Thermal Power Plants Advanced Applications

Thermal power plants are one of the most important process industries for engineering professionals. Over the past decades, the power sector is facing a number of critical issues; however, the most fundamental challenge is meeting the growing power demand in sustainable and efficient ways. Practicing power plant engineers not only look after operation and maintenance of the plant, but, also look after range of activities including research and development, starting from power generation to environmental aspects of power plants. A Thermal power plant is a power plant where steam is used to drive a steam turbine. This turbine is connected to an electrical generator. After this, the water is condensed, and may be used again. This is known as the Rankine cycle. There are different procedures that can be used to heat the water; this gives different types of thermal power plants. The theory of thermal power station or working of thermal power station is very simple. A power generation plant mainly consists of alternator runs with help of steam turbine. The steam is obtained from high pressure boilers. This book deals with various aspects of a thermal power plant, providing a new dimension to the subject, with focus on operating practices and troubleshooting, as well as technology and design. The book presents reliability-based tools used to define performance of complex systems and introduces the basic concepts of reliability, maintainability and risk analysis aiming at their application as tools for power plant performance. The book is valuable for both undergraduate and research higher degree students, and of course for practicing power plant engineers.