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Power Plants
71.1 71.2 71.3 71.4 The Rankine Cycle The Turbine The Condenser The Condenser Cooling System
Once-Through Cooling System Wet Cooling Towers Mechanical- and Natural-Draft Cooling Towers Dry and Wet-Dry Cooling Towers

71.5 The Feedwater System 71.6 The Steam Generator

The Fuel System Pulverized Coal Firing Cyclone Furnaces Fluidized-Bed Combustion The Boiler Superheaters and Reheaters The Economizer Air Preheater Environmental Systems

Mohammed M. El-Wakil
University of Wisconsin

71.7 Cycle and Plant Efciencies and Heat Rates

Power plants convert a primary source of energy to electrical energy. The primary sources are: 1. Fossil fuels, such as coal, petroleum, and gas. 2. Nuclear fuels, such as uranium, plutonium, and thorium in ssion and deuterium and tritium in fusion. 3. Renewable energy, such as solar, wind geothermal, hydro, and energy from the oceans. The latter could be due to tides, waves, or the difference in temperature between surface and bottom, called ocean-temperature energy conversion (OTEC). Systems that convert these primary sources to electricity are in turn generally classied as follows: 1. The Rankine cycle, primarily using water and steam as a working uid, but also other uids, such as ammonia, a hydrocarbon, a freon, and so on. It is widely used as the conversion system for fossil and nuclear fuels, solar energy, geothermal energy, and OTEC. 2. The Brayton cycle, using, as a working uid, hot airfossil fuel combustion products or a gas, such as helium, that is heated by nuclear fuel. 3. The combined cycle, a combination of Rankine and Brayton cycles in series. 4. Wind or water turbines, using wind, hydropower, ocean tides, or ocean waves. 5. Direct energy devices, which convert some primary sources to electricity directly (without a working uid), such as photovoltaic cells for solar energy and fuel cells for some gaseous fossil fuels. In the mid-1990s, U.S. power plants generated more than 550,000 megawatts. About 20% of this capacity was generated by ssion nuclear fuels using the Rankine cycle. A smaller fraction was generated by hydropower, and a meager amount by other renewable sources. The largest portion used fossil fuels

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SU

1
HP IP LP LP EG

DR

RE

2
BO EC CO

3
CP

FP

FIGURE 71.1 A ow diagram of a fossil-fuel Rankine-cycle power plant with one closed feedwater heater with drains pumped forward, ve closed feedwater heaters with drains cascaded backward, and one open feedwater heater. HP = high-pressure turbine. IP = intermediate-pressure turbine. LP = low-pressure turbine. EG = electric generator. CO = condenser. CP = condensate pump. FP = feedwater pump. EC = economizer. DR = steam drum. BO = boiler. SU = superheaters. RE = reheaters.

and the Rankine cycle. Nuclear power plants and some of the renewables are described elsewhere in this chapter. The following section describes fossil-Rankine-type power plants.

71.1 The Rankine Cycle

Rankine is a versatile cycle that can use a wide variety of heat sources. In its most common form, it uses water and steam as a working uid. It can be built to generate large quantities of electric power, exceeding 1000 megawatts in a single power plant. It has the highest conversion efciency (ratio of electrical energy generated to heat energy added) of all large practical conversion systems. Figure 71.1 shows a ow diagram of a Rankine cycle. High-pressure, superheated steam is admitted to a steam turbine at 1, commonly at 170 bar (about 2500 psia) and 540C (about 1000F), though new developments call for higher values with pressures in the supercritical range, above 221 bar (3208 psia). Steam expands through the turbine to 2, becoming a two-phase mixture of steam and water, usually 80% steam by mass, where the pressure and temperature are typically 0.07 bar and 40C (about 1 psia and 104F) but vary according to the available cooling conditions in the condenser. The turbine exhaust at 2 is cooled in a condenser at constant pressure and temperature, condensing to a saturated liquid at 3. The condensate is then pumped through a feedwater system, where it is heated in stages by a series of feedwater heaters, to 4, where the temperature is just below the boiling temperature at the maximum pressure in the cycle. Heat is then added to feedwater in a steam generator, converting it to steam at 1.

71.2 The Turbine

The energy imparted by the steam from 1 to 2 is converted to mechanical work by the turbine, which in turn drives an electric generator to produce electricity, according to the following formula: WT =
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(m Dh) h

(71.1)

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where WT = turbine mechanical power, kW or British thermal units (Btu)/h; m = mass ow rate of steam through each turbine section, kg/h or lb/h; Dh = enthalpy drop of steam through each turbine section, kJ/kg or Btu/lb; and hT = overall turbine efciency = ratio of turbine shaft power to power imparted by the steam to the turbine, and WG = WT hG (71.2)

where Wg = electrical generator power and hG = electrical generator efciency. Modern power plant turbines are made of multiple sections, usually in tandem (on one axis). The rst section, a high-pressure turbine, made largely of impulse blading, receives inlet steam and exhausts to a reheater in the steam generator. The reheated steam, at about 20% of the pressure and about the same temperature as at 1, enters an intermediate-pressure turbine made of reaction blading, from which it leaves in two or three parallel paths to two or three low-pressure turbines, double-ow and also made of reaction blading. Steam enters each in the center and exhausts at both ends, resulting in four or six paths to the condenser. This conguration divides up the large volume of the low-pressure steam and therefore the height and speed of the turbine blades and eliminates axial thrust on the turbine shaft. Chapter 74 of this text describes steam turbines in greater detail.

71.3 The Condenser

The process of condensation is necessary if net power is to be generated by a power plant. (If the turbine exhaust were to be pumped back directly to the steam generator, the pumping power would be greater than the electrical power output, resulting in net negative power. Also, the second law of thermodynamics stipulates that not all heat added to a thermodynamic cycle can be converted to work; hence, some heat must be rejected.) The condenser is where heat is rejected. To increase the cycle efciency, the rejected heat must be minimized so that a higher percentage of the heat added is converted to work. This is done by operating the condenser at the lowest temperature, and hence the lowest pressure, possible by using the lowest-temperature coolant available, usually water from a nearby large supply, such as a river, lake, or ocean. Most power plants are situated near such bodies of water. When cooling water goes through a condenser, its temperature rises before it is readmitted to its source. To minimize this heating and its undesirable effect on the environment and to conserve water, cooling towers may be used. The heat rejected to the environment by the condenser QR is given by QR = m c (h2 - h3 ) (71.3)

where mc = steam mass ow rate to condenser = mass ow rate of turbine inlet steam at 1 minus steam bled from the turbine for feedwater heating, as discussed later. The most common condenser is the surface condenser, Figure 71.2. It is a shell-and-tube heat exchanger, composed of a steel shell with water boxes on each side connected by water tubes. Cooling water from the coolest part of the source is cleaned of debris by an intake mechanism and pumped by large circulating pumps to one of the water boxes, from which it goes through the tubes, exiting at the other box, and back to its source, at such a location to avoid reentry of the heated water to the condenser. Such a condenser is of the one-pass kind. A two-pass condenser is one in which one box is divided into two compartments. The incoming water enters half the tubes from one compartment, reverses direction in the second box, and returns through the other half of the tubes to the second compartment of the rst box. One-pass condensers require twice the quantity of cooling water as two-pass condensers but result in lower condenser pressures and higher power plant efciencies and are used where there are ample supplies of water. Surface condensers are large in size, often exceeding 100,000 m2 (more than a million square feet) of tube surface area, and 15 to 30 m (50 to 100 ft) tube lengths in large power plants. Another type, called the direct-contact or open condenser, is used in special applications, such as with geothermal power plants, with OTEC, and when dry cooling towers (below) are used. A direct-contact

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Steam to L.P. Turbines Exit Hot Humid Air

Condenser Air

Recirculating Pump

Makeup Pump

Water Source Bleed

FIGURE 71.2 A ow diagram of a power plant cooling system, with a two-pass surface condenser and a wet, mechanical-induced-draft, cross-ow cooling tower.

condenser is further classied as a spray condenser, a barometric condenser, or a jet condenser. The latter two are not widely used. A spray direct-contact condenser is one in which demineralized cooling water is mixed with the turbine exhaust via spray nozzles. The mixture becomes a saturated liquid condensate. A fraction of it equal to the turbine ow goes to the cycle; the balance is cooled in a dry cooling tower and then recirculated to the condenser spray nozzles. The ratio of cooling water to turbine ow is large, about 20 to 25. In geothermal plants the fraction equal to the turbine ow may be returned to the ground. In OTEC it is returned to the ocean.

71.4 The Condenser Cooling System

A condenser cooling system may be open (or once-through) or partially closed, using cooling towers. The latter are classied into wet natural-draft cooling towers, wet mechanical-draft cooling towers, and dry cooling towers.

Once-Through Cooling System

Here, cooling water is taken from the source (usually at a depth where it is sufciently cool), passed through the condenser, then returned to the source at a point that ensures against short circuiting of the warmer water back to the condenser, such as downstream of the intake. Once-through systems are the most efcient means of cooling a condenser but require large quantities of water and discharge warm water back to the source. Environmental regulations often prohibit the use of once-through systems, in which case cooling towers are used.

Wet Cooling Towers

In a wet cooling tower, the warm condenser water is essentially cooled by direct contact with atmospheric air. It is sprayed over a lattice of slats or bars, called a ll or packing, which increases its surface-to-volume ratio, as in Figure 71.2. Atmospheric air passes by the water in a cross-ow or counterow manner. The water is cooled by exchanging heat with the cooler air and, more importantly, by partial evaporation into the heated and, hence, lower-relative-humidity air. Because of evaporative losses, wet towers do not eliminate the need for water, but they appreciably reduce it, since these losses are a fraction of the total water ow. An additional loss is due to drift, in which
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unevaporated water drops escape with the air. Drift eliminators are added to reduce this loss. Evaporative losses depend upon the climatic conditions and could be as high as 1.5% of total water ow. Drift could be as high as 2.5% of the evaporative losses. An additional loss is blowdown or bleed. Warm water in the tower contains suspended solids and is fully aerated. Chemical additives are used to inhibit microbiological growth and scales. Thus, a certain percentage of the circulating cooling water is bled to maintain low concentrations of these contaminants. The bleed, nearly as high as the evaporative loss if high purity is to be maintained, is often returned to the source after treatment to minimize pollution. All losses must be compensated for by makeup; power plants using wet cooling towers are also sited near bodies of water. Other problems of wet towers are icing and fogging due to exiting saturated air in cold weather.

Mechanical- and Natural-Draft Cooling Towers

Atmospheric air ows through cooling towers either mechanically or naturally. In the former, it is moved by one or more fans. Because of distribution problems, leaks, and possible recirculation of the hot humid exit air, most mechanical towers move the air by induced-draft fans. These are placed at the top and suck the hot air through the tower. Such towers are usually multicell with several fans placed in stacks atop a bank of towers, the number depending upon the size of the power plant. The fans are usually multibladed (made of aluminum, steel, or berglass), are driven at low speeds by electric motors through reduction gearing, and could be as large as 10 m (33 ft) in diameter. Mechanical-draft cooling towers consume power and are relatively noisy. In the natural-draft cooling tower, air ows by a natural driving force, FD , caused by the density differences between the cool air outside and the warm air inside the tower, given by FD = (r 0 - ri )Hg (71.4)

where ro and ri = average densities of air outside and inside the tower; H = height of the tower; and g = the gravitational acceleration. Because the difference between the densities is small, H is large about 130 m (430 ft). The towers are imposing structures that are visible from afar and are costly to build, but consume no power. The water distribution system and ll are placed at the bottom, and most of the tower height is open space of circular cross-section. The vertical prole is hyperbolic, which offers good resistance to wind pressures. Natural-draft cooling towers are usually made of reinforced concrete and sit on stilts and are mostly of the counterow type. A compromise between mechanical and natural draft towers is called the hybrid or fan-assisted hyperbolic cooling tower. A number of forced draft fans surround the bottom to augment the natural driving force of a shorter hyperbolic tower. The hybrid consumes less power than a mechanical and is smaller and less costly than a natural tower.

Dry and Wet-Dry Cooling Towers

Dry cooling towers are used when a power plant is sited far from adequate sources of water, near coal mines or other abundant fuel to reduce transportation costs, near large power consumers to reduce electrical transmission costs, or in arid areas. They are essentially closed-type heat exchangers in which warm condenser water passes through a large number of nned tubes cooled by atmospheric air, and no water is lost due to evaporation, drift, and so on. They are usually easier to maintain than wet towers and do not suffer from fogging or icing. Dry cooling towers, however, are not as effective, Lacking evaporative cooling, they have lower heat transfer capabilities, resulting in large heat exchanger surfaces and land areas. This also results in higher condenser water temperatures and hence higher back pressures on the turbine than with wet towers, resulting in lower power plant efciencies. The problem is aggravated further during periods of high atmospheric air temperatures.
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Dry cooling towers may be mechanical or natural draft. They also may be designed to operate in direct or indirect modes. In the direct mode, the turbine exhaust steam passes through large nned tubes that are cooled by the atmospheric air. Indirect dry towers, more common, use a conventional surface condenser with an intermediate coolant, such as water, or a two-phase uid, such as ammonia. The latter, under development, improves heat transfer and results in lower penalties on the cycle efciency. Wet-dry cooling towers are combinations of the above. Warm condenser water enters a dry section of the tower reducing its temperature partially then goes on to a wet section. Parallel air ows to each section combine to a common exit. This reduces fogging and evaporative losses, but at the expense of more complexity and cost.

71.5 The Feedwater System

The condensate at 3 (in Figure 71.1) is returned to the cycle to be converted to steam for reentry to the turbine at 1. Called the feedwater, it is pumped by condensate and feedwater pumps to overcome ow pressure losses in the feedwater system and the steam generator and enters the turbine at the desired pressure. The feedwater is heated successively to a temperature close to the saturated temperature at the steam generator pressure. This process, called regeneration or feedwater heating, results in marked improvement in cycle efciency and is used in all modern Rankine cycle power plants, both fossil and nuclear. Regeneration is done in stages in feedwater heaters, which are of two types: (1) closed or surface type and (2) open or direct-contact type. The former are further classied into drains cascaded backwards and drains pumped forward. All types use steam bled from the turbine at pressures and temperatures chosen to match the temperatures of the feedwater in each feedwater heater. The amount of steam bled from the turbine is a small fraction of the total turbine ow because it essentially exchanges its latent heat of vaporization with sensible heat of the single-phase feedwater. Closed feedwater heaters are shell-and-tube heat exchangers where the feedwater ows inside tubes and the bled steam condenses over them. Thus, they are much like condensers but are smaller and operate at higher pressures and temperatures. The steam that condenses is returned to the cycle. It is either cascaded backwards that is, throttled to the next lower-pressure feedwater heater or pumped forward into the feedwater line. The cascade type is most common (see Figure 71.1). Open feedwater heaters, on the other hand, mix the bled steam with the feedwater, resulting in saturated liquid. The mix is then pumped by a feedwater pump to the next higher-pressure feedwater heater. Most power plants use one open-type feedwater heater, which doubles as a means to rid the system of air and other noncondensable gases; this type is often referred to as a deaerating or DA heater. It is usually placed near the middle of the feedwater system, where the temperature is most conductive to deaeration. The mass ow rate of the bled steam to the feedwater heaters is obtained from energy balances on each heater [El-Wakil, 1984]. This determines the mass ow rate in each turbine section [which is necessary to evaluate the turbine work [Equation (71.1)] and the heat rejected by the condenser [Equation (71.3)].

71.6 The Steam Generator

A modern fossil-fuel power plant steam generator is a complex system. Combustion gases pass successively through the boiler, superheaters, reheaters, economizer, and air preheater and nally leave through a stack.

The Fuel System

Fuel is burned in a furnace with excess air (more than stoichiometric or chemically correct). This combustion air is forced through the system from the atmosphere by a forced-draft fan, resulting in combustion gases at about 1650C (3000F). At steam generator exit the air (now called ue gases) is drawn out by an induced-draft fan at about 135 to 175C (275 to 350F) into the stack. This seemingly high temperature represents an energy loss to the system but is necessary to prevent condensation of
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water vapor in the gases, which would combine with other combustion products to form acids and to facilitate ue gas dispersion into the atmosphere.

Pulverized Coal Firing

Furnaces have undergone much evolution. With coal, the old mechanical stokers have given way to pulverized coal ring in most modern systems. To pulverize, run-of-the-mill (as shipped from the mine) coal, averaging about 20 cm (8 in.) in size, is reduced to below 2 cm (0.75 in.) by crushers, which are of several types, including rings, Bradford breakers, and hammer mills. The crushed coal is then dried by air at 345C (650F) or more, obtained from the air preheater. The coal is then ground by pulverizers, which are usually classied according to speed. A common one is the medium-speed (75 to 225 rpm) ball-andrace pulverizer, which grinds the coal between two surfaces. One surface consists of steel balls that roll on top of the other surface, similar to a large ball bearing. Hot air then carries the powdery coal in suspension to a classier, which returns any escaping large particles back to the grinders. Pulverized coal is classied as 80% passing a #200 mesh screen (0.074 mm openings) and 99.99% through a #50 mesh screen (0.297 mm). It is fed to the furnace burners via a set of controls that also regulate primary (combustion) air to suit load demands. Large steam generators have more than one pulverizer system, each feeding a number of burners for a wide range of load control. Burners may be designed to burn pulverized coal only or to be multifuel, capable of burning pulverized coal, oil, or gas.

Cyclone Furnaces
A cyclone furnace burns crushed coal (about 95% passing a #4 mesh screen, about 5 mm). It is widely used to burn poorer grades of coal that contain high percentages of ash and volatile matter. Primary air, about 20% of the total combustion air, and the rest, secondary and tertiary air, enter the burner successively and tangentially, imparting a centrifugal motion to the coal. This good mixing results in high rates of heat release and high combustion temperatures that melt most of the ash into a molten slag. This drains to a tank at the bottom of the cyclone where it gets solidied, broken, and removed. Ash removal materially reduces erosion and fouling of steam generator surfaces and reduces the size of particulate matter-removal equipment such as electrostatic precipitators and bag houses. The disadvantages of cyclone ring are high power requirements and, because of the high temperatures, the production of more pollutants, such as oxides of nitrogen, NOx.

Fluidized-Bed Combustion
Another type of furnace uses uidized-bed combustion. Crushed coal particles, 6 to 20 mm (0.25 to 0.75 in.) in size, are injected into a bed above a bottom grid. Air from a plenum below ows upwards at high velocity so that the drag forces on the particles are at least equal to their weight, and the particles become free or uidized with a swirling motion that improves combustion efciency. Combustion occurs at lower temperatures than in a cyclone, reducing NOx formation. About 90% of the sulfur dioxide that results from sulfur in the coal is largely removed by the addition of limestone (mostly calcium carbonate, CaCO3, plus some magnesium carbonate, MgCO3) that reacts with SO2 and some O2 from the air to form calcium sulfate, CaSO4, and CO2. The former is a disposable dry waste. Technical problems, such as the handling of the calcium sulfate, are under active study.

The Boiler
The boiler is that part of the steam generator that converts saturated water or low-quality steam from the economizer to saturated steam. Early boilers included re-tube, scotch marine, straight-tube, and Stirling boilers. The most recent are water-tubewater-wall boilers. Water from the economizer enters a steam drum, then ows down insulated down-comers, situated outside the furnace to a header. The latter feeds vertical closely spaced water tubes that line the furnace walls. The water in the tubes receives heat
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from the combustion gases and boils to a two-phase mixture. The density difference between the downcomer and the tubes causes a driving force that circulates the mixture up the tubes and into the drum. The tubes also cool the furnace walls. There are several water-wall designs. A now-common one is the membrane design, in which 2.75- to 3-in. tubes on 3.75- to 4-in. centers are connected by welded membranes that act as ns to increase the heat-transfer surface as well as form a pressure-tight wall protecting the furnace walls. The steam drum now contains a two-phase bubbling mixture, from which dry steam is separated by gravity and mechanically with bafes, screens, and centrifugal separators.

Superheaters and Reheaters

Dry-saturated steam from the boiler enters a primary and then a secondary superheater in series, which convert it to superheated steam. The superheaters are made of 2- to 3-in. diameter U-tube bundles made of special high-strength alloy steels of good strength and corrosion resistance, suitable for high-temperature operation. The bundles are usually hung from the top, and called pendant tubes, or from the side, and called horizontal tubes. Another type, supported from the bottom and called the inverted tube, is not widely used. Superheated steam enters the high-pressure turbine and exhausts from it to return to the steam generator, where it is reheated to about the same turbine inlet temperature in a set of reheaters, downstream of and similar in design to the superheaters. The reheated steam enters the intermediate-pressure and then the low-pressure turbines, as explained above. Superheaters and reheaters may be of the radiant or convection types. The former, in view of the luminous combustion ames in the furnace, receives heat primarily by radiation. This heat transfer mode causes the exit steam temperature to decrease with increasing load (steam ow). The latter receives heat by convection, the main form of heat transfer in superheaters and reheaters, which causes the exit steam temperature to increase with load. To obtain fairly constant steam temperatures, attemperators are placed between the primary and secondary sections of superheaters and reheaters. In its most common form, an attemperator maintains the desired temperatures by spraying regulated amounts of lower-temperature water from the economizer or boiler directly into the steam.

The Economizer
The ue gases leave the reheaters at 370 to 540C (700 to 1000F). Rather than reject their energy to the atmosphere, with a consequent loss of plant efciency, ue gases now heat the feedwater leaving the last (highest pressure) feedwater heater to the inlet temperature of the steam generator. This is done in the economizer. At high loads the economizer exit may be low-quality watersteam mixture. Economizers are usually made of tubes, 1.75 to 2.75 in. in diameter, arranged in vertical sections between headers and placed on 1.75 to 2 in. spacings. They may be plain-surfaced, nned, or studded to increase heat transfer. Smaller spacings and studs are usually used with clean ash-free burning fuels, such as natural gas.

Air Preheater
Flue gases leave the economizer at 315 to 425C (600 to 800F). They are now used in an air preheater to heat the atmospheric air, leaving the forced-draft fan to about 260 to 345C (500 to 650F) before admitting it to the furnace, thus reducing total fuel requirements and increasing plant efciency. Air preheaters may be recuperative or regenerative. Recuperative preheaters are commonly counterow shelland-tube heat exchangers in which the hot ue gases ow inside and the air outside vertical tubes, 1.5 to 4 in. in diameter. A hopper is placed at bottom to collect soot from inside the tubes. Regenerative preheaters use an intermediate medium. The most common, called ljungstrom, is rotary and is driven by an electric motor at 1 to 3 rpm through reduction gearing. The rotor has 12 to 24 sectors that are lled with a heat-absorbing material such as corrugated steel sheeting. About half the sectors are exposed to and are heated by the hot ue gases moving out of the system at any one instant; as the sectors rotate, they become exposed to and heat the air that is moving in the opposite direction (into the system)
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Environmental Systems
Besides cyclone and uidized-bed combustion, there are other systems that reduce the impact of power generation on the environment. Flue gas desulfurization systems, also called scrubbers, use aqueous slurries of limelimestone to absorb SO2. Electrostatic precipitators remove particulate matter from the ue gases. Here, wire-to-discharge electrodes carry a 40 to 50 kV current and are centrally located between grounded plates or collection electrodes. The resulting current charges the soot particles, which migrate to the plates, where they are periodically removed. Fabric lters or baghouses also remove particulate matter. They are made of a large number of vertical hollow cylindrical elements 5 to 15 in. in diameter and up to 40 ft high, made of various porous fabrics (wool, nylon, glass bers, etc.) through which the ue gases ow and get cleaned in the manner of a household vacuum cleaner. The elements are also periodically cleaned.

71.7 Cycle and Plant Efciencies and Heat Rates

The heat added to the power plant, QA, and the cycle, QC, are given by the following: Q A = m f HHV QC = Q A hsg = m1 (h1 - h4 ) (71.5a) (71.5b)

where mf = the mass ow rate of fuel to the furnace, in kg/h or 1b/h, and HHV = higher heating value of fuel, in kJ/kg or Btu/lb. The plant efciency, hp, and cycle efciency, hC, are given by the following: hP = WG / Q A hC = WT / QC (71.6a) (71.6b)

The value hp, given above, is often referred to as the plant gross efciency. Since some of the generator power, WG, is used within the plant to power various equipment, such as fans, pumps, pulverizers, lighting, and so on, a net efciency is often used, in which WG is reduced by this auxiliary power. Another parameter that gives a measure of the economy of operation of the power plant is called the heat rate, HR. It is given by the ratio of the heat added in Btu/h to the plant power in kW, which may be gross or net. For example, Net plant HR, Btu/kWh = (QA, Btu/h)/(WG auxiliary power, kW) (71.7)

The lower the value of HR is, the better. A benchmark net HR is 10,000, equivalent to a net plant efciency of about 34%. It could be as high as 14,000 for older plants and as low as 8500 for modern plants.

Dening Terms
Baghouse Removes particulate matter from the ue gases by porous fabric lters. Brayton cycle A cycle in which a gas (most commonly air) is compressed, heated, and expanded in a gas turbine to produce mechanical work. Condenser A heat exchanger in which the exhaust vapor (steam) of the turbine in a Rankine cycle is condensed to liquid, usually by cooling water from an outside source, for return back to the steam generator. Cooling tower A heat exchanger in which the condenser cooling water is in turn cooled by atmospheric air and returned back to the condenser.
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Cyclone furnace A furnace in which crushed coal is well mixed with turbulent air, resulting in good heat release and high combustion temperatures that melt the coal ash content into removable molten slag, thus reducing furnace size and the y ash content of the ue gases and eliminating the cost of coal pulverization. Electrostatic precipitator A system that removes particulate matter from the ue gases by using one electrode at high voltage to electrically charge the particles, which migrate to the other grounded electrode, where they are periodically removed. Feedwater heaters Heat exchangers that successively heat the feedwater before entering the steam generator using steam that is bled from the turbine. Fluidized-bed furnace A furnace in which crushed coal is oated by upward air resulting in a swirl motion that improves combustion efciency, which in turn gives lower combustion temperatures and reduced NOx in the ue gases and in which limestone is added to convert much of the sulfur in the coal to a disposable dry waste. Forced-draft fan The fan that forces atmospheric air into the steam generator to be heated rst by an air preheater and then by combustion in the furnace. Heat rate The rate of heat added to a power plant in Btu/h to produce one kW of power. Impulse blades Blades in the high-pressure end of a steam turbine and usually symmetrical in shape that ideally convert kinetic energy of the steam leaving a nozzle into mechanical work. Once-through cooling The exhaust vapor from the turbine of a Rankine cycle is condensed by cool water obtained from an available supply such as a river, lake, or the ocean, and then returned to that same supply. Pulverized coal A powdery coal that is prepared from crushed and dried coal and then ground, often between steel balls and a race. Rankine cycle A closed cycle that converts the energy of a high-pressure and high-temperature vapor produced in a steam generator (most commonly steam) into mechanical work via a turbine, condenser, and feedwater system. Reaction blades Blades downstream of impulse blades in a steam turbine and having an airfoil shape that convert some of both kinetic and enthalpy energies of incoming steam to mechanical work. Scrubbers A desulfurization system that uses aqueous slurries of limelimestone to absorb SO2 in the ue gases. Steam generator A large complex system that transfers the heat of combustion of the fuel to the feedwater, converting it to steam that drives the turbine. The steam is usually superheated at subcritical or supercritical pressures (critical pressure = 3208 psia or 221 bar). A modern steam generator is composed of economizer, boiler, superheater, reheater, and air preheater. Steam turbine A machine that converts steam energy into the rotary mechanical energy that drives the electric generator. It is usually composed of multiple sections that have impulse blades at the high-pressure end, followed by reaction blades.

References
El-Wakil, M. M. 1984. Powerplant Technology, McGraw-Hill, New York. Singer, J. G. (Ed.) 1991. Combustion, Fossil Power, Combustion Engineering, Windsor, CT. Stultz, S. C., and Kitto, J. B. (Eds.) 1992. Steam, Its Generation and Use, Babcock & Wilcox, Barberton, OH.

Further Information
Proceedings of the American Power Conference. American Power Conference, Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, IL 60616. ASME publications (ASME, 345 E. 47th Street, New York, NY 10017): ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code Mechanical Engineering
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Journal of Energy Resources Technology Journal of Gas Turbines and Power Journal of Turbomachinery Combustion and Flame. The Journal of the Combustion Institute, published monthly by Elsevier Science, 655 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10010. Department of Energy, Ofce of Public Information, Washington, D.C. 20585. EPRI Journal. The Electric Power Research Institute, P.O. Box 10412, Palo Alto, CA 94303. Energy, International Journal. Elsevier Science Ltd., Bampfylde Street, Exeter EX1 2AH, England. Construction Standards for Surface Type Condensers for Ejector Service. The Heat Exchange Institute, Cleveland, OH. Standards for Closed Feedwater Heaters. The Heat Exchange Institute, Cleveland, OH. Power. McGraw-Hill, P.O. Box 521, Hightstown, NJ 08520. Power Engineering. 1421 Sheridan Road, Tulsa, OK 74112.

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