11 Facts About Rankine cycle

Rankine cycle is an idealized thermodynamic cycle describing the process by which certain heat engines, such as steam turbines or reciprocating steam engines, allow mechanical work to be extracted from a fluid as it moves between a heat source and heat sink.

The Rankine cycle is named after William John Macquorn Rankine, a Scottish polymath professor at Glasgow University.

Rankine cycle closely describes the process by which steam engines commonly found in thermal power generation plants harness the thermal energy of a fuel or other heat source to generate electricity.

Efficiency of the Rankine cycle is limited by the high heat of vaporization of the working fluid.

The Rankine cycle shown here prevents the state of the working fluid from ending up in the superheated vapor region after the expansion in the turbine, which reduces the energy removed by the condensers.

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Purpose of a reheating Rankine cycle is to remove the moisture carried by the steam at the final stages of the expansion process.

The reheat Rankine cycle was first introduced in the 1920s, but was not operational for long due to technical difficulties.

Regenerative Rankine cycle is so named because after emerging from the condenser the working fluid is heated by steam tapped from the hot portion of the cycle.

Organic Rankine cycle uses an organic fluid such as n-pentane or toluene in place of water and steam.

The efficiency of the Rankine cycle is much lower as a result of the lower temperature range, but this can be worthwhile because of the lower cost involved in gathering heat at this lower temperature.

Rankine cycle applied using a supercritical fluid combines the concepts of heat regeneration and supercritical Rankine cycle into a unified process called the regenerative supercritical cycle .