Introduction to Power Plant Engineering

CHAPTER 3

Vapour Power Cycles

3.1 Introduction

The vapour power cycle is perhaps the most widely used thermal cycle and accounts for most of the electric energy generation in the world. Almost all fossil-fuelled power plants work on the principle of a heat or combustion engine, converting fossil fuel chemical energy first into mechanical energy (via steam or gas turbines), then into electrical energy. Most large-scale thermal power plants use a steam cycle, in which steam is produced in a boiler heated by a combustion gas; the steam drives a steam turbine that drives a generator to get electricity as output. The steam is in turn condensed in a condenser and is returned back to the boiler through a feed pump. It is seen that during the execution ...