Basic Mechanical Engineering

Power Plants: Part-1

Dr. K B Rana
Department of Mechanical Engineering
RTU, Kota
 Power Plants
• Steam Power Plant
• Nuclear Power Plant
• Gas-Turbine Power Plant
• Diesel Power Plant
• Hydroelectric Power Plant
 Steam Power Plant

•The pulverized coal is fed into the boiler where the pulverized coal is burnt into the furnace
•Due to heat from the furnace, the water present in the boiler drum changes to the high pressure steam.
•From the boiler this high pressure steam is passed to the super heater where it is again heated up to its dryness.
•After that this super heated steam strikes the turbine blades with a high speed and the turbine blades starts
rotating to at high speed. Here the stored potential energy of the steam is gets converted into mechanical energy.
•A generator is coupled with the turbine rotor. As the turbine rotates, the generator also rotate with same speed
and mechanical energy of the turbine gets converted into electrical energy.
•Steam after hitting the turbines blades lost its most of the energy and leaves the turbine with low pressure steam.
•This low pressure steam enters into the condenser. Cold water circulates in the condenser from the cooling tower.
Here the low pressure wet steam is converted into water.
• After that condensed water with the feed water passed to the economiser where it gets
heated up by the economiser. And finally the feed water enters into the boiler by a feed
water pump to repeat the cycle.
• The burnt flue gases from the furnace passes through the super heater, economiser and air
pre-heater. This heat of the flue gases is used to heat the steam in the super heater to its
dryness, to heat feed water in the economiser before entering into the boiler and to heat air
form the atmosphere in the air pre-heater before it enters into the furnace.
• The ash from the furnace is transported to ash handling plant and finally to the ash storage.
For better understanding about Coal based steam power plant, watch the video: https
://youtu.be/e_CcrgKLyzc
The condenser used in steam power plant, is a heat exchanger where cooling
water flow through tubes and exhaust steam fed into the shell which surrounds
the water tubes. As a result, steam is condensed outside the tubes. To increase
the pressure and temperature of this condensate, it may be reused in the
boiler after removal of air and oxygen from it.
 PWR based Nuclear Power Plant
• It all starts with a thermal neutron striking the uranium pellet and starting the chain reaction,
with release of 3 new high energy neutrons as by-products of this exothermic reaction. These
neutrons strike another 3 uranium atoms, and this chain reaction keeps on increasing.

• In pressurized water reactor (PWR) based Nuclear power plant, heavy water is feed into the
high pressure vessel which absorbs the heat generated by the chain reaction. This water
doesn’t really boil as its being heated under high pressure. This is not the ordinary water that
is feed into high pressure vessel; it’s 10 times heavier than the ordinary water. The main
function of this water is to slow down the high energy neutrons to the level of thermal
neutron or to modify the speed of neutron, that’s why it is called moderator. When neutrons
travels in heavy water (deuterium oxide) it strikes with each and every molecule of heavy
water thus transferring its energy to moderator, and slows down to an optimum speed.
• In nuclear power plant, the chain reaction so started is controlled by the controls rods mainly boron or cadmium
rods. These rods absorb the extra neutrons thus stopping the chain reaction. Generally these rods are put in and
out of pressure vessel every 10 seconds, to control the power output according to the requirement or load at the
turbine.
• Heated water or moderator in the pressurized vessel is then pumped to the heat exchanger (Circulation of this
heated water in primary circuit is indicated by Yellow-red color in the given Figure). Keeping in mind moderator
cannot leave the circuit as it is radioactive so the water for the heat exchange is pumped from a water source (river)
and this water absorbs the heat of moderator and converts into highly pressurized steam (as shown in Secondary
circuit indicated by Blue color).
• This pressurized steam is first feed in a high pressure turbine which converts its pressure energy into mechanical
energy, but this steam still have enough pressure energy left in it to turn a low pressure turbine, so this combined
mechanical energy from both the turbines is used to turn the armature of a generator thus producing electricity.
• This electricity is then stepped-up to high voltage by step-up transformer, and transmitted to the nearest power grid
through transmission lines.

For better understanding about Nuclear power plant working, watch the video: https://youtu.be/_UwexvaCMWA
Ga s C o o le d R e act o r b ase d Nu cl e ar P o w e r P la n t

In this system, CO2 is employed as coolant and the heat carried by

the gas from the reactor is either used for feed water heating in
boiler or is directly used as the working fluid in the gas turbine.

Important components of Nuclear Reactor :

Control Rods: Control rods of materials like boron, cadmium are used to
absorb neutrons and control the rate of chain reaction. To initiate the
operation, the control rods can be lifted up.
Moderator: The speed of the neutrons are reduced by making these
neutrons collide with lighter nuclei of materials (moderator) like
graphite.
Reflector: Reflector of material like beryllium is used to reflect the
neutrons which are trying to escape from the reactor.
A Gas turbine power plant (GTPP) is a power
plant which uses gas turbine to produce Gas-Turbine Power Plant
electricity. Before understanding about the
working of the GTPP, we must have
understanding of its main parts as given below:
• Compressor: It is a mechanical device that is
used to compress the air to a high density. The
compressed air helps in the burning of the fuel.
The compressor and turbine have a common
shaft.
• Combustion Chamber: It is the chamber where
the burning of the fuel in the presence of the
air takes place.
• Gas Turbine: It consists of rotter blades. The
hot gases produced due to burning of the fuel
in the combustion chamber strikes on these
blades and it starts rotating.
• Generator / Alternator: Electric generator is coupled with the shaft of the gas turbine. It rotates with the
turbine shaft and produces electricity.
Working of GTTP:
• Compressor takes the air from atmosphere, pressurizes it, and feeds it to the combustion
chamber at very high speed, where the fuel is injected.
• The mixture is burned at temperatures of more than 2000 degrees F. The combustion
produces a high temperature, high pressure gas stream that passes through the turbine.
• The major portion of power developed in the turbine is used to drive the compressor and
remainder is available as the net power output.