FIRST AND SECOND LAWS OF

THERMODYNAMICS-APPLICATION IN
POWER PRODUCTION
• Suppose we have a source of heat and we want to convert
it to work and vice versa, the second law of
thermodynamics states that:-
“It is impossible for any device that operates on a cycle to
receive heat from a single reservoir and produce a net
amount of work”.
OR
“It is impossible to construct a device that operates in a
cycle and produces no effect other than the transfer of heat
from a lower-temperature body to a higher-temperature
body”.
The later statement is used for refrigeration cycles while the
former for heat engines
 HEAT ENGINES (GAS POWER PLANTS&
STEAM)
• Work can easily be converted to other forms of energy,
but converting other forms of energy to work is not
that easy.
• 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 and other cyclic devices usually involve a fluid to
and from which heat is transferred while undergoing a cycle.
This fluid is called the working fluid.
➢The working fluid expands, does some work and cools a little
then further cooled and heated again and the cycle repeats.
➢Examples of heat engines are internal combustion engines,
steam power plants.
 AIR STANDARD POWER CYCLES(GAS
POWER CYCLES)
In gas power cycles, the working fluid remains a gas
throughout the entire cycle.
➢Spark-ignition engines, Diesel engines, and conventional
gas turbines are familiar examples of devices that
operate on gas cycles.
➢In all these engines, energy (heat) is provided by burning
a fuel within the system boundaries,that is, they are
internal combustion engines.
➢Thermodynamics analysis is done to estimate the energy
extracted and efficiency.
 AIR STANDARD ASSUMPTIONS
To reduce the analysis to a manageable level, we utilize the
following approximations, commonly known as the air-standard
assumptions:
1. The working fluid is air, which continuously circulates in a
closed loop and always behaves as an ideal gas.
2. All the processes that make up the cycle are internally
reversible.
3. The combustion process is replaced by a heat-addition process
from an external source
4. The exhaust process is replaced by a heat-rejection process that
restores the working fluid to its initial state.
5. Air has constant specific heats whose values are determined at
room temperature
 Otto Cycle
➢In this cycle, the combustion takes place in a cylinder
which can expand. It’s ideal for spark ignition engines.
➢It has four proceses: two adiabatic/isentropic and two
isothermal. The processes are shown below in figure
S22 in P-V diagram.
➢The energy transformation is from heat to work
through the four processes.
Figure S22 :Actual and ideal cycles in spark-ignition engines and their P-v
diagrams.
 Otto cycle...
➢Applying air standard assumptions ,the resulting cycle,
which closely resembles the actual operating conditions,
is the ideal Otto cycle. The cycle of four processes is as
follows
1-2 Isentropic/Adiabatic compression- This corresponds
to compression stroke whrere the piston is traveling up
the cylinder compressing the air-fuel mixure.
 Otto cycle...
2-3 Constant-volume heat addition- This corresponds to an
instant where spark plug fires and combustion starts- the
piston is at the Top Dead Centre (TDC).
3-4 Isentropic expansion-The pressure is risen and now the
piston starts travelling down doing some work. The works
comes out as crank shaft rotation.
4-1 Constant-volume heat rejection- The piston is at Bottom
Dead Centre (BDC) and the cylinder is rejecting some heat
to the engine’s coolant.
 Otto cycle...
➢The T-s diagram of the Otto cycle is given in figure
S25.

Figure S25
No work is involved during the two heat transfer
processes since both take place at constant volume.
Therefore, heat transfer to and from the working fluid
can be expressed as
 Otto cycle...
➢Then the thermal efficiency of the ideal Otto cycle
under the cold air standard assumptions becomes.

Substituting these equations into the thermal efficiency

relation and simplifying give
 Otto cycle...
r is the com1pression ratio and k is the specific heat ratio Cp/Cv.
 Diesel cycle
➢In this cycle, the only difference as compared to Otto
cycle is heat addition takes place at constant pressure.
The Diesel cycle is the ideal cycle for Compression
Ignition reciprocating engines. Spark plug is eliminate
and the piston compresses the air, rising its temperature
to a degree high enough to ignite the fuel which is
injected near TDC.
➢The P-v and T-s diagrams of this cycle is shown below
in Figure S29.
 Diesel cycle....

Figure S29 T-s and P-v diagrams for the ideal Diesel cycle.
 Diesel cycle...
➢Noting that the diesel cycle is executed in a piston–
cylinder device, which forms a closed system, the
amount of heat transferred to the working fluid at
constant pressure and rejected from it at constant volume
can be expressed as

Then the thermal efficiency of the ideal Diesel cycle under

the cold-air standard assumptions becomes
 Diesel cycle...
➢Now, if we define a new quantity, the cutoff ratio rc,
as the ratio of the cylinder volumes after and before
the combustion process:

Utilizing this definition and the isentropic ideal-gas

relations for processes 1-2 and 3-4, we see that the
thermal efficiency relation reduces to

where r is the compression ratio.

 Diesel cycle..
Diesel cycle is more efficient than Otto cycle, that is
to say diesel engines are efficient than gasoline
(spark ignition) engines.
➢The higher efficiency and lower fuel costs of diesel
engines make them attractive in applications
requiring relatively large amounts of power, such
as in locomotive engines, emergency power
generation units, large ships, and heavy trucks.
 ASSIGNMENT, 10% CA: IN GROUP OF
NOT MORE THAN 5
Discuss and describe the dual cycle, derive the
expression of its thermal efficiency and expain its
difference to diesel cycle.
 STEAM POWER PLANTS
• In steam power plants, the working fluid is water
vapour/steam.
• The general steam power plant layout is shown in
figure S5 below. In steam power plant, the working
fluid is water vapor (steam)

Figure S5: Steam power plant

• The various quantities shown on this figure are as
follows:
 THERMAL EFFICIENCY
• In the light of first and second laws of
thermodynamics and Figure S5, thermal
efficiency,

OR

Where,

For closed system,

• For analyzing a power plant, the values of Qin, Qout
can be obtained using properties of working fluid at
the entrance to the turbine and exit from the
turbine. The properties which can be read from
standard tables such as steam tables or obtained by
thermodynamic analysis.
• These Properties are Enthaly-h, Temperature-T,
Pressure-P, Specific volume-Vs and Entropy-s.
EXAMPLES (EFFICIENCY)
 STEAM POWER PLANT CYCLES
➢ There are four main components in a steam power
generation cycle (Figure S13): Pump, Steam
generator (boiler), Turbine, and Condenser. The low-
pressure water (liquid phase, flow 1) is pressurized in
the pump (flow 2) and is sent to the steam generator
where water is heated and converted to high-
temperature steam (flow 3).
➢The high-pressure and high-temperature steam
then expands through the turbine producing work,
which can be converted to electricity in the
generator.
➢The low temperature and pressure mixture of
steam and water (flow 4) is then condensed in the
condenser before being sent to the pump to
complete the cycle.
➢In order to condense the steam and reject heat to the
surrounding, cooling water from a nearby body of
water may be used. Alternatively, a wet or dry cooling
tower may be employed.
➢There are various sources of thermal energy for steam
generators, including fossil fuels, such as coal, natural
gas, or petroleum products; nuclear reactions; or
renewable sources, such as geothermal, solar thermal
energy, ocean thermal energy, or biomass.
➢Regardless of the thermal energy source, the
fundamental operation of steam power cycles will
remain unchanged
Figure S13: Detailed steam Power plant schematic
 STEAM POWER PLANTS-Carnot’s Cycle
The Carnot cycle (after Sadi carnot, 1796–1832, a
French engineer and physicist) is an ultimate ideal cycle
for any thermal engine.
• The Carnot cycle is composed of two constant
temperature processes (isothermal processes) and two
adiabatic processes. Note that the latter reversible
adiabatic processes are constant entropy or isentropic.
It can be shown that it is impossible to construct an
engine that operates between a low-temperature
thermal energy reservoir and a high-temperature heat
reservoir with an efficiency higher than that of the
Carnot cycle.
 STEAM POWER PLANTS-Carnot’s Cycle...
• Also, it can be shown that all Carnot cycles operating
between the same two thermal energy reservoirs have
the same efficiency.
• Therefore, the Carnot cycle is an ideal cycle that
theoretically can operate with any working fluid with
the highest thermal efficiency possible for the given
thermal energy reservoirs. The Carnot cycle efficiency
is a function of the absolute temperatures of the
thermal energy reservoirs that the cycle interacts with
 STEAM POWER PLANTS-Carnot’s Cycle...
• Where is the thermal efficiency of the Carnot
cycle, and Tl and Th are the absolute temperatures of
the low-temperature and high temperature thermal
energy reservoirs (in k), respectively.
• Although this cycle is not practical in the real world, it
provides an upper bound for the achievable efficiency
of thermal engines and a benchmark to compare the
efficiency of actual cycles with.
This means no heat engine has a thermal efficiency more
than Carnot’s engine operating between the same
temperatures.
 STEAM POWER PLANTS-Carnot’s Cycle...
• For most power cycles, the T-s and P-V diagrams
are used to demonstrate the cycle.

Figure S17: T-s and P-v diagrams of a Carnot cycle for a phase-changing
working fluid.
 STEAM POWER PLANTS-Carnot’s Cycle...
• From figure S17,
PROCESS 1-2: Isentropic (Adiabatic) compression.
PROCESS 2-3: Isothermal heat addition in the steam
generator where entropy increases from a to b.
PROCESS 3-4: Isentropic expansion in the steam
turbine.
PROCESS 4-1: Isothermal heat rejection in the
condenser.
 STEAM POWER PLANTS-Carnot’s Cycle...
If the enthalpies at stages 1,2,3 and 4 are h1,
h2,h3 and h4 respectively, Qin=h3-h1,
Qout=h4-h1
And if WTurb= Workdone by the turbine,
WTurb=h3-h4.
WPump= Workdone by pump.
 BACKWORK RATIO
• Another parameter that is being used to
describe the performance of power generation
cycles is the back work ratio (BWR)

The BWR indicates what percentage of the work

(power) produced in the turbine is consumed in the
pump.
 STEAM POWER PLANTS-Carnot’s Cycle...
EXAMPLES
1. A Carnot cycle operates between source and sink
temperatures of 250°C and – 15°C. If the system
receives 90 kJ from the source, find :
(i) Efficiency of the system ; (ii) The net work transfer ;
(iii) Heat rejected to sink
 STEAM POWER PLANTS-Carnot’s Cycle...
EXAMPLES

2. An inventor claims that his engine has the following

specifications :
Temperature limits ...... 750°c and 25°c
Power developed ...... 75 kw
Fuel burned per hour ...... 3.9 kg
Heating value of the fuel ...... 74500 kJ/kg
State whether his claim is valid or not.
 STEAM POWER PLANTS-Carnot’s Cycle...
EXAMPLES
3. In a Carnot cycle with the working fluid of water,
the operating pressures of the steam generator and the
condenser are 10,000 and 10 kPa, respectively. If the
turbine inlet flow is saturated vapor and the pump
outlet flow is saturated liquid, determine the specific
heat transfers in the steam generator and the condenser
(in kJ/kg), the specific work involved in the turbine
and the pump (in kJ/kg), and the thermal efficiency
and BWR of the cycle.
 STEAM POWER PLANTS-Rankine Cycle
Rankine cycle Overcomes the impracticalities of Carnot
Cycle.
• In this cycle, feed water supplied by a multistage feed
pump is raised into steam in a boiler. The high-
pressure steam is expanded in the turbine, generating
work. After expansion, the steam is condensed in a
condenser and the cycle repeats. In a real cycle, due to
irreversibility, losses are present and the cycle
efficiency decreases.
• Figure S25 shows a simple Rankine cycle on P–v and
T–s diagrams.
 STEAM POWER PLANTS Rankine
Cycle.....
• In this cycle, either saturated steam enters the
turbine at point 1 or superheated steam enters the
turbine at point 1′. Cycle 1–2–3–4–b–1 is a
saturated Rankine cycle and cycle 1′–2′–3–4–b–1′
is superheated Rankine cycle. The boiler pressure
is increased.

Figure S25:Rankine Cycle on P–V and T–s Diagrams

 STEAM POWER PLANTS Rankine
Cycle.....

• The properties of steam at points 1` can be obtained using

steam Mollier chart and or Superheated steam table.
➢Energy balance, as in carnot cycle, is used to analyze the
cycle. i.e in boiler, turnine, pump and condenser.
 STEAM POWER PLANTS Rankine Cycle.....
EXAMPLES

E1. A steam turbine receives steam at 15 bar and 300°C

and leaves the turbine at 0.1 bar and 4% moisture.
Determine
(i) Rankine efficiency
(ii) steam consumption per kW per hour if the
efficiency ratio is 0.70
(iii) Carnot cycle efficiency for the given temperature
limits
(iv) change in Rankine efficiency and specific
consumption if the condenser pressure is
reduced to 0.04 bar
 STEAM POWER PLANTS Rankine Cycle.....
EXAMPLES

E2. In a steam power plant operating on ideal rankine

cycle, steam enters the turbine at 20 bar with an
enthalpy of 3248 kJ/kg and an entropy of 7.127 kJ/kg
k. The condenser pressure is 0.1 bar. Find the cycle
efficiency and specific steam consumption in kg/kWh.
do not neglect pump work. You may make use of the
extract of steam table given below.
 STEAM POWER PLANTS Rankine Cycle.....
EXAMPLES

E3. A simple Rankine cycle works between the

boiler pressure of 3 MPa and condenser pressure of 4
kPa. the steam is dry saturated before the throttling
in the turbine.
Determine
(i) Rankine cycle efficiency
(ii) work ratio
(iii) specific steam consumption
 STEAM POWER PLANTS-MODIFIED
Rankine Cycles
In a simple rankine cycle, either saturated or
superheated steam is allowed through the turbine and
fully condensed in the condenser, this improves
perfomance, however, this causes excessive moisture
coming out of the turbine. To overcome this and
further improving the efficiency of simple rankine
cycle. The following two cycles are used which
modifies the ideal rakinie cycle
1. Reheat cycle
2. Regenerative cycle.
 MODIFIED RANKINE CYCLES-Reheat
cycle
In this cycle, compared to simple Rankine cycle,
steam first expands in the first high pressure turbine
then reheted and allowed to expand in another low
pressure turbine. Ths improves efficiency of simple
Rankine cycle.
The T-s diagram of the ideal reheat Rankine cycle and
the schematic of the power plant operating on this
cycle are shown in Fig. S32 below
FIGURE S32:The ideal reheat Rankine cycle
 MODIFIED RANKINE Cycles-Reheat cycle
Example
E1. Consider a steam power plant operating on the ideal
reheat Rankine cycle. Steam enters the high-pressure
turbine at 15 MPa and 600 C and is condensed in the
condenser at a pressure of 10 kPa. If the moisture
content of the steam at the exit of the low-pressure
turbine is not to exceed 10.4 percent, determine (a) the
pressure at which the steam should be reheated and (b)
the thermal efficiency of the cycle. Assume the steam is
reheated to the inlet temperature of the high-pressure
turbine.
 MODIFIED RANKINE CYCLES-Renerative
cycle
In reheat cycle, heat addition to the working fluid takes
place at a relatively low temperature, this lowers thermal
efficiency.
• To remedy this shortcoming, we look for ways to raise
the temperature of the liquid leaving the pump (called
the feedwater) before it enters the boiler. One such
possibility is to transfer heat to the feedwater from the
expanding steam in a counterflow heat exchanger built
into the turbine, that is, to use regeneration.
 MODIFIED RANKINE CYCLES-Renerative cycle
• A practical regeneration process in steam power
plants is accomplished by extracting, or “bleeding,”
steam from the turbine at various points. This steam,
which could have produced more work by expanding
further in the turbine, is used to heat the feedwater
instead.
• The device where the feedwater is heated by
regeneration is called a regenerator, or a feedwater
heater (FWH)
 MODIFIED RANKINE CYCLES-Renerative
cycle
TYPES OF FEEDWATER HEATER
OPEN FEEDWATER HEATERS

An open (or direct-contact) feedwater heater is

basically a mixing chamber, where the steam extracted
from the turbine mixes with the feedwater exiting the
pump. Ideally, the mixture leaves the heater as a
saturated liquid at the heater pressure. This is shown in
figure S36
FIG S36:The ideal regenerative Rankine cycle with an open
feedwater heater
• CLOSED FEEDWATER HEATERS

Another type of feedwater heater frequently used in

steam power plants is the closed feedwater heater, in
which heat is transferred from the extracted steam to
the feedwater without any mixing taking place. The
two streams now can be at different pressures, since
they do not mix. This is shown in figure S39 below.
FIG 39: The ideal regenerative Rankine cycle with a closed
feedwater heater
 MODIFIED RANKINE CYCLES-Renerative cycle-
Example
E1. Consider a steam power plant operating on the
ideal regenerative Rankine cycle with one open
feedwater heater. Steam enters the turbine at 15 Mpa
and 600 C and is condensed in the condenser at a
pressure of 10 kPa. Some steam leaves the turbine at a
pressure of 1.2 MPa and enters the open feedwater
heater. Determine the fraction of steam extracted from
the turbine and the thermal efficiency of the cycle.