Abstract

A steam/thermal power station uses heat energy generated from burning coal to produce
electrical energy. This type of power station is widely used around the world. This power station
uses the Rankine Cycle. This cycle consists of the steam produced in the boiler, and then taken to
the Steam turbine. From the turbine the steam is cooled back to water in the Condenser, the
resulting water is fed back into the boiler to repeat the cycle.
We have a steam boiler in our steam lab and this steam can be used for power generation.
Presently there is no such facility available in the laboratory. Hence we wish to develop a steam
turbine facility in the laboratory. As a part of this project we wish to study the feasibility of
centrifugal pump as steam turbine. The facility develop will cater to the academic needs too.
Experiments based on steam turbine, condenser can be designed which are in the SY and TY
syllabus.

We aim to establish following experimental setup as follows:-

1) To determine the efficiency of steam turbine

2) To study the working of Rankine Cycle
3) To determine efficiencies of condenser.

Introduction
Over the years, different kinds of technologies are being applied in order to sustain the electrical
demand by the use of renewable energy sources in spite of hydrocarbon fuels. Its application can
be also extended to other sectors for achieving: i) reduction of pollutants released in the
atmosphere, ii) production of electricity that leads to economic benefits. These purposes are
fundamental to meet environmental requirements discussed from the Kyoto Protocol to achieve
economic savings by means of renewable energies. For recovering and saving energy in several
plants and processes, the main principle is to exploit the pressure gradient available from
particular chemical processes, for instance those running in oil refineries.

There are many instances in processing industry where it is required to reduce pressure of fluid.
This pressure reduction is usually accomplished through the use of a Pressure Reducing Valve
(PRV). In this method, the energy of fluid stream is lost. Currently, emphasis is being placed on
more effective energy usage in mentioned case. Therefore, areas in which energy is wasted are
being closely monitored and methods for energy recovery are being investigated.
1.2 Need Analysis

In power industries, steam required should be superheated i.e. it must be at high temperature and
high pressure because work done by turbine is proportional to difference of enthalpy at inlet and
that of at outlet. To increase turbine output, difference of enthalpies should be high. While in
process industries, steam is generated at high pressure but used at low pressure as the purpose is
not to generate power but to heat process fluid. Process industries like textile, pharmaceutical,
rice mill use steam as a heating medium .This steam must be dry saturated or slightly wet. If we
are using steam as a heating media, steam loses its energy and gives it to process fluid. Hence, In
process industries steam must have high latent heat. But the latent heat is high at low pressure.

Process steam boiler generates steam at 10.5 kg/cm2 whereas required operational condition is 3-
4 kg/cm2…….. There are many instances in processing industry where it is required to reduce
pressure of fluid. This pressure reduction is usually accomplished through the use of a Pressure
Reducing Valve (PRV).But use of PRV results in wastage of energy.

To minimize this loss of energy we recommend to design and develop a Centrifugal pump as a
turbine working in a pressure range 10.5 kg/cm2 to 3-4 kg/cm2.

As a part of this project we have planned to study the feasibility of use of centrifugal pump as
steam turbine. It is proposed to use centrifugal pump as turbine by getting steam radial entry in
the casing and exit axially.

Developing this setup will create facility to perform experiments as well as help to illustrate
working of Rankine cycle on in-house built setup to undergraduate students and other
enthusiasts.

1.3 Objectives

To establish experimental setup as follows:-

1) To determine the efficiency of steam turbine

2) To study the working of Rankine Cycle

3) To determine efficiencies of condenser.

 Chapter 2

Literature review

Performance of centrifugal pump running in inverse mode, Jorge Parrondo, Matt

Stickland [June 2004] Functional characterization of a centrifugal pump used as a turbine is
presented in this paper. It shows the characteristic involved at several rotational speeds,
comparing the respective flows and heads. Influence of the rotational speed on efficiency as well
as obtaining characteristic at constant head and runaway speed is analysed in this paper. Also the
forces actuating on the impeller were studied. The research results indicate that the turbine
characteristics can be predicted to some extent from the pump characteristics.
Review of various Aspects of using Centrifugal Pump in Turbine Mode for Small Hydro
Power Generation, Bikram Singh Solanki, A C tiwari[june2016]
Different small turbine suitable for micro hydro power plant is discussed and their performance
comparison with PAT is made. Here different types of centrifugal pump casing to be run in
turbine mode are presented. Theoretical, Experimental, numerical and computational (CFD)
analysis performed by different researchers are reviewed.
Cost analysis of pump as turbine for pico hydropower plants – a case study, K H Motwani,
S V Jain, R N Patel[2012]
The cost can be brought down by using centrifugal pump in turbine mode in context of various
advantages associated with the pumps viz. low initial and maintenance cost, ready availability,
simple construction etc. However, the efficiency of pump as turbine (PAT) is lower than that of
conventional hydro turbines. For commercial justification of PAT technology, a cost analysis of
3 kW capacity pico hydropower plant was carried out by considering PAT and Francis turbine as
a prime mover. The annual life cycle cost (ALCC) analysis was carried out based on initial cost
of the project, capital recovery factor and annual expenses. Based on the analysis, the ALCC and
the cost of electricity generated per unit were found to be very less for PAT than that of Francis
turbine, which has justified the use of PAT.
Pumps used as turbines: Power recovery, energy efficiency, CFD analysis,
Jasmina B Bogdanovic-Jovanovic, Zivan T Spasic[2014]
The paper describes various problems faced during modelling (pump and turbine mode) and the
approaches used to resolve the problems. The turbine is a pump running in reverse many
attempts have been made to predict the turbine performance from the known pump performance,
but only for best efficiency point. This paper presents an example of centrifugal norm pump
operating in both (pump and turbine) regime and comparison of experimentally obtained results
and computational fluid dynamics simulations.

1.1 Introduction to Pump as Turbine (PAT)

In pumping mode, the fluid enters at suction side of pump at low pressure and gets energized by
the impeller, which is rotated by some external means, and leaves the casing at high pressure.
Whereas in case of PAT, the pump rotates in reverse direction, water enters in the pump at very
high pressure from the casing and moves through the impeller blades and releases its pressure
and kinetic energy to the impeller shaft as mechanical energy and fluid comes out from the eye
of pump at low pressure.

Since 1930, several studies have been performed on the application of different pumps used in
reverse mode as turbines showing that Pumps-as-Turbines (PAT) can be considered a good
alternative for power generation taking into account both practical and economic evaluations.
This technology seemed to be the most suitable to be improved and to be modified in spite of
others due to the possibility of its use in several applications and to its cost that is less expensive
than turbines. Moreover, in industrial plants PAT can be used in both pump and turbine mode
depending on the process requirements.
 Fig.1 Pump in direct mode Fig.2 Pump in reverse mode

Pumps are relatively simple and easy to maintain and they also have a competitive maximum
efficiency when compared to conventional turbines. Perhaps the major benefit is that mass
production of pumps means that they are comparatively much more cost-effective than
conventional turbines. PAT systems are cost-efficient and widely available. In addition, they
have simple design and easy maintenance compared to conventional turbines. At the other hand,
such systems do not have variable guide vanes for the purpose of turbine regulation. PAT
systems have lower efficiency compared to conventional turbines.

A PAT system generally uses the pump's induction motor as an AC generator. For grid-tied
installations, induction motors are usually the easiest rotating generation to interconnect directly.
For stand-alone installations, capacitors are required to provide reactive power that allows the
pump's induction motor to generate AC electricity. With the use of variable speed technology, by
use of asynchronous motor-generator or synchronous motor-generator with frequency converter,
the rotational speed of the pump-turbine can be varied. Thus, the turbine operating range can be
extended; the pump capacity can be adjusted to using just the currently available amount of
energy. This technology stabilizes the grid efficiently.
Theoretical design-

Description - We have a steam boiler in our steam lab of capacity 750kg/hr at 9

bar pressure and 1810C temperature and dryness fraction of steam is x=0.97, but at
inlet to turbine we require dry saturated steam so we select moisture separator from
catalogue of Forbes marshal using table given below-

Procedure for selection of moisture separator-

1. Plot point A where the steam pressure and flow rate cross, draw a horizontal
line.
2. Select line size. Any separator curve that is bisected by this line within the
shaded area will operate at near 100% efficiency.
3. Ascertain velocity. Line velocity for any size can be determined by dropping
a vertical line from this intersection.
 4. Pressure drop. Where the line extended from point crosses the line C-C, plot
a horizontal line. Now drop a vertical line from point A. The point of
intersection is the pressure drop across the separator, i.e.0.04bar.
5. Separators should be selected on the basis of the best compromise between
line size, velocity and pressure drop for each application.

Determination of power producing capacity of turbine-

Properties of dry saturated steam at inlet –

Pressure 𝑇𝑠𝑎𝑡 𝑣𝑓 𝑣𝑔 ℎ𝑓 ℎ𝑓𝑔 ℎ𝑔 𝑠𝑓 𝑠𝑓𝑔 𝑠𝑔

(bar) (degree 𝑚3 𝑚3 𝐾𝐽 𝐾𝐽 𝐾𝐽 𝐾𝐽 𝐾𝐽 𝐾𝐽
( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( )
Celsius) 𝑘𝑔 𝑘𝑔 𝐾𝑔 𝐾𝑔 𝐾𝑔 𝐾𝑔.𝐾 𝐾𝑔.𝐾 𝐾𝑔.𝐾

9 174.5 0.001121 0.21482 742.6 2029.5 2772.1 2.094 4.525 6.619

Initially assuming isentropic expansion in turbine

𝑠1 = 𝑠2

At 9 bar,
𝐾𝐽
𝑠1 = 𝑠𝑔1 =6.619 ( )
𝐾𝑔.𝐾

𝐾𝐽
ℎ1 = ℎ𝑔1 =2772.1 ( )
𝐾𝑔

At 3 bar,

𝑠2 = 𝑠𝑓2 + 𝑥2 ∗ 𝑠𝑓𝑔2

6.619= 1.672 + 𝑥2 *5.319

𝑥2 = 0.93

ℎ2 = ℎ𝑓2 + 𝑥2 ∗ ℎ𝑓𝑔2

=561.5 +0.93*2163
 𝐾𝐽
= 2573.27 ( )
𝐾𝑔

Assuming 50% isentropic efficiency

(ℎ1 − ℎ2 ′ )
Ƞ𝑖𝑠𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑟𝑜𝑝𝑖𝑐 =
(ℎ1 − ℎ2 )
(2772.1−ℎ2 ′ )
0.5 =
2772.1−2578.27

𝐾𝐽
ℎ2 ′ = 2672.68 ( )
𝐾𝑔

To find quality of steam at outlet of turbine equating it with below equation,

ℎ2 ′ = ℎ𝑓2 + 𝑥2 ′ ∗ ℎ𝑓𝑔

𝑥2 ′ =0.976

𝑤1−2 = ḿ(ℎ1 − ℎ2 ′)
700
= *(2772.1-2672.68)
3600

𝑤1−2 = 19.33𝑘𝑤
MONTH DECEMBE JANUAR FEBRUARY MARCH APRIL MAY JUNE
R Y
IBR DESIGN
SIMULATION AND
VERIFICATION
FABRICATION
TESTING
EXPERIMANTAION
DESIGN
PERFORMANCE
COMPARISON
CALIBRATION