Energy 64 (2014) 389e397

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Energy
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Performance research on modified KCS (Kalina cycle system) 11

without throttle valve
Jiacheng He a, Chao Liu a, *, Xiaoxiao Xu a, Yourong Li a, Shuangying Wu a, Jinliang Xu b
a
Key Laboratory of Low-grade Energy Utilization Technologies and Systems of Ministry of Education, College of Power Engineering, Chongqing University,
Chongqing 400030, China
b
Renewable Energy School, North China Electric Power University, Beijing 102206, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Two modified systems based on a KCS (Kalina cycle system) 11 with a two-phase expander to substitute a
Received 29 April 2013 throttle valve are proposed. The two-phase expander is located between the regenerator and the
Received in revised form absorber in the B-modified cycle and between the separator and the regenerator in the C-modified cycle.
16 October 2013
A thermodynamic performance analysis of both the original KCS 11 and the modified systems is carried
Accepted 18 October 2013
Available online 15 November 2013
out. The optimization of two key parameters (the concentration of working fluid and the temperature of
cooling water) is also conducted. It is shown that the two modified cycles have different performance
under the investigated conditions. Results also indicate that the C-modified cycle can obtain better
Keywords:
Kalina cycle system
thermodynamic effect than the B-modified cycle. The temperature of cooling water plays an important
Two-phase expander role in improving the system performance. When the cooling water temperature drops from 303 K to
Optimization 278 K, the C-modified cycle thermal efficiency can be improved by 27%.
Working fluid concentration Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Cooling water temperature

1. Introduction resource to generate electricity. According to the different tem-

With the rapid development of economy and society, the energy
shortage becomes a worldwide critical issue. To meet the severe
energy challenge, reclaiming the low-grade waste heat is impor-
tant. However, the use of conventional steam power cycles to
recover low-grade waste heat, such as exhaust gas from engines
and waste heat from industrial process is economically infeasible
[1]. The ORC (Organic Rankine Cycle) has the potential to use not
only low-grade waste heat but also renewable energy sources, such
as geothermal energy and solar energy [2e4].
Recently, more and more researches have been done on the
choice of working fluids and the performance analysis of ORC. The
influences of key system parameters such as the evaporation
pressure, evaporation temperature and condensation temperature
in ORC have been studied in detail [5,6]. However the constant
evaporation temperature of pure working fluid leads to great irre-
versible loss of evaporation process in ORC.
Kalina cycle system, which was proposed by Kalina [7e9] in
1980s, is a series of power cycles using the ammonia-water mix-
tures as a working fluid for the low to medium temperature heat
* Corresponding author. Tel./fax: þ86 023 65112469.
E-mail address: liuchao@cqu.edu.cn (C. Liu).
perature ranges of heat sources, Kalina cycle system can be divided
into Kalina cycle system 5 (KCS (Kalina cycle system) 5) for direct-
fired power plant, Kalina cycle system 6 (KCS 6) for a gas turbine
based combined cycle, Kalina cycle system 11 (KCS 11) for
geothermal temperatures from about 121to 204
C and Kalina cycle
system 34 (KCS 34) which is suitable for temperatures below 121
C
[10,11]. El-Sayed and Tribus [12] firstly analyzed the simplified
Kalina cycle in detail and made a theoretical comparison of the
Kalina cycle with the Rankine cycle. Comparing to ORC, the variable
evaporation temperature of working fluid NH3eH2O in the evapo-
rator matches well with the heat release process of the heat source
and Kalina cycle can markedly reduce the irreversible losses in the
evaporation process [13].
In order to meet the increasing demands for low temperature
heat resources, KCS 11 and KCS 34 are being studied intensively.
In 2002, a geothermal power plant based on KCS 34 was built to
supply the electricity for a town in Iceland [14]. Nasruddin et al.
[10] found that the maximum efficiency and power output of KCS
34 are achieved at 78% ammoniaewater mixture in Indonesia
environment conditions instead of 82% in Iceland. Hettiarachchi
et al. [15] defined five parameters to study the performance of
KCS 11, and concluded that KCS 11 has better performance than
one of ORC at moderate pressures. Arslan [16] used an artificial
neural network to make a decision for the optimum working

0360-5442/$ e see front matter Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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390 J. He et al. / Energy 64 (2014) 389e397

Nomenclature Abs absorber

bio boiler
c specific heat at constant pressure (kJ$(kg K)1) c cooling water
E exergy (kJ) con condensor
h specific enthalpy (kJ kg1) ex exergy analysis
I thermodynamic irreversibility (kJ) fir first-law analysis
m mass flow rate (kg s1) h heat sources
p pressure (MPa) in heat input
Q heat transfer rate (kW) me mean temperature of heat source during the heat
S entropy (kJ K1) transfer
T temperature (K) mccal log mean temperature difference of condensor
W power output (kW) mecal log mean temperature difference of boiler
x working fluid concentration mrcal log mean temperature difference of regenerator
out heat output
Greek letters pum pump
D differential reg regenerator
h efficiency (%) sep seperator
thr throttle valve
Subscripts Tur, A A turbine
0 state of the environment Tur, B B turbine
1e14 states of the system wf working fluid in the boiler

conditioned of a KCS 34, which generates electricity from the
geothermal heat.
In recent years, the concept of combined power or power and
cooling cycles based on Kalina cycles have gained much attention in
order to achieve higher efficiency of cycle. Ikegami and Jia [17]
studied a Kalina solar system with an auxiliary superheater and
results showed that the Kalina solar cycle provides an effective and
efficient way to improve feasibility of the solar energy system.
Goswami and Xu [18,19] put forward a combined power and
cooling cycle based on Kalina cycle. The effect of evaporation
pressures, ammonia concentrations and isentropic turbine effi-
ciencies on the performance of Kalina cycle were discussed in
detailed. However, the cooling effect is much smaller than the
power produced in this combined system [20].
Zheng et al. [21] proposed a new combined power and cooling
cycle based on Kalina cycle. The overall thermal and exergy effi-
ciency of this new cycle were 24.2% and 37.3% respectively. A novel
ammoniaewater cycle was proposed for combined power and
cooling [22]. This system had a great reduction in energy con-
sumption amount compared with the conventional system. Not all
modified systems are desirable on thermodynamic effect. Bog-
hossian [23] investigated a dual-temperature geothermal-solar
Kalina hybrid cycle which displays no thermodynamic benefits.
Specially, this hybrid plant produces 29% less net power than one of
the combined single-energy mode plants.
The above mentioned researches focus either on the perfor-
mance analysis of the Kalina-based cycles, or on the introduction
of a novel system after modifying Kalina cycle. The poor-
ammonia-mass-fraction loop of KCS 11 is scarcely considered
even though it is significant for improving the cycle efficiency.
The throttling process causes the loss of exergy in poor-
ammonia-mass-fraction loop of KCS 11, which results in the ef-
ficiency of system decreased. Therefore, Li et al. [24] proposed a
Kalina cycle (KCS 11) with ejector to recover this exergy from the
throttling process.
Two-phase expander is one of various creative equipments to
recover the expansion work during the throttling process. In recent
years, Smith has engaged in developing high efficient two-phase
expander to either recover the power from low temperature sen-
sible heat sources or replace the throttle valve in a refrigeration
system [25]. The efficiency of the two-phase expander using in a
TFC (Trilateral Flash Cycle) exceeds 75% [26].
Because the technology of the two-phase expander is feasible
[27], and the cost rates of the expander is not very high in the
recover system of waste heat [28e30], two modified system with
two-phase expander in the poor ammonia mass fraction loop based
on KCS 11 to recover the expansion work are proposed in order to
increase the power output and the efficiency of the KCS 11 cycle.
The performance of proposed modified cycles is compared with
that of KCS 11. Further, the optimization of cooling water temper-
ature and ammonia fraction is also conducted.
2. System description, analysis and method
2.1. System description
In order to identify the most effective layout of the two-phase
expander, two types of arrangements, namely the B-modified cy-
cle and the C-modified cycle, are proposed. Combined with KCS 11,
there are three cases studied in detail in this research. The three
studied cases are illustrated as follows: KCS 11: The KCS 11 with a
throttling valve.
B-modified cycle: The modified KCS 11 with a two-phase
expander. The two-phase expander is located between the regen-
erator and the absorber.
C-modified cycle: The modified KCS 11 with a two-phase
expander. The two-phase expander is located between the sepa-
rator and the regenerator.
The schematic diagram of KCS 11 is shown in Fig. 1. The poor
ammoniaewater liquid (3) is throttled to the condensing pressure
state (6) after being regenerated, and then absorbs the rich
ammonia-water exhaust (4) in the absorber. The condensed
mixture working fluid (8) is pumped to the evaporator, and then
heated into wet vapor (1). Meanwhile, the wet vapor is separated
into poor ammoniaewater saturated liquid (3) and rich ammonia-
water saturated vapor (2). This working process is also demon-
strated on h-x diagram in Fig. 3.
The two proposed cycles are shown in Fig. 2. A throttle valve is
replaced with a two-phase expander.
 J. He et al. / Energy 64 (2014) 389e397 391

Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of the Kalina cycle system 11.

Fig. 3. Enthalpy-ammonia mass fraction diagram of the Kalina cycle system 11.
2.2. General assumptions

The following assumptions are used: W ¼ m  ðh5  h3 Þ (1)

This relation can be graphically illustrated on the hex diagram
1. There is no heat loss in the systems and no pressure drop in the in Fig. 3.
pipes and the heat exchangers. The lengths of these line segments in the vertical direction
2. The effectiveness of the regenerator in the B-modified cycle is represent the amount of energy exchanged in the system qualita-
equal to its counterpart in KCS 11 [27]. tively. Geometrically, the heat (exergy) exchanged in the regener-
3. The isentropic efficiency of the two-phase expander is same in ator of poor ammoniaewater saturated liquid is still considerable,
the B-modified cycle and the C-modified cycle. which shows as the line 3e5.
4. The exergy loss of the cooling water is neglected [31].
5. The maximum pressure of the system is maintained within 2.4. Calculation model
3 MPa according to engineering experience [17].
The relation of the heat balance of each component in these
cycles is set up. And then the thermodynamic quantitative analysis
2.3. Analysis of the expansion work
of the system can be discussed.
In order to get a brief understanding of the role of two-phase
2.4.1. First law analysis
expander in KCS 11, a qualitative analysis of the energy-saving
The heat input of the system.
potentiality is carried out.
Take the C-modified cycle for example, the work output of the
Qin ¼ mh  ch  ðT11  T12 Þ (2)
two-phase turbine can be expressed as

Fig. 2. Two modified cycles based on the Kalina cycle system 11.
392 J. He et al. / Energy 64 (2014) 389e397

In this paper, the hot air is considered as the heat source. The Table 1
heat input of the system is constant since the inlet and outlet Initial condition for the simulation [32e34].

temperature of the heat source flow are fixed. mh (kg s1) 1

The amount of the heat exchanges in the condenser and the T11 (K) 400
regenerator. T12 (K) 353
mc (K) 1
T13 (K) 290
Qcon ¼ mwf  ðh7  h8 Þ (3) T0 (K) 300
DTme (K) 30
Qreg ¼ mwf  ðh10  h9 Þ (4) DTcon (K) 5
hTur,A (%) 80
Turbine work hTur,B (%) 75
hpum (%) 80

WTur;A ¼ m2  ðh2  h4 Þ (5) In the study, the air is used to simulate as waste
heat source.
For the B-modified cycle:

WTur;B ¼ m3  ðh5  h6 Þ (6) The total exergy losses in the system are the sum of all the
components’ exergy loss.
For the C-modified cycle:
X
I ¼ Ii ¼ Ibio þ Isep þ Ireg þ Ithr þ ITur;A þ ITur;B þ IAbs
WTur;B ¼ m3  ðh3  h5 Þ (7) (19)
þ Icon þ Ipum
Wpum ¼ mwf  ðh9  h8 Þ (8) The exergy of the heat source in the inlet and outlet of the
evaporator is listed as follows, respectively.
W ¼ WTur;A þ WTur;B  Wpum (9)
 
Ein ¼ mh  ch  T11  T0  T0  ln T11=T (20)
The efficiency of cycle is defined on the basis of the first law of 0
thermodynamics as the ratio of output energy of the cycle to the
input energy.
 
Eout ¼ mh  ch  T12  T0  T0  ln T12=T (21)
0
hfir ¼ W=Q (10)
in
The second law efficiency can be defined as the ratio of the
exergy output to the exergy input. The exergy output depends on
2.4.2. Exergy analysis
the degree of irreversibility of the cycle. Therefore,
The exergy losses due to thermodynamic irreversibility in each
component are calculated for the specified dead state. Let p0, T0 are hex ¼ W=E (22)
the pressure and the temperature of the environment. The exergy in
loss of each component in KCS 11 is given below: The LMTD (logarithmic mean temperature difference) of three
The exergy loss in the evaporator kinds of the heat exchangers which are the evaporator, the regen-

 erator and the condenser, are calculated.
Ibio ¼ T0  mwf  ðs1  s10 Þ  Qin=T (11)  
me
DTmecal ¼ ½ðT12  T10 Þ  ðT11  T1 Þ=ln T12  T10=T  T1
11
The exergy loss in the separator
(23)
Isep ¼ T0  ½m2  ðs2  s1 Þ þ m3  ðs3  s1 Þ (12)
 
The exergy loss in the regenerator DTmccal ¼ ½ðT7  T14 Þ  ðT8  T13 Þ=ln T7  T14=T  T
8 13
h i
Ireg ¼ T0  m3  ðs5  s3 Þ þ mwf  ðs10  s9 Þ (13) (24)
 
The exergy loss in the throttle valve
DTmrcal ¼ ½ðT3  T10 Þ  ðT5  T9 Þ=ln T3  T10=T  T (25)
5 9
Ithr ¼ T0  m3  ðs6  s5 Þ (14)
The exergy loss in A turbine. 2.5. Calculation method

ITur;A ¼ T0  m2  ðs4  s2 Þ (15) The thermodynamic properties of working fluid and the system
performance are evaluated with EES (Engineering Equation Solver).
The exergy loss in the absorber
Initial condition for the simulation is shown in Table 1.
IAbs ¼ T0  ½m2  ðs7  s4 Þ þ m3  ðs7  s6 Þ (16)
3. Results and discussion
The exergy loss in the condenser
3.1. Parameters sensitivity analysis
Icon ¼ mwf  ½ðh7  h8 Þ þ T0  ðs7  s8 Þ (17)
The exergy loss in the pump Neglecting the pressure drops in the heat exchangers and the
absorber as well as the pipes, there are two independent pressure
Ipum ¼ T0  mwf  ðs9  s8 Þ (18) values in KCS 11: the pressure of working fluid before the turbine
 J. He et al. / Energy 64 (2014) 389e397 393

Fig. 4. The work output and thermal efficiency with concentration of working fluid.

Fig. 5. Work output of turbine A with concentration of working fluid.

394 J. He et al. / Energy 64 (2014) 389e397
(p2) and after it (p4). Both of them are the key parameters of the
system. Besides, the temperature of working fluid at the separator
(T1), ammonia mass fraction at the evaporator (x1) and the tem-
perature of working fluid before the turbine (T2) also influence the
performance of the system at a great extent.
For KCS 11, p4 is a dependent parameter on the cooling condi-
tion. Therefore, it is not an independent variable under a given
cooling condition and ammonia fraction x1 of the system. Mean-
while, the separator temperature T1 is equal to the inlet tempera-
ture of the turbine T2 for all investigated cases. Then there are two
independent variables in all the three cases, namely, x1 and p2.
Therefore, the effects of the two parameters on the performance of
the system are discussed.
Fig. 4 shows the relation of network output and the thermal
efficiency in three kinds of systems with concentration of working
fluid for different p2. Because the heat input keeps constant, both
the work output and thermal efficiency in three systems can be
expressed by the same group of curves. Ever though both the
proposed cycles intend to recovery the expansion work of the poor-
ammonia-mass-fraction loop, the performance of them seems to be
distinct. The work output (thermal efficiency) of C-modified cycle is
greater than that of KCS 11; on the other hand, for B-modified cycle,
the work output (thermal efficiency) is a little lower than that of
KCS 11 at the same valid range of concentrations. For C-modified
cycle, work output (thermal efficiency) is 9.39% (1.5 MPa) higher at
most than that of KCS 11, whereas B-modified cycle is 3.65% lower
than KCS 11. It can be explained that the enthalpy carried by poor-
ammonia-mass-fraction loop in B-modified cycle is mostly trans-
ferred to the other loop during the regeneration process. As x1 in-
creases, the differences of work output (thermal efficiency) are
getting smaller at all four calculating pressures. This shows that it’s
Fig. 6. Work output of turbine B with concentration of working fluid.
beneficial to keep low ammonia mass fraction for C-modified cycle.
At 1.5 and 2.0 MPa, an extreme point occurs for the concentration of
0.51 and 0.61 (x1), respectively. As the pressure increases, the
performance curves will flatten out and no extreme points appear.
Besides, the valid ranges of working fluid concentration are
enlarged when using the B-modified cycle for all pressures. Spe-
cifically, the mass fraction of working fluid could be as low as 0.5
(x1) for 2.0 MPa (p2) in B-modified cycle, while it is as high as 0.7
(x1) both in KCS 11 and C-modified cycle. So this will result in a
better design-off performance acquired by the B-modified cycle.
Fig. 5 shows the work output of the turbine A of three cases.
When the turbine inlet pressures are 1.5 and 2.0 MPa, the work
done by turbine A of C-modified cycle is narrowly lower than that of
KCS 11 at the same working fluid concentration ranges, while the
turbine work of B-modified cycle is much lower than that of KCS 11.
For example, the work of C-modified cycle is 0.73% lower than that
of KCS 11 at 0.61 (x1), compared with 6.28% of B-modified cycle. The
work of the turbine A in B-modified cycle experiences a peak at 0.51
and 0.61 (x1), respectively. As x1 increases, this curve becomes
flatter and the peaks will disappear. Besides, the difference of these
curves reduces with the increasing of ammonia mass fraction.
Fig. 6 demonstrates the work output of turbine B of proposed
cycles. The work output done by turbine B of both B and C-modified
cycle will decrease with increasing x1. The work output of C-
modified cycle is 4e6 times higher than that of B-modified cycle at
the same ranges of working fluid concentration.
Except for the low working fluid concentration of the C-modi-
fied cycle, the work output of the turbine A is much higher than
that of the turbine B at remained ranges of ammonia mass fraction.
Fig. 7 shows the relation between power consumption of the
pump and working fluid concentration. When x1 increases for
 J. He et al. / Energy 64 (2014) 389e397 395

Fig. 7. Power consumption of the pump with concentration of working fluid.

Fig. 8. Exergy efficiency with concentration of working fluid.

396 J. He et al. / Energy 64 (2014) 389e397

Fig. 9. Phase diagram for ammonia-water mixture at given pressures Ref. [35].

Table 2
The optimization results of KCS 11, B and C modified cycle with working fluid concentration as variable.

X1 W (kW) h1 (%) hex (%)

KCS 11 B cycle C cycle KCS 11 B cycle C cycle KCS 11 B cycle C cycle KCS 11 B cycle C cycle

1.5 MPa 0.59 0.51 0.61 3.76 3.88 4.00 7.97 8.22 8.48 39.40 40.65 41.97
2.0 MPa 0.69 0.62 0.69 3.99 4.03 4.34 8.46 8.53 9.20 41.87 42.22 45.52
2.5 MPa 0.81 0.74 0.79 4.34 4.35 4.57 9.19 9.22 9.69 45.47 45.62 47.92
3.0 MPa 0.92 0.91 0.87 4.83 4.83 4.96 10.23 10.24 10.51 50.61 50.65 52.00

given pressures, mass flow rate of working fluid goes down and the
power consumption of the pump in all three cases will decrease. As
p2 increases, power consumption of the pump also increases. For
example, power consumption of the pump is 0.041 kW at 1.5 MPa
(p2) and 0.89 (x1) in C-modified cycle, compared with 0.168 kW at
3.0 MPa (p2) and 0.89 (x1). For the same ranges of working fluid
concentration, the power consumption of the pump in both pro-
posed cycles is lower than that of KCS 11; the consumption work of
pump in B-modified cycle is 27.5% lower than that of KCS 11,
compared with 4.5% lower in C-modified cycle.
Fig. 8 shows the exergy efficiency of three cases. The curves
exhibit similar trend compared with thermal efficiency due to the
constant heat input of heat source. Although thermal efficiency of
system is relatively low, exergy efficiency is considerably higher.
For example, the maximum exergy efficiency of system is 51.86% at
3.0 MPa (p2) for C-modified cycle.
To summarize, both the energy and exergy analysis of system
show that C-modified cycle is more advisable than B-modified cycle
according to thermodynamics viewpoint. It can be seen that it’s
better to maintain the working fluid concentration relatively low of
their common ranges for proposed cycles. It can be explained by the
temperature characteristic, namely the viable evaporation tem-
perature of NH3H2O.
The temperature glide of NH3H2O changes with the working
fluid mass fraction, as shown in Fig. 9. For medium mass fraction,
the difference between bubble and dew point temperature appears
to be the greatest， which leads to the optimum working condi-
tions obtained at such ammonia content.
3.2. Optimization of the systems
Except for the parameters sensitivity analysis, the concentration
of working fluid and the temperature of the cooling water are
discussed to obtain the optimum performance of system. The
quadratic approximation method supplied by EES is used in the
numerical simulation process. The results are shown in Table 2 and
Table 3, respectively. The optimum point is different in simulation
cases. For 2.5 MPa (p2), KCS 11 yields maximum cycle efficiency at
0.81 (x1), versus 0.74 and 0.79 (x1) for B and C modified cycle
respectively. As p2 goes up, the optimum x1 also increases to result
the non-constant evaporation temperature. Results also show that
C-modified cycle has superior productivity and performance. For
2.0 MPa (p2), the thermal efficiency and exergy efficiency of C-
modified cycle is 8.77% and 8.72% greater than their counterparts of
A cycle, respectively.
For a power cycle, such as the ORC, the properties (pressure and
temperature) of working fluid at the condenser outlet are usually
determined by cooling conditions. A lower temperature of cooling
water can yield a lower condensation pressure of working fluid, and
further leads to a higher thermal efficiency. However, for simplified

Table 3
The optimization results of KCS 11, B and C modified cycle with temperature of the cooling water as variable.

T13 (K) W (kW) h1 (%) hex (%)

KCS 11 B cycle C cycle KCS 11 B cycle C cycle KCS 11 B cycle C cycle KCS 11 B cycle C cycle

1.5 MPa 278 278 278 4.82 4.77 5.19 10.21 10.11 10.99 50.50 50.01 54.40
2.0 MPa 278 278 278 5.08 4.98 5.51 10.77 10.55 11.68 53.26 52.19 57.77
2.5 MPa 278 278 278 5.48 5.38 5.75 11.61 11.41 12.18 57.44 56.43 60.25
3.0 MPa 278 278 278 6.01 6.00 6.14 12.73 12.72 13.00 63.00 62.88 64.32
 J. He et al. / Energy 64 (2014) 389e397
Kalina cycle which is designed for a heat source of 500
C or above,
the optimum working condition (maximum thermal efficiency)
doesn’t appears at the lowest cooling water temperature [36].It
might be explained by the adding degree of freedom, i.e. x1,
compared with ORC. Therefore, the optimization of the tempera-
ture of cooling water is conducted in this study.
The inlet temperature of cooling water is limited within the
range of 278 K to 303 K. The results are illustrated in Table 3. Note
that the above optimized working fluid concentration is adopted
during the optimization process of the cooling water tempera-
ture. Different from the simplified Kalina cycle, the optimum
performance of the two modified cases and KCS 11 system appear
at the lowest investigated temperature even though there is an
additional degree of freedom. The general system performance,
including the work output (W), thermal efficiency (h1) and
exergy efficiency (hex), has improved considerably when the
cold cooling water of 278 K is available. For 2.0 MPa (p2),
the performance of system in the C-modified cycle will go up
to 27% when the cold cooling water (278 K) is available as
compared with the cold cooling water (303 K). The use of low-
temperature cooling water makes a great difference in opti-
mizing the systems.
4. Conclusions
In order to make full use of the low-grade heat source, a two-
phase expander to substitute the throttle valve is introduced into
the KCS (Kalina cycle system) 11. Three different cases are analyzed
when the initial temperature of heat source is 400 K. In addition,
both working fluid concentration and cooling water temperature
are optimized by using the quadratic approximation method. The
main conclusions are made as follows:
(1) The simulation results illustrate that W, h1 and hex of the C-
modified cycle is higher than that of the KCS 11 in the
calculation conditions in this paper. For the given pressures
(p2), namely 1.5, 2.0, 2.5 and 3.0 MPa, the maximum increase
of work output by the C-modified cycle compared with the
KCS 11 are 9.39%, 8.72%, 3.71% and 2.07%, respectively.
(2) For the B-modified cycle, there is not any thermodynamic
advantage compared with the KCS 11. However, rather larger
ranges of ammonia content can be achieved when the B-
modified cycle is used. This can offer a better off-design
performance during the actual operation.
(3) The low-temperature cooling water plays an important role
in improving the system performance. The system perfor-
mance of the C-modified cycle for 2.0 MPa (p2) will go up to
27% when the cold cooling water (278 K) is available as
compared with the cold cooling water (303 K).
Acknowledgments
The authors acknowledge support from National Basic Research
Program of China (Grant No. 2011CB710701, 973 Program) and the
Natural Science Foundation of China of International Cooperation
Project under Grant No. 51210011.
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