Addis Ababa University

Addis Ababa Institute of Technology

School of Mechanical & Industrial Engineering

Power Plant Engineering

Dr. Ing. Wondwossen Bogale

Assoc. Professor at Addis Ababa University
 Course Outline
Chapter 1- Introduction to Power Plant Engineering

Chapter 2- Analysis of steam Power Plant cycle

Chapter 3- Fuel and combustions

Chapter 4- Steam generators(Boilers) 

Chapter 5- Combustion mechanisms, combustion

Chapter 6- Equipment and Firing Methods

Chapter 7- Steam Turbines

Chapter 8- Steam condensers and Circulating water systems 

Chapter 9- Gas Turbine Power Plants

Chapter 10- Power Plant Economy

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 Chapter 1- Introduction to Power Plant
Engineering

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 Introduction
• One only has to experience a power outage to be
reminded of how much we take electricity for
granted.
• Our lighting, heating, and cooling systems no longer
operate. Computers, televisions, videos, and other
communication systems become unusable.
• Traffic control lights become useless; elevators no
longer move people; and industries, schools, and
commercial buildings become virtually inoperable.

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 Introduction
• We are clearly dependent on electricity for most
of our everyday activities.
• This dependence also demonstrates why electricity
is regarded as one of the most significant
sociological inventions of the 20th century.
• A power plant is assembly of systems or subsystems to
generate electricity, i.e., power with economy and
requirements.
• The power plant itself must be useful economically
and environmental friendly to the society.
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 Africa at Night

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 POWER PLANT
ENGINEERING

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 A TYPICAL COAL-FIRED THERMAL POWER
STATION

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 BOLIERS

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 A TYPICAL COAL-FIRED THERMAL POWER
STATION

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 Fundamentals of Power plant
• Power plant is assembly of systems or subsystems to
generate electricity, i.e, to produce power with
economy and requirements.
• So the power produced must be :
1. Economically useful
2. Environmental friendly to society
Power plant can be defined as :
1. “A machine or assembly of equipment that
generate and deliver a flow of mechanical or
electrical energy.
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 Fundamentals of Power plant
• The main equipment for the generation of electric
power is generator.
• When coupling it to a prime mover runs the
generator, the electricity is generated. The type of
prime move determines, the type of power plants.
• The Steam Power Plant, Diesel Power Plant, Gas
Turbine Power Plant and Nuclear Power Plants are
called THERMAL POWER PLANT, because these
convert heat into electric energy.
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 Working Principle of Steam power plants
• Steam power plant is also known as Thermal power
plant.
• A steam power plant converts the chemical energy of
the fossil fuels (coal, oil, gas) into mechanical /
electrical energy.
• This is achieved by raising the steam in the boilers,
expanding it through the turbines and coupling the
turbines to the generators which convert mechanical
energy into electrical energy as shown in fig. 1.1.

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 Working Model of Stephenson's STEAM ENGINE made of GLASS

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The ancient invention of the steam engine by the Hero of Alexandria

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 Working principle of Steam power plants

• The following two purposes can be served by a

steam power plant:
1. To produce electric power
2. To produce steam for industrial purposes
besides producing electric power. The steam
may be used for varying purposes in the
industries such as textiles, food
manufacture, paper mills, sugar mills
and refineries.
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 Classification of Power Plant

• Methods of general classification of electricity

generation power plant are as follows :
1. Status
2. Fuel type
3. Capacity
4. Prime mover

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 Classification of power plant
1. Status

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 Classification of power plant

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 Non – renewable sources:
• Most of the energy we use are from source like coal, oil,
natural gas and nuclear fuels.
• These primary energy sources are called Non – renewable
sources because once they have been used up, they
cannot be replaced.
Renewable sources:
• Sources of energy that can be used over and over again
are called renewable sources. These sources can be used
to produce electricity.
• Some of the renewable sources are:
 Energy from the sun (Heat and light energy)
 Energy from the wind (Kinetic energy)
 Energy from the waves and tides (Kinetic energy)
 Energy from earth’s core (Geothermal energy)
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 Classification of power plant
2. Fuel type
– Thermal power plant (coal)

– Internal combustion engine plants (petrol or diesel)

– Gas turbine power plant (permanent gas)

– Nuclear power plant (nuclear fuels)

– Solar power plant (suns radiation heat)

– Tidal power plant (tides in the sea)

– Hydro electric power plant (potential energy of water)

– Wind power (energy available in wind)

– Geothermal power plant (heat energy available under the ground)

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 Classification of power plant
3. Capacity

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 Classification of power plant
4. Prime mover
1) Steam turbine
2) Gas turbine
3) Water turbine
4) Wind turbine
5) Combined cycle
6) Heat engine
7) other sources as wave, sun light, …etc

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 Classification of Power Plant

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 Classification of Power Plant

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 Classification of power plant

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 Classification of power plant

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 Classification of power plant

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 Classification of power plant

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 Classification of power plant

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 Classification of power plant

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 Classification of power plant

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 Layout of Steam Power Plant

The layout of steam power plant has the

following circuits:
1. Fuel (Coal) and ash circuit
2. Air and flue gas circuit
3. Feed water and steam flow circuit
4. Cooling water flow circuit.

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 Water and Steam Circuit

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 Cooling Water Circuit

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 Air and Flue Gas Circuit

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 Coal and Ash Circuit

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 Power Plant
• Though the main process in steam power station is the
conversion of heat energy into electrical energy, it
comprises of many steps for its proper working and good
efficiency . The whole arrangement of a steam power
station could be divided into following steps.
• Coal and ash handling arrangement
• Steam generating plant
• Steam turbine
• Alternator
• Feed water
• Cooling arrangement
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 Main and Auxiliary equipments
1. Coal handling plant
2. Pulverizing plant
3. Draft fans
4. Boiler
5. Ash handling plant
6. Turbine
7. Condenser
8. Cooling towers and ponds
9. Feed water heater
10. Economiser
11. Superheater and Reheater
12. Air preheater

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 Power plant
• The whole arrangement is shown in a schematic figure given
below.

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 1. Coal and ash handling
• The coal is transported from different places to
the station by means of rails or road and is stored
in a coal storage plant.
• It is to use as a preserve at the time of scarcity.
• From coal storage plant it is transferred to coal
handling plant for pulverization.
• Pulverization is the process by which large lumps
of coal are broke to small pieces .
Why Pulverization is done?
• Pulverization is done to increase the surface area of
coal and thereby helping the easy combustion of coal
with small intake of air.

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 Why Pulverization is done?
• The pulverized coal is fed to the boiler by means
of conveyor belt.
• The coal is burnt in the boiler and the ash so
produced by burning is removed to the ash
handling system and finally to the ash storage area
for its disposal.
• This process is necessary since ash in the boiler
furnace does not promote proper combustion.

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 Coal handling System

Circulating water systems

Power Conversion systems

Steam Generation systems

Post-Combustion Cleanup system

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 Coal handling System
• Ash is the inert matter in coal and is the residue after
combustion.
• This has to be collected and disposed off without letting it out
into the atmosphere.
• A part of the ash, around 15 % collects as ‘Bottom ash’ at the
bottom of the furnace.
• The other part collects as ‘Fly ash’ in the Electrostatic
Precipitators.
• The collected ash is then transported to disposal yards or
storage silos.

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 Coal handling System
• The percentage of ash in coal varies from 5% in
good quality coal to about 40 % in poor quality coal
• Power plants generally use poor quality of coal ,
thus amount of ash produced by it is pretty large
• A modern 2000 MW plant produces about 5000 tons
of ash daily
• The stations use some conveyor arrangement to
carry ash to dump sites directly or for carrying and
loading it to trucks and wagons which transport it
to the site of disposal.

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 Boiler
• A boiler or steam generator is a closed vessel in

which water under pressure, is converted into

steam.

• It is one of the major components of a thermal

power plant

• Always designed to absorb maximum amount of

heat released in the process of combustion

• Boilers are of two types-

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 Types of steam
• As shown in the diagram below, there are three types of
steam:
1. Wet steam: A mixture of water plus steam (liquid plus
vapor) at the boiling point temperature of water at a
given pressure.
• Quality of steam refers to the fraction or percentage of
gaseous steam in a wet steam mixture.
2. Dry steam: Steam, at the given pressure, that contains
no water (also referred to as saturated steam ).
• The steam quality = 100 %. At the top of steam generator
units for producing saturated steam, there are moisture
separators used to remove residual water droplets from
outgoing steam.
3. Superheated steam: Dry steam, at the given pressure,
that has been heated to a temperature higher than the
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of water atand
of Mechanical that pressure.
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 Superheater
• A greater quantity of steam can be generated from a given
quantity of water by superheating it.
• The steam produced in the boiler has got moisture content
so it is dried and superheated ( i.e. steam temperature is
increased above boiling point of water)by the flue gases on
the way to chimney.
• Super heating ensures two benefits at first the overall
efficiency of the system is increased and secondly the
corrosion to the turbine blades due to condensation in later
stages is prevented.
• The superheated steam from super- heater is fed to steam
turbine by means of a main valve.

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 Economizer
• Flue gases coming out of the boiler carry lot of heat.
• The function of economizer is to recover some of the heat
from the heat carried away in the flue gases up the flue gas
stack and utilize it for heating the feed water to the boiler.
• It is placed in the passage of flue gases in -between the exit
from the boiler and the entry to the chimney.
• The use of economizer results in saving in coal consumption ,
increase in steaming rate and high boiler efficiency but needs
extra investment and increase in maintenance costs and floor
area required for the plant. This is used in all modern plants.

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 Air pre-heater
• The remaining heat of flue gases is utilized by air pre-
heater.
• It is a device used in steam boilers to transfer heat from the
flue gases to the combustion air before the air enters the
furnace. Also known as air heater , air -heating system.
• It is kept at a place near by where the air enters in to the
boiler.
• The purpose of the air pre-heater is to recover the heat
from the flue gas from the boiler to improve boiler
efficiency by burning warm air which increases combustion
efficiency, and reducing useful heat lost from the flue.

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 Economizer and Air Pre-Heaters are Provided for Heat Recovery
• Boilers are provided with economizer and air pre- heaters to
recover heat from the flue gases.
• An increase of about 20 % in boiler efficiency is achieved by
providing both economizer and air pre -heaters.
• If a economizer alone is provided then the efficiency will
increase by 8 % only.
• Most of the high capacity boilers firing coal operate with an
efficiency of around 86 % on the Higher Heat Value basis.
• Loss of around 14 % can be attributed to various losses of
which the dry gas loss is about 35 % of the total.
• When both economizers and air pre -heaters are not provided
the boiler efficiency drops to around 66 % from 86 %.
• When air pre-heater is not provided the boiler efficiency will
be around 74 % only. Thus we can conserve about 20 % extra
fuel when we provide both economizers and air pre-heaters in
boilers.
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 Deaerator
• is a device that is widely used for the removal of air and other
dissolved gases from the feed-water to steam - generating
boilers .
• In particular, dissolved oxygen in boiler feed-waters will cause
serious corrosion damage in steam systems by attaching to the
walls of metal piping and other metallic equipment and forming
oxides (rust).
• Water also combines with any dissolved Carbondioxide to form
carbonic acid that causes further corrosion.
• Most deaerators are designed to remove oxygen down to levels
of 7 ppb by weight(0. 0005cm³/L) or less.
• There are two basic types
1. The tray- type
2. The spray - type

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 Flue gas stack (chimney)
• A chimney is a structure for venting hot flue gases or smoke
from a boiler, stove, furnace or fireplace to the outside
atmosphere .
• Chimneys are typically vertical, or as near as possible to
vertical, to ensure that the gases flow smoothly, drawing air
into the combustion in what is known as the stack, or
chimney, effect.
• The space inside a chimney is called a flue .
• Chimneys are tall to increase their draw of air for
combustion and to disperse pollutants in the flue gases over
a greater area so as to reduce the pollutant concentrations
in compliance with regulatory or other limits.

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 3. Steam Turbine
• The dry and super heated steam from super -heater is fed
to the turbine by means of a main valve.
• Due to the striking or reaction impact of the steam on the
blades of turbine it starts rotating i.e. heat energy is
converted to mechanical energy.
• After giving heat energy to the turbine the steam is
exhausted to a condenser which condenses the exhausted
steam by means of a cold water circulation.

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 4. Alternator
• The steam turbine is coupled to an alternator, the
alternator converts the mechanical energy into
electrical energy.
• The electrical output is transferred to the bus bars
through transformer, circuit breaker and isolators.

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 5. Feed Water

• The condensed water produced in the

condenser is used as feed water.
• some amount of water may be lost in the
cycle but it is compensated using an external
source and the cycle repeats and gives a
better efficiency to the system.

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 6. Cooling Arrangement
• In order to increase the efficiency of the plant the
steam coming from the turbine is condensed using a
condenser.
• The water circulation for cooling steam in condenser is
take from a natural source like river, stream etc and
the out coming hot water from condenser is discharged
in some lower portion of the water source.
• In scarcity of water the water from the condenser is
cooled and reused with the help of a cooling tower.

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 Flue gas treatment systems

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 Charts & diagrams
• There are quite number of charts & diagrams associated
with engineering science, all of which related in some
extent to steam tables or other related specific constants,
factors, or coefficients.
• However, the most widely related to power plant
engineering are the followings:
1. T –s diagram.
2. h -s diagram.
3. T -h diagram.
4. P-h diagram

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 1. T – S Diagram
• The entropy diagram for steam is often convenient because
it shows the relationship between
 Pressure
 Temperature
 Dryness Fraction
 Entropy
• With two of the factors given –
the others can be found in the
diagram. The ordinates in
the diagram represents the
Entropy and the Absolute
temperature.

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 Dryness fraction of Wet Steam
• If the water content of the steam is 5% by mass, then the steam is
said to be 95% dry and has a dryness fraction of 0.95.
• Dryness fraction can be expressed as:
x= ms/ ( mw+ ms)
where
• x =dryness fraction; mw= mass of water (kg); ms= mass of steam
(kg)
Enthalpy of Wet Steam
• The actual enthalpy of evaporation of wet steam is the product of
the dryness fraction(x) and the specific enthalpy(hs) from the steam
tables.
• Wet steam have lower usable heat energy than dry saturated steam.
ht= hsx +(1 - x) hw
where
• ht= enthalpy of wet steam (kJ/kg), hs= enthalpy of steam (kJ/kg)
• hw= enthalpy of saturated water or condensate (kJ/kg)
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 1. T – S Diagram

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 2. h – s diagram “Mollier diagrams”
• The (h – s) diagram is also called the Mollier diagram or Mollier
chart, named after Dr. Richard Mollier.
• The Mollier diagram is useful when analyzing the performance of
adiabatic steady-flow processes, such as flow in nozzles, diffusers,
turbines and compressors.

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 2. h – s diagram “Mollier diagrams”

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 End of Chapter Once

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