Abstract
Today, the term “binary cycle” commonly refers to the organic fluid Rankine engines in geothermal systems, where a mass flow of geothermal brine is cooled in a recovery heat exchanger and the heat recovered is converted into electricity by means of an organic fluid engine (see Chap. 3, Sect. 3.6, and DiPippo [1]).
In general, though, the term “binary cycle” can cover any thermodynamic conversion system of heat into electricity with two different fluids involved in the process.
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- 1.
A good indicator of the thermodynamic quality of a cycle is the second-law efficiency, discussed in Exercise 1.2; see (1.22).
- 2.
The mercury vapours are extremely toxic, and the mercury does not wet the metal surfaces, creating major problems of heat exchange. The first mercury boilers were subject to tube plugging and failures, with massive corrosion of the tubes, made in low carbon steel, [2]. Water and air infiltration into the mercury circuits created further problems.
- 3.
A heterocyclic organic compound, also called dibenzofuran, \(\mathrm{C_{12}H_{8}O}\). With T cr = 550.85 ∘ C, P cr = 36.34 bar. With boiling temperature of 285.16 ∘ C and a melting point at 81–85 ∘ C.
- 4.
The power \(\dot{W}\) of the last stage of a turbine is, approximately, if calculating on a preset number of Mach, like \(\dot{W} =\dot{ m}\Delta H \propto \rho {D}^{2}v_{s}v_{s}^{2} \propto \left (P/T\right )\mathrm{M}{D}^{2}v_{s}^{3} \propto {D}^{2}\left (P/T\right )\mathrm{M}{\left (T/\mathrm{M}\right )}^{3/2}\), with D average diameter, ρ density of vapour, v s speed of sound, \(\Delta H\) enthalpy drop and M molecular weight. For the same average diameter and the same condensation temperature, the power is, therefore, approximately proportional to the ratio \(P/\sqrt{\mathrm{M}}\). For example, assuming T = 500 ∘ C, the power of the stage with rubidium would be approximately 1.7–1.8 times greater than that of the stage with potassium.
- 5.
In the case of steam turbines, stages have been designed with a tip diameter of 4.32 m at 3,000 rpm and stages with a tip diameter of 6.7 m at 1,500 rpm with h ∕ D ratios, height of blade with respect to average diameter, of 0.39 and 0.37, respectively.
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Invernizzi, C.M. (2013). The Binary Cycles. In: Closed Power Cycles. Lecture Notes in Energy, vol 11. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-5140-1_5
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