Table of Contents

The Kalina cycle has been considered recently as an efficient alternative to the conventional steam Rankine cycle. Three different layouts of this cycle were studied in this work with ammonia-water as working pair. They were compared based on performance parameters such as energy and exergy efficiencies. A steady-state mathematical model was developed to further study these configurations for the production of 100 kW of net power. Then, a thermodynamic study was carried out, and a sensitivity analysis was conducted to evaluate the effect of several key parameters on the system performance. These parameters are the fraction of ammonia in the working fluid, the temperature of the generator, and its pressure. The sensitivity analysis showed that these parameters have a significant effect on system performance. It was found that cycle 3 has the highest efficiency. To further improve it, a novel configuration was proposed and investigated. The obtained results showed a significant increase in the Kalina cycle performance.

Keywords: Kalina cycle, KCS, thermodynamic, sensitivity analysis