The Rankine cycle is a cycle that converts heat into work. The heat is supplied externally to a closed loop, which usually uses water. This cycle generates about 90% of all electric power used throughout the world, including virtually all solar thermal, biomass, coal and nuclear power plants. It is named after William John Macquorn Rankine, a Scottish polymath and Glasgow University professor. The Rankine cycle is the fundamental thermodynamic underpinning of the steam engine.
Read more about Rankine Cycle: Description, The Four Processes in The Rankine Cycle, Variables, Equations, Real Rankine Cycle (non-ideal), Variations of The Basic Rankine Cycle, Organic Rankine Cycle
Famous quotes containing the word cycle:
“The cycle of the machine is now coming to an end. Man has learned much in the hard discipline and the shrewd, unflinching grasp of practical possibilities that the machine has provided in the last three centuries: but we can no more continue to live in the world of the machine than we could live successfully on the barren surface of the moon.”
—Lewis Mumford (1895–1990)