general classification of electricity generation power
plant are as follows :
1. Status
2. Fuel type
3. Capacity
4. Prime mover
[Link]
Classification of PP…
 Non – renewable sources:
• Most of the energy we use are from source like coal, oil,natural
gas and nuclear fuels.
• These primary energy sources are called Non – renewable sources
because once they have been used up, they Can not be replaced.
Renewable sources:
• Sources of energy that can be used over and over again are called
renewable sources. These sources can be used to produce electricity.
Some of the renewable sources are:
• Energy from the sun (Heat and light energy)
• Energy from the wind (Kinetic energy)
• Energy from the waves and tides (Kinetic energy)
• Energy from earth’s core (Geothermal energy)
 Classification of PP…

2. Fuel type
• Thermal power plant (coal)
• Internal combustion engine plants (petrol or diesel)
• Gas turbine power plant (permanent gas)
• Nuclear power plant (nuclear fuels)
• Solar power plant (suns radiation heat)
• Tidal power plant (tides in the sea)
• Hydro electric power plant (potential energy of water)
• Wind power (energy available in wind)
• Geothermal power plant (heat energy available under the
ground)
3. Capacity
 4. Prime mover

• Steam turbine
• Gas turbine
• Water turbine
• Wind turbine
• Combined cycle
• Heat engine
• other sources as wave, sun light, …etc
Classification of Power Plant…
Classification of Power Plant…
[Link] power Plant
Classification of Power Plant…

[Link] Turbine Plant

 Classification of pp…
[Link] Cycle Plant
Classification of pp…
Classification of pp…
Classification of pp…
[Link] power plant
Classification of pp…
 Classification of pp…

Layout of steam power plant

The layout of steam power plant has the following circuits:
1. Fuel (Coal) and ash circuit
2. Air and flue gas circuit
3. Feed water and steam flow circuit
4. Cooling water flow circuit.
Water and Steam Circuit
Cooling Water Circuit
Air and Flue Gas Circuit
Coal and Ash Circuit
 Power Plant
 Though the main process in steam power station is the
conversion of heat energy into electrical energy, it comprises
of many steps for its proper working and good efficiency . The
whole arrangement of a steam power station could be divided
into following steps.
• Coal and ash handling arrangement
• Steam generating plant
• Steam turbine
• Alternator
• Feed water
• Cooling arrangement
 Main and Auxiliary equipment
1. Coal handling plant
2. Pulverizing plant
3. Draft fans
4. Boiler
5. Ash handling plant
6. Turbine
7. Condenser
8. Cooling towers and ponds
9. Feed water heater
10. Economiser
11. Superheater and Reheater
12. Air preheater
 Power P…
The whole arrangement is shown in a schematic figure given below.
 1. Coal and ash handling

• The coal is transported from different places to the station by

means of rails or road and is stored in a coal storage plant.
• It is to use as a preserve at the time of scarcity.
• From coal storage plant it is transferred to coal handling plant
for pulverization.
• Pulverization is the process by which large lumps of coal are
broken into small pieces .
Why Pulverization is done?
• Pulverization is done to increase the surface area of coal and
thereby helping the easy combustion of coal with small intake of
air.
 Why Pulverization is done?...

• The pulverized coal is fed to the boiler by means of conveyor

belt.
• The coal is burnt in the boiler and the ash so produced by
burning is removed to the ash handling system and finally to the
ash storage area for its disposal.
• This process is necessary since ash in the boiler furnace does not
promote proper combustion.
Coal handling System
 Coal handling System…

• Ash is the inert matter in coal and is the residue after

combustion.
• This has to be collected and disposed off without letting it out
into the atmosphere.
• A part of the ash, around 15 % collects as ‘Bottom ash’ at the
bottom of the furnace.
• The other part collects as ‘Fly ash’ in the Electrostatic
Precipitators.
• The collected ash is then transported to disposal yards or
storage silos.
Coal handling system…
 Coal handling System…
• The percentage of ash in coal varies from 5% in good quality
coal to about 40 % in poor quality coal
• Power plants generally use poor quality of coal ,thus amount of
ash produced by it is pretty large
• A modern 2000 MW plant produces about 5000 tons of ash daily
• The stations use some conveyor arrangement to carry ash to
dump sites directly or for carrying and loading it to trucks and
wagons which transport it to the site of disposal.
 Boiler
• A boiler or steam generator is a closed vessel in which water under
pressure, is converted into steam.
• It is one of the major components of a thermal
power plant
• Always designed to absorb maximum amount of heat released in
the process of combustion
• Boilers are of two types-
1. Fire tube boiler
2. Water tube boiler
 Types of steam
As shown in the diagram below, there are three types of steam:
1. Wet steam: A mixture of water plus steam (liquid plus vapor) at
the boiling point temperature of water at a given pressure.
• Quality of steam refers to the fraction or percentage of gaseous
steam in a wet steam mixture.
2. Dry steam: Steam, at the given pressure, that contains no water
(also referred to as saturated steam ).
• The steam quality = 100 %. At the top of steam generator units for
producing saturated steam, there are moisture separators used to
remove residual water droplets from outgoing steam.
3. Superheated steam: Dry steam, at the given pressure,that has been
heated to a temperature higher than the boiling point of water at that
pressure.
 Superheater
• A greater quantity of steam can be generated from a given
quantity of water by superheating it.
• The steam produced in the boiler has got moisture content so it is
dried and superheated ( i.e. steam temperature is increased above
boiling point of water)by the flue gases on the way to chimney.
• Super heating ensures two benefits at first the overall efficiency
of the system is increased and secondly the corrosion to the
turbine blades due to condensation in later stages is prevented.
• The superheated steam from super- heater is fed to steam turbine
by means of a main valve.
Superheater…
 Economizer
• Flue gases coming out of the boiler carry lot of heat.
• The function of economizer is to recover some of the heat from
the heat carried away in the flue gases up the flue gas stack and
utilize it for heating the feed water to the boiler.
• It is placed in the passage of flue gases in -between the exit from
the boiler and the entry to the chimney.
• The use of economizer results in saving in coal consumption ,
increase in steaming rate and high boiler efficiency but needs extra
investment and increase in maintenance costs and floor area
required for the plant. This is used in all modern plants.
 Air pre-heater
• The remaining heat of flue gases is utilized by air preheater.
• It is a device used in steam boilers to transfer heat from the flue
gases to the combustion air before the air enters the furnace. Also
known as air heater , air -heating system.
• It is kept at a place near by where the air enters in to the
boiler.
• The purpose of the air pre-heater is to recover the heat from the
flue gas from the boiler to improve boiler efficiency by burning
warm air which increases combustion efficiency, and reducing
useful heat lost from the flue.
 Economizer and Air Pre-Heaters are Provided for Heat Recovery
• Boilers are provided with economizer and air pre- heaters to
recover heat from the flue gases.
• An increase of about 20 % in boiler efficiency is achieved by
providing both economizer and air pre -heaters.
• If a economizer alone is provided then the efficiency will increase
by 8 % only.
• Most of the high capacity boilers firing coal operate with an
efficiency of around 86 % on the Higher Heat Value basis.
• Loss of around 14 % can be attributed to various losses of which
the dry gas loss is about 35 % of the total.
• When both economizers and air pre -heaters are not provided the
boiler efficiency drops to around 66 % from 86 %.
• When air pre-heater is not provided the boiler efficiency will be
around 74 % only. Thus we can conserve about 20 % extra fuel
when we provide both economizers and air pre-heaters in boilers.
 Deaerator
Deaerator is a device that is widely used for the removal of air and
other dissolved gases from the feed-water to steam-generating
boilers .
• In particular, dissolved oxygen in boiler feed-waters will cause
serious corrosion damage in steam systems by attaching to the
walls of metal piping and other metallic equipment and forming
oxides (rust).
• Water also combines with any dissolved Carbondioxide to form
carbonic acid that causes further corrosion.
• Most deaerators are designed to remove oxygen down to levels
of 7 ppb by weight (0. 0005cm³/L) or less.
• There are two basic types
1. The tray- type
2. The spray - type
Types of deaerator…
 Flue gas stack (chimney)
• A chimney is a structure for venting hot flue gases or smoke
from a boiler, stove, furnace or fireplace to the outside atmosphere .
• Chimneys are typically vertical, or as near as possible to vertical,
to ensure that the gases flow smoothly, drawing air into the
combustion in what is known as the stack, or chimney, effect.
• The space inside a chimney is called a flue .
• Chimneys are tall to increase their draw of air for combustion and
to disperse pollutants in the flue gases over a greater area so as to
reduce the pollutant concentrations in compliance with regulatory
or other limits.
 [Link] Turbine
• The dry and super heated steam from super -heater is fed
to the turbine by means of a main valve.
• Due to the striking or reaction impact of the steam on the blades
of turbine it starts rotating i.e. heat energy is converted to
mechanical energy.
• After giving heat energy to the turbine the steam is exhausted to
a condenser which condenses the exhausted steam by means of a
cold water circulation.
 4. Alternator
• The steam turbine is coupled to an alternator, the alternator
converts the mechanical energy into electrical energy.
• The electrical output is transferred to the bus bars through
transformer, circuit breaker and isolators.
5. Feed Water
• The condensed water produced in the condenser is used as feed
water.
• some amount of water may be lost in the cycle but it is
compensated using an external source and the cycle repeats and
gives a better efficiency to the system.
 6. Cooling Arrangement
• In order to increase the efficiency of the plant the steam coming
from the turbine is condensed using a condenser.
• The water circulation for cooling steam in condenser is taken
from a natural source like river, stream etc and the out coming hot
water from condenser is discharged in some lower portion of the
water source.
• In scarcity of water the water from the condenser is cooled and
reused with the help of a cooling tower.
Flue gas treatment systems
 Charts & diagrams
• There are quite number of charts & diagrams associated with
engineering science, all of which related in some extent to steam
tables or other related specific constants, factors, or coefficients.
• However, the most widely related to power plant engineering are
the followings:
1. T –s diagram.
2. h -s diagram.
3. T -h diagram.
4. P-h diagram
 1.T-S Diagram
• The entropy diagram for steam is often convenient because
it shows the relationship between
• Pressure
• Temperature
• Dryness Fraction
• Entropy
• With two of the factors given –
the others can be found in the
diagram. The ordinates in
the diagram represents the
Entropy and the Absolute
temperature.
 Dryness fraction of Wet Steam
• If the water content of the steam is 5% by mass, then the steam is
said to be 95% dry and has a dryness fraction of 0.95.
• Dryness fraction can be expressed as:x=
where x =dryness fraction; mw= mass of water (kg); ms= mass of
steam(kg)
Enthalpy of Wet Steam
• The actual enthalpy of evaporation of wet steam is the product of
the dryness fraction(x) and the specific enthalpy(hs) from the
steam [Link] steam have lower usable heat energy than dry
saturated steam. = x +(1 - x)
where ht= enthalpy of wet steam (kJ/kg), hs= enthalpy of steam
(kJ/kg) , hw= enthalpy of saturated water or condensate (kJ/kg)
1.T-S…
 2.H-S diagram
• The (h – s) diagram is also called the Mollier diagram or Mollier
chart, named after Dr. Richard Mollier.
• The Mollier diagram is useful when analyzing the performance
of adiabatic steady-flow processes, such as flow in nozzles,
diffusers,turbines and compressors.
H-S Diagram…
End of Chapter-1