5
Single-Flash Steam Power Plants 109

ordinate, initial pressure (in bar and 1bf/in2) on the abscissa, and final
pressure on a set of parametric curves.
(b) Repeat this problem using computerized property correlations on a computer.
5.2 Consider two alternative steam turbine designs for a single-flash geothermal
plant. Turbine A has four stages with moisture removal between stages. The
moisture is simply extracted after each row of moving blades and throttled to
the condenser. Thus, each stage sees saturated vapor at the leading edge.
Turbine B has no moisture removal and can be characterized by an overall
wet-turbine efficiency, ηtw (using the Baumann rule). Inlet conditions to both
machines are: 360 F, saturated vapor; condenser temperature is 120 F.
The 4-stage turbine A has its stages designed such that the temperature differ-
ences between successive stages are the same. Each stage i is described by its
own wet-turbine efficiency, ηtw(i). If the mass flow rate at turbine inlet is
1,000,000 lbm/h, compare the power developed by the two designs. What are
the implications of the results?
5.3 A single-flash geothermal steam plant receives geofluid from a reservoir having
a temperature of 240 C. The condenser temperature is 50 C. Neglect pressure
losses in surface pipelines. Use the Baumann rule for the turbine efficiency.
(a) Determine the specific work output (in kJ/kg of geofluid) if the separator
operates at 170 C.
(b) Write a computer program or spreadsheet to investigate the effect of sepa-
rator temperature on the specific work output. From your program, find
the optimum value of the separator temperature and pressure, as well as
the maximum specific work output. Compare your finding to the prediction
of the “equal-temperature-split” rule.
5.4 Your task is to analyze a single-flash plant. You must set it up for approxi-
mately optimum utilization efficiency. Use the “rule of thumb” given in this
chapter to find the optimum separator temperature. The turbine efficiency may
be found using the Baumann rule. The geofluid exists in the reservoir as a pres-
surized liquid at a temperature of T1 5 270 C and h1 5 1185 kJ/kg. The turbine
exhaust temperature is T5 5 50 C. The productivity curve for an average well is
given by
_ 5 100:23 22:339 3 1022 P 1 4:028 3 1025 P2 21:02 3 1027 P3
m
where P is the absolute wellhead pressure (kPa) and m _ is the total well flow
(kg/s).
(a) Calculate the power output of the turbine, W _ t in kW.
(b) Calculate the ratio of the heat rejected from the geofluid in the condenser,
Q_ 0 , to the power output of the turbine, W
_ t.

(c) Assuming a dead state at To 5 25 C, calculate the Second Law utilization
efficiency, ηu, based on: (i) wellhead conditions; (ii) reservoir conditions.