STEAM POWER

PLANT
GROUP MEMBERS
• Waseem Iqbal 18
• Bilal Pervez 24
• Muzamal Aziz 27
• Hamza Khan 15
• Aamir Tanvir 21
Steam Power Plant
• A thermal power station is a power plant in which the prime
mover is steam driven. Water is heated, turns into steam and
spins a steam turbine which either drives an electrical
generator or does some other work.
• After it passes through the turbine, the steam is condensed in
a condenser and recycled to where it was heated; this is known
as a Rankin cycle.
• The greatest variation in the design of thermal power stations
is due to the different fuel sources.
General Layout of Steam Power Plant
 Schematic Diagram of Coal based Steam Power Plant

To chimney

Coal storage
Flue gases

Coal handling Air preheater Air

plant
Feed Main Super heated
To power grid
water valve Steam
Economizer

Ash handling

Turbine
Ash storage Boiler Super heater Generator
plant Flue
gases

Steam Condensate
HP heater extraction pump
LEGEND
Boiler feed
pump
Condenser
Coal
LP heater
Ash
Air Circulating
water pump
Water
Cooling tower
Flue gases
Steam
River or Canal
Cooling water
How coal power plants produce electricity
The conversion from coal to electricity takes place in three stages.
Stage 1
The first conversion of energy takes place in the boiler. Coal is burnt in the
boiler furnace to produce heat. Carbon in the coal and Oxygen in the air
combine to produce Carbon Dioxide and heat.
Stage 2
The second stage is the thermodynamic process. The heat from combustion of
the coal boils water in the boiler to produce steam. In modern power plant,
boilers produce steam at a high pressure and temperature. The steam is then
piped to a turbine. The high pressure steam impinges and expands across a
number of sets of blades in the turbine. The impulse and the thrust created
rotates the turbine. The steam is then condensed to water and pumped back into
the boiler to repeat the cycle.
Stage 3
In the third stage, rotation of the turbine rotates the generator rotor to produce
electricity based of Faraday’s Principle of electromagnetic induction.
General layout of coal based steam power plant
The different types of systems and components used in steam power
plants are:
• High pressure boiler
• Prime mover
• Condensers and cooling towers
• Coal handling system
• Ash handling system
• Draught system
• Feed water treatment plant
• Pumping system
• Air preheater, super heater, feed water heater
General layout of coal based steam power plant
Though each plant is unique in itself in terms of specific features and
functionalities, there are four main circuits in any thermal power plant:

1. Coal & Ash Circuit – This circuit deals mainly with feeding the boiler
with coal for combustion purposes and taking care of the ash that is
generated during the combustion process and includes equipment and
peripherals that is used to handle the transfer and storage of coal and ash.

2. Air & Gas Circuit – Since lots of coal is burnt inside the boiler it needs
a sufficient quantity of air which is supplied using either forced draught
or induced draught fans. The exhaust gases from the combustion are in
turn used to heat the incoming air and water through heat exchangers
before being let off in the atmosphere. The equipment which handles all
these processes fall under this circuit.
General layout of coal based steam power plant

3. Feed Water & Steam Circuit – This section deals with supplying of steam
generated from the boiler to the turbines and to handle the outgoing steam
from the turbine by cooling it to form water in the condenser so that it can be
reused in the boiler plus making good any losses due to evaporation etc.

4. Cooling Water Circuit – This part of the thermal power plant deals with
handling of the cooling water required in the system. Since the amount of
water required to cool the outgoing steam from the boiler is substantial, it is
either taken from a nearby water source such as a river, or it is done through
evaporation if the quantity of cooling water available is limited.

A power plant using steam as working substance works basically on Rankine cycle. For
plants operating with steam at subcritical pressures (less than 221 bar) and steam
temperatures of 570 °C, the Rankine cycle efficiency is around 43 %. For the state of
the art plants running at greater than supercritical pressure and steam temperatures
near to 600 °C, the efficiency is around 47 %.
Why is the efficiency low for thermal plant?
• The heating value or the energy available in the coal, is in the range of
10,500 kJ/kg to 27,000 kJ/kg. A heating value of 20,000 kJ/kg is equivalent
to 5.56 kWh of electrical energy. In practice the effective conversion is only
around 43% to 47% of the theoretically possible value.
Reasons for low thermal efficiency:
• Due to practical limitations in heat transfer, all the heat produced by
combustion is not transferred to the water; some is lost to the atmosphere as
hot gases. Moisture in coal vaporizes taking latent heat from the combustion
heat and exits the boiler along with the hot gases. This is a loss.
• The steam is condensed for re-use. During this process the latent heat of
condensation is lost to the cooling water. This is the major loss and is almost 40
% of the energy input. Losses in the turbine blades and exit losses at turbine
end are some of the other losses.
• The Rankin cycle efficiency is dictated by the maximum temperature of
steam that can be admitted into the turbine. Due to metallurgical constraints
steam temperatures are at present limited to slightly more than 600 °C.
• Various auxiliary equipment like pulverizes, fans, pumps and precipitators
in large power plants consume around 6 % of the generator output for internal
consumption.
Parts of a Steam Power Plant
Boiler (Steam Generator)
• A boiler or steam generator is a device used to create steam by
applying heat energy to water.
• Thermal energy released by combustion of fuel is transferred to
water, which vaporizes and gets converted to steam at the desired
temperature and pressure.
• The performance of a boiler is measured in terms of its evaporative
capacity which is also called as “Boiler Power". It is defined as the amount
of steam produced in kg/hour. It may also be expressed in kg of steam per
kg of fuel burnt or kg/hr/m2 of heating surface.
Boilers are classified according to the following criteria:
According to flow of water and hot gases.
• Water tube
• Fire tube
Water Tube Boilers
In water tube boilers, water is circulated through tubes and hot
products of combustion flow over these tubes.
Water Tube Boilers

Water tube boilers can further be classified as follows:

• Horizontal straight tube boilers
• Bent tube boilers
• Cyclone fired boilers
Water tube boilers have the following advantages:
• High pressures (about 140 kg/cm2) can be obtained
• Large heating surfaces can be obtained by use of large number of tubes –
therefore steam can be generated easily.
• Efficiency is higher because of high velocity of water in tubes which
improves heat transfer.
 Fire Tube Boilers

In fire tube boilers, the hot combustion gases pass through the tubes, which
are surrounded by water.
Fire Tube Boilers
Fire Tube Boilers

Fire tube boilers can further be classified as follows:

• External furnace
• Internal furnace
Fire tube boilers have the following advantages:
• Low cost
• Fluctuations of steam demand can be easily met
• Compact in size
Disadvantage: of fire tube boilers is that they contain more water in the drum
and if the flue gas circulation is poor, they can not quickly meet the steam
demand. For the same output, the outer shell of fire tube boiler is much larger
than the shell of a water tube boiler.
Steam Engine
• A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using
steam as its working fluid.
• Steam engines are typically external combustion engines, although other
external sources of heat such as solar power, nuclear power or geothermal
energy may be used. The heat cycle is known as the Rankin cycle.
Basic operation of a simple reciprocating steam engine
• Heat is obtained from fuel burnt in a closed firebox
• The heat is transferred to the water in a pressurized boiler, ultimately
boiling the water and transforming it into saturated steam. Steam in its
saturated state is always produced at the temperature of the boiling water,
which in turn depends on the steam pressure on the water surface within
the boiler.
• The steam is transferred to the motor unit which uses it to push on a
piston sliding inside a cylinder to power machinery.
• The used, cooler, lower pressure steam is exhausted to atmosphere.