142 Geothermal Power Plants: Principles, Applications, Case Studies and Environmental Impact

Adopting the Baumann rule to account for the degradation in performance of a wet
steam turbine, we find


1 1 x2
ηtw 5 ηtd 3 ð7:7Þ
2

where the dry turbine efficiency, ηtd, may conservatively be taken to be constant at 85%:
ηtd 5 0:850 ð7:8Þ
The thermodynamics properties at state 2 are determined by solving eq. (7.4) using
the turbine efficiency and the fluid properties at state 2s, the ideal turbine outlet state,
which are easily calculated from the known pressure and entropy values at state 2s.
The ideal enthalpy is found from


  s1 2 s3
h2s 5 h3 1 hg 2 h3 3 ð7:9Þ
sg 2 s3

where the entropy term gives the fluid outlet dryness fraction for an ideal turbine.
When the Baumann rule is incorporated into the calculation, the following working
equation emerges for the enthalpy at the actual turbine outlet state:


h3
h1 2 A 1 2
hg 2 h3
h2 5 ð7:10Þ
A
11
hg 2 h3
where the factor A is defined as
A  0:425 ðh1 2 h2s Þ ð7:11Þ
These equations assume that the turbine inlet steam is saturated. If the inlet is super-
heated (as often happens after a period of operation), then a more complex algorithm
must be followed. First, the portion of the expansion process that occurs in the super-
heated region is analyzed using the dry turbine expansion efficiency of 85%. Then
when the steam enters the wet region, the remaining expansion is analyzed using the
same equations given above.
The location of the state point where the expansion passes through the saturated
vapor curve is found by trial-and-error. The method for doing the calculation is out-
lined below with the aid of Fig. 7.12. Three isobars are shown: P1 is the inlet steam
pressure, P2 is the condenser pressure, and P4 is the pressure at which the expansion
enters the wet region (unknown). Since we assume that the dry turbine efficiency is
known and constant for the process from 1
4, we may write
h1 2 h4
ηd 5 ð7:12Þ
h1 2 h4s
Both h4 and h4s depend on P4 which is what we are trying to determine. The first step
is to guess a value for P4. Then h4 is found directly from Steam Tables, and h4s may be
calculated from