Advantages of Rankine Cycle over Carnot Cycle
Following are the advantages of Rankine cycle over Carnot cycle :
- A steam power plant on Carnot cycle cannot be practically built due to its inherent difficulties in carrying out the process of condensation and compression. While, a practical steam power plant on Rankine cycle can be easily developed since all processes involved can be carried out practically.
- A Carnot cycle cannot use superheated steam due to practical difficulty of heating the steam isothermally with expansion in the boiler. Whereas, no such difficulty is experienced in Rankine cycle.
- The work ratio is very high in Rankine cycle compared to Carnot cycle since the pump work (negative work) is very small compared to compression work in case of Carnot cycle.
- Steam rate (S.R.) for Rankine cycle is low compared to Carnot cycle.