Thermodynamics II Semester Design Project

Excel Program (http://crown.utpa.edu/thermo2/project/)

Due Date: Thursday February 16th at 2:35pm

Description : Design a practical and efficient steam power plant.  You must work in groups of 3 to 4 students.  The power plant may have several turbine stages, open and closed feedwater heaters, reheat, etc. The analysis will be based on the ideal Rankine cycle where pump and turbine irreversibilities are accounted for by the use of isentropic efficiencies (use 90% for all turbines and pumps).  Your analysis must use of a computer program that calculates thermodynamic properties at each state in the cycle. You must determine the efficiency of your power plant using the program and demonstrate that you have optimized your design.  You must turn in your program which allows the user to easily change design parameters and recalculate efficiency and a report that explains your design, the computer program, and the optimization process that you followed.  Your report must also include an appendix with sample hand calculations for a sample power plant used to verify the program output.

Grading: 10% of your final grade will be based on the design project.

1.      A five page project report  (not including appendices of excel printout and hand calculations) describing the design project and your final optimal design.  The report must include a clear description of the design process (how you arrived at your design and what variables were considered).  You must show a minimum of three designs (not including the sample power plant below) with at least five runs for each design that show optimization of design parameters.  Your report must discuss the impact of cost and feasibility on your design (maximum of 7 turbine stages, maximum temperature of 600 oC, and minimum pressure of 8.0 kPa).

2.      An Excel program showing the results of the sample power plant design given below and your optimum power plant design.  You grade will be based on the accuracy of the program (correctly using the WATER function) and the presentation of the calculations (how easy it is to follow the calculations).

3.       Hand calculations for the sample power plant design shown below with comparisons made to the results from the Excel program.  The calculations must show verification of calculated properties, work and heat transfer for individual components, and overall efficiency.

 

Sample Power Plant: