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Last time we began our discussion on power plant inefficiencies and indentified a major contributor, the heat energy dispelled into the atmosphere through the turbine exhaust. Today we’ll see how a piece of equipment known as the condenser comes into play to deal with this problem. Let’s see how it works.
First, water from our plant’s water source, say a nearby lake, is siphoned into the condenser circulating pump, which delivers it to the condenser. This lake water path appears in yellow. You’ll notice that the lake water follows a circuitous path from the lake, through the condenser circulating pump, then the condenser tubes, until finally it is returned to the lake. Now the cool lake water, denoted by green arrows, is made to pass through the condenser’s many tubes, while steam from the turbine exhaust surrounds them. The tubes keep the lake water segregated from the cloud of steam surrounding them inside the condenser vessel. In other words, the lake water’s path is a closed system, never coming into direct physical contact with the surrounding steam. What’s happening inside our condenser is demonstrative of a fundamental principle of thermal engineering, that is, that hot will travel in the direction of cold. More specifically, within our condenser the heat energy in the steam cloud surrounding the condenser tubes will be attracted to the cool lake water contained within the tubes. This causes the heat energy contained within the steam to leave it, and get absorbed by the cool lake water flowing within the tubes. We’ll begin to find out how these dynamics influence what’s happening with our water-to-steam power plant cycle next time.
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Tags: coal power plant, coal power plant engineering, condenser, condenser circulating pump, condenser tubes, condenser vessel, cooling water, electric utility power plant training, expert witness, forensic engineer, heat energy, lake water, steam turbine, thermal engineering, turbine exhaust steam
