Investigation on performance of small steam plant

Himanshu Bhardwaj 000695088

Project poster 2013-2014

B.Eng.(Honours) Mechanical engineering

AimTo investigate performance of small steam planton the basis of thermal efficiency and optimisingthe plant from analog to digital system

Objectives

To Understand the working of rankine cyclewhich is principle cycle of the plant

To get an intrinsic view of the working of plantcomponents

Analysing thermal efficiency of the plant byexperimental method and verifying it bytheoretical method

Incorporating digital gauges in order tooptimise the plant from analog system

Background

The steam plant works on rankine cycle and thiscycle has 4 components, which are pump, boiler,steam engine and atmospheric condenser but inlarge power plants turbines are used, So theprocess begins with pumping of water to the boilerby the feed pump and then boiler heats the waterto extract steam and then that steam is driven tothe engine. Engine runs on the steam and the speedwith which it runs is recorded to get an idea of howmuch power can be produced and then that steamis condensed by the atmospheric condenser. Thesteam engine incorporated is Stuart turner Siriusengine. The overall performance of the plant isdependent on all 4 components but turner engine isfocused on more as it is acting as turbine, whichexpands the steam for generating power but it isessential to avoid any overload on the engine andfor that throttling calorimeter is incorporated in thesystem. As the plant is well insulated with metal it isimpossible to know that what is happening insidethus Ansys 14.5 workbench and mechanical apdlwere used. Some of the thermal images given onthe poster illustrates the use of Ansys 14.5software.

Discussion of results

On analysing the results of the experiment it came out clean that the system has somediscrepancies and these discrepancies are explained with the help of graphs and pie chartsbut on contrary system also shows some consistency in its power generation process.

The graph between electrical input and thermal efficiency shows two regions: R1 and R2, these regions are known as flatness of graph and which depicts that amount of electricity being used getting wasted as in these regions efficiency did not increased or decreased.

The graph given above isconsistently increasing andthus show signs ofconsistency in the system.

The pie chart shows the amount of electrical input and wastage of the electricity in terms of heat losses in the system.

ConclusionPerformance of the plant is proportionalto it efficiency which came out to be 0.8%efficient by experimental method and5.73% efficient by theoretical method,which shows that the plant is not efficientenough and has lots of discrepancies likeheat losses and insulation of the pipenetwork but the performance can beenhanced by incorporating methods likereheat, regenerative and reheatregenerative rankine cycles. In order tooptimise the performance digital gaugesshould be included in the system whichwill eliminate experimental and humanerrors.