10th European Conference on Turbomachinery Fluid dynamics & Thermodynamics

Paper ID:

ETC2013-005

Main Topic:

Steam Turbines

Authors

T. Eberle, M. Schatz, J. Starzmann, M. Grübel - University of Stuttgart, Germany
M. Casey - PCA Engineers, Lincoln, United Kingdom

Abstract

The three stage low pressure model steam turbine at the Institute of Thermal Turbomachinery (ITSM) was used to study the impact of three different steam inlet temperatures on the homogeneous condensation process and the resulting wetness topology. The droplet spectrum as well as the particle number concentration was measured in front of the last stage using an optical-pneumatic probe. At design load, condensation starts inside the stator of the second stage. A change in the steam inlet temperature is able to shift the location of condensation onset within the blade row up- or downstream and even into adjoining blade passages, which leads to significantly different local droplet sizes and wetness fractions due to different local expansion rates. The measured results are compared to steady 3-D CFD calculations. The predicted nucleation zones could be largely confirmed by the measurements. Although the trend of measured and calculated droplet size across the span is satisfactory, there are considerable differences between the measured and computed droplet spectrum and wetness fractions.



ETC2013-005




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