The project in five facts.
Challenge, approach and results.
Companies operating in the energy segment of electricity generation and thermal energy utilisation focus on ensuring the highest possible efficiency and returns on invested energy. They strive to develop equipment with the best possible efficiency, whilst constructing new and improved components. Consequently, achieving greater efficiency of invested energy in the conversion of thermal energy into mechanical energy is the core finding of this diploma thesis. Subsequently, mechanical energy becomes the drive for an electricity generator as the product.
Problem
Companies operating in the energy segment of electricity generation and thermal energy utilisation focus on ensuring the highest possible efficiency and returns on invested energy.
Solution and Method
They strive to develop equipment with the best possible efficiency, whilst constructing new and improved components.
Results
Consequently, achieving greater efficiency of invested energy in the conversion of thermal energy into mechanical energy is the core finding of this diploma thesis. Subsequently, mechanical energy becomes the drive for an electricity generator as the product. The diploma thesis presents the theory of thermal energy utilisation through the use of steam as a medium that drives the steam turbine and its conversion into mechanical energy.
The essence of the thesis is the presentation of a project implemented at a cellulose plant in Italy, where the author acted as project manager for the supplier of the turbo-generator installation. The turbo-generator equipment is part of a combined cycle electricity generation system, whereby the client also replaced the gas turbine, whose exhaust system is used as a steam generator using a heat exchange system to drive the steam turbine, thereby achieving higher efficiency of the entire power plant. The equipment implemented in the production plant comprises a turbo-generator installation using a reaction or impulse type steam turbine as the drive.
Reaction turbines use stator nozzle technology to transfer rotational force to the rotor part of the turbine. Due to the high rotor speeds, the construction is designed in drum form to satisfy the demanding limit values for rotor circumferential velocity at speeds exceeding 10,000 revolutions per minute. The electrical generator has a rated speed of 1,500 revolutions per minute.
For this purpose, a drive is used which transfers torque and power from the steam turbine shaft to the electrical generator shaft with very minimal losses. The implementation of the turbo-generator installation upgrade provides the client with greater efficiency of invested energy and consequently greater value of the final product, which in their case is electrical energy for powering energy-intensive equipment in the paper mill or cellulose production plant, whereby both the electrical energy and the steam from the installation are utilised. The outlet steam from the turbine has a pressure of 4.0 bar and is used in the subsequent (Tomšič, 2010) plant process in the manufacture of the final paper product.
Module, programme and stories.
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