Turbines, Steam
ENRICO SCIUBBA
University of Roma 1 ‘‘La Sapienza’’
Rome, Italy
1. Some Basic Concepts
2. Energy Transfer in a Turbine
3. Outline of a General Procedure for Preliminary Steam
Turbine Design
4. Off-Design Considerations
5. Conclusions
Glossary
back-pressure turbine A steam turbine that discharges
the steam (usually at p41 bar) into a pressurized
system.
condensing turbine A steam turbine at whose exit the
steam is condensed in an air- or water-cooled condenser;
the pressure in the condenser (and at the turbine exit) is
usually less than 1 bar.
degree of reaction (Rq) Ratio of the static enthalpy drop in
the rotor to the total enthalpy drop in the stage.
dimensional analysis A mathematical theory that derives
dimensionless groups by proper combination of dimen-
sional parameters, with the goal of extracting from
these groups further and more general physical in-
formation.
extraction turbine A steam turbine in which a portion
of the working fluid is tapped between stages and
used for purposes other than generating mechanical
power.
flow coefficient (u) Ratio of the local average meridional
absolute velocity component to the local peripheral
velocity.
head coefficient (w) Ratio of the local average tangential
absolute velocity component to the local peripheral
velocity.
impulse stage A stage with zero degrees of reaction.
isentropic A thermodynamic transformation in which
the initial and final points have the same specific
entropy.
reaction stage A stage with a degree of reaction larger than
zero.
secondary flows Conventionally defined as all fluid mo-
tions extraneous to the ideal ‘‘mean’’ flow path.
Encyclopedia of Energy, Volume 6. r 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
similarity The property of two ‘‘objects’’ (physical dimen-
sions, components, or flow patterns) that have the same
ratio of a certain number of homologous characteristic
features.
solidity (r) At a certain radius, the ratio of the blade chord
to the interblade spacing.
specific diameter (ds) A dimensionless group linking one
characteristic dimension, volumetric flow rate, and
stage enthalpy drop.
specific speed (ns) A dimensionless group linking angular
velocity, volumetric flow rate, and stage enthalpy
drop.
supercritical A steam turbine in which the feed steam is
above the critical conditions.
swirl The tangential component of the absolute or relative
velocity.
Turbines are machines that convert the energy
carried by a continuous flow of fluid into mechanical
shaft rotational power. Their essential feature is that
they do not contain parts in alternating motion;
therefore, the flow of both mass and energy through
them, except for secondary transitory phenomena,
may be considered steady. This is in contrast to
piston-based machinery, where the energy exchange
is fundamentally linked to the alternating motion of
the piston. Traditionally, and in spite of the fact that
the basic physics of the energy exchange is not much
different, hydraulic turbines, where the working fluid
is incompressible, are treated separately from gas and
steam turbines, where compressibility phenomena
play a major role in the fluid/machine coupling. In
compressible flow turbines, it makes little difference,
from a theoretical point of view, whether the
working fluid is a ‘‘gas’’ that follows an ideal gas
law or a ‘‘steam’’ described by one of the variants of
van der Waals’s equation of state. Physically, the only
difference is that gases are farther away from their
two-phase region, so that the variation of their
specific heat with temperature is less complicated.
But in practice, there are enough differences in the
231
232 Turbines, Steam

design procedures to grant separate treatment of gas
and steam turbines.
1. SOME BASIC CONCEPTS
1.1 The Flow through a Turbine
Figure 1 shows a schematic cross section of an axial
(Fig. 1A) stage and a radial stage (Fig. 1B) of a
modern steam turbine. High-pressure steam enters
the machine at station ‘‘in’’ (throttle valve exit
section), passes through the inlet channel, and
reaches the stator inlet (station ‘‘0’’). The stator
accelerates the flow by expanding it by a fraction
bst (1Zbst40) of the total stage pressure drop and
introduces a tangential velocity component (inlet
swirl). The steam jets exiting the stator (station ‘‘1’’)
impinge on the rotoric blades that deviate the flow so
as to decrease this inlet swirl and, thus, absorb
rotational momentum. At rotor exit (station 2), the
steam is at a lower pressure and energy level than at
station 0 and is discharged through the outlet scroll
or diffuser channel. Station ‘‘out’’ is the outlet section
of the stage. The purpose of the inlet channel is to
guide the flow from the turbine inlet port to the
statoric vanes with the minimum possible loss in
total pressure. If the first stage after the admission
throttle is axial, the inlet is usually shaped as a
pseudo-conical transition piece between the inlet
duct and the (larger in diameter) stator. In this case,
no flow deviation is imposed and only a modest
acceleration is attained. For intermediate axial
stages, the inlet is missing and the flow from the exit
of the previous stage flows directly onto the stator of
the following stage. Radial turbines can be centripe-
tal (flow inward) or centrifugal (flow outward).
Because the only significant centrifugal application
is the Ljüngstrm turbine, shown in Fig. 2 and
discussed at the end of this section, ‘‘radial turbine’’

A
1 2 3 α1

Tip C1
Cα1
Annulus
area A N R
Cw 2
Root
U
Nozzle blades V2 Cα 2
α2 β2
C2
rr 3 rt3
Cw3
U
Rotor blades
Cα 3 C3 β3
V3
α3

R¹

FD

R²

FIGURE 1 (A) Axial turbine stage. (B) Radial turbine stage. Notice the two-stage rotor (R1 and R2) and the flow deviator
(FD).

A Exhaust to
condenser
Incoming steam
Concentric
labyrinth rings (to
reduce leakage)
FIGURE 2 The Ljüngstrm radial turbine. (A) Meridional section through turbine. (B) Blading arrangement and directions
of rotation.
implies centripetal in the remainder of this article.
Radial turbines are usually single-staged with a
tangential inlet. The flow is admitted into the statoric
vanes through a scroll of variable cross section that
accommodates the decreasing mass flow rate in the
tangential direction.
The purpose of the stator is as follows:
*
To induce a tangential velocity component (swirl)
in the flow
*
To transform a portion bst of the stage expansion
ratio b ¼ pin/pout into kinetic energy
*
To attain the above with the minimum possible
irreversible dissipation
*
To serve as an auxiliary structural support for the
casing
Stators consist of a large number of rather thick,
curved, airfoil-like blades that turn the oncoming
flow, whose main flow component is parallel to the
turbine axis, in the tangential direction. Axial and
radial stators differ in shape, as shown in Fig. 3. If
large variations of the steam mass flow rate are
foreseen, variable geometry stators are often em-
ployed where the individual vanes may rotate about
a radial (in axial turbines [Fig. 3C]) or meridional (in
radial turbines [Fig. 3D]) axis.
The purpose of the rotor is as follows:
*
To extract energy from the main flow by
recovering its tangential velocity component
*
To transfer this energy to a rotating shaft
Turbines, Steam 233
B
*
To attain the above with the minimum possible
irreversible dissipation
Rotors consist of a large number of curved, airfoil-
like blades that turn the oncoming flow so as to cause
a decrease in its angular momentum, thereby generat-
ing a tangential force on each blade. The blades are
solidly attached to the turbine shaft by a disk whose
only purpose is to transfer the resulting torque. Axial
blades resemble twisted airfoils, with their chord
decreasing from hub to tip, and are attached to the
disk on their hub side. Radial blades look more like
paddles attached to the disk on their hub side and
strongly twisted in three dimensions. Axial blades can
be forged onto the disk, but more commonly they are
individually inserted into proper circumferential
grooves machined on the external surface of the disk
and are firmly held in position by spacers and
stiffeners. For smaller rotors, they may be machined
together with the disk from a single, cylindrical,
forged ‘‘raw’’ disk. Radial blades are most commonly
an integral part of the rotor, being forged or machined
from one initial pseudo-conical billet.
It is often convenient, for design reasons, to let the
flow exit the stage with substantial kinetic energy.
This lowers the stage exit pressure and increases the
stage expansion ratio bs. In addition, it allows
handling the same mass flow rate with a smaller
flow passage area (a smaller diameter implies a less
costly machine). The kinetic portion of the total
enthalpy can be partialy recovered in the diffuser,
which is a passage of increasing flow area (visible in
234 Turbines, Steam

A B V0

V1
W1
ωr 1

V2 W2
ωr 2
r1 r2 r 1
r2

Center of rotation

+ +

Closed

Open Throat areas

FIGURE 3 (A) Axial stage geometry. (B) Radial stage geometry. (C) Variable geometry axial stator. (D) Variable geometry
radial stator.

Figs 1A and 1B). If the area increase is obtained by
increasing the average radius, there is the additional
advantage that the exit swirl is recovered as well.
Ljüngstrm turbines (Fig. 2), are atypical in more
than one sense. The steam enters the machine radially
from slots in the casing or in the shaft and proceeds
radially outward. The wing-like blades are inserted in
two counterrotating disks, with the arrangement being
such that each blade row rotates between two rows
attached to the opposite disk. Each blade row is a
rotor in the sense that it extracts energy from the flow
and provides it to the shaft, and is a stator in the sense
that it introduces a (relative) tangential velocity com-
ponent for the next blade row. Ljüngstrm turbines are
used when axial size constraints are very stringent
because their power density is higher than that of other
types of turbines. However, their use is restricted to
lower mass flow rates due to blade length limitations.
1.1.1 Partial Admission
If the throttle pressure is very high, the incoming
steam into the first stage has a very high density;

1 Nozzle
2 Rotor
FIGURE 4 Partial admission.
therefore, even for large flow rates, the required
passage area may be relatively small. Because the
external diameter (both in axial and radial stages) is
selected on the basis of the best attainable efficiency
and provides an optimal ds, this may lead to
extremely low blade heights, which increase the
end wall losses and decrease the practical stage
efficiency. To uncouple (at least to a certain extent)
the blade height from the external diameter, the
statoric nozzles of the first stage of class 4 and 5
turbines are so constructed as to limit the steam
injection angle to a value ao3601 (Fig. 4). Thus, only
the statoric channels within this angle a will be
active, and for a given external diameter, the blade
height can be increased of 1/a without efficiency
penalties. This configuration is called partial admis-
sion and can be introduced only in pure impulse
stages, where the steam in the rotoric passages is not
subject to a streamwise Dp (otherwise, massive
leakage into the inactive adjacent channels would
destroy the regularity of the flow).
1.2 Brief Historical Background
The word ‘‘turbine’’ was first proposed in its modern
usage by the French Claude Burdin in 1820, with
reference to hydraulic machines. Although the first
steam turbines in commercial service were those
installed in the northern United States by William
Avery in 1831 to power some sawmills (Fig. 5), the
idea of exploiting the ‘‘motive power’’ of live steam is
Turbines, Steam 235
FIGURE 5 Avery’s 1831 reaction turbine.
much older. In the first century bc, Hero of
Alexandria, in his treaty ‘‘De Re Pneumatica’’
(literally ‘‘On Fluid Flow’’), described what in
modern terms would be defined as a ‘‘single-stage,
pure reaction turbine’’ (Fig. 6). Hero, who seemed to
imply that the ‘‘turbine’’ had been actually built prior
to his description of it, provided no indication about
practical uses for this device, although other sources
indicate that similar machines were used to power
the opening mechanisms of the heavy bronze doors
of some Egyptian or Babylonian temples. (This
indicates that the turbine provided B0.5 kW with a
steam mass flow rate of B0.01 kg/s, which seems
unfeasible for those times because it implies a nozzle
diameter of B15 cm.) Be that as it may, the
technological level of those times clearly had no use
for such machines, and for centuries hydraulic and
wind turbines were the only turbomachines em-
ployed in power generation. Much later, there were
isolated attempts to convert the motive energy of
steam (now called stagnation exergy) to mechanical
shaft power. Giovanni Branca’s machine (in Italy in
1629 [Fig. 7A]) was actually inspired by an earlier
illustration (from 1551) contained in a sort of
technological almanac compiled by the Arab histor-
ian Taqi-al-Din. John Dumbell’s proposal (in Eng-
land in 1808 [Fig. 7B]), although in essence based on
the same principle, was technologically much more
advanced. However, neither machine ever produced
any net power. In 1848, the Scot Robert Wilson
patented a series of steam turbines, one of which
236 Turbines, Steam

FIGURE 6 Hero’s ‘‘steam turbine’’ (probably conceived before

the first century bc) in a 16th-century rendering.

endowed of a radial inlet. In 1875, Osborne

Reynolds designed and later built a multistage steam
turbine (Fig. 8), and between 1880 and 1890, the
Briton Charles Parsons and the Swede Carl-Gustav
de Laval introduced the first multistage reaction
turbine (Fig. 9 [this type of arrangement is still today
sometimes called ‘‘Parsons’’]) and the impulse turbine
(Fig. 10), respectively. Between 1890 and 1897, de
Laval installed some of his turbines on steam- FIGURE 7 (A) Branca’s 1629 steam turbine-powered mill. (B)
powered ships. During the same years, the French Dumbell’s 1808 steam turbine.
Charles Rateau introduced the first multistage
impulse turbines, and the American Charles Curtis
introduced the first double-bladed impulse rotors. In development of steam turbines began after the
1891, Parsons introduced the condenser, a sealed second decade of the 20th century when large
tank bottoming the turbine where the steam con- industrial groups such as General Electric, Allis–
densed on banks of water tubes, effectively lowering Chalmers, Westinghouse, and Brown–Boveri built
the discharge pressure of the turbine and allowing turbine-powered electricity generation plants. Cur-
for a remarkable increase of the specific work output. rently, the vast majority of fossil-fueled thermoelec-
In 1910, the Swede Berger Ljüngstrm presented trical conversion plants employ steam turbines as
his axial inlet centrifugal turbine. The modern mechanical drivers.

A the efficiency of the cycle in which the turbine is
B reasons, it is unlikely that during the next 10 to
A′
B′
FIGURE 8 Original 1875 sketch by Reynolds of his own
multistage turbine.
FIGURE 9 Parsons’s (circaB1885) multistage reaction turbine.
FIGURE 10 De Laval’s 1890 impulse turbine.
1.3 Steam Conditions and
Fundamental Classification
Modern turbines are designed for a variety of
applications and use steam at different inlet condi-
tions, as shown in Tables I and II. Figure 11
reproduces the so-called Mollier chart, where the
thermodynamic properties of steam are plotted on an
entropy/temperature diagram. Higher inlet steam
Turbines, Steam 237
pressures and temperatures would generally increase
inserted, but for technological and economical
15 years or so an increase of more than 50 K over the
current top inlet temperatures of 550 to 600 K will
occur. This article makes reference essentially to
industrial and power generation applications. Typi-
cal values for admission steam conditions are shown
in Table I together with approximate indications of
the power range.
Steam turbines may be classified according to
several criteria. All of these criteria have some
practical or theoretical relevance, but none is
universally accepted. Table II summarizes the seven
most common classification criteria.
1.3.1 Supercritical Turbines
A turbine stage is said to be ‘‘supercritical’’ when the
steam conditions at its inlet are above the critical
point. Although the higher temperatures do not pose
particular problems in the first stages, the high
pressures increase the demand for sophisticated
design solutions in the boiler, so that supercritical
units are costly and used less frequently. Of course,
the advantage of using a supercritical high-pressure
section is a larger power output for the same mass
flow rate, that is, a higher power density.
1.3.2 Condensing versus Noncondensing Turbines
A condensing steam turbine is provided with a
vacuum device at its exit (the condenser) where the
forced flow of an external coolant (water or air)
maintains the outlet pressure at a level dependent
only on the coolant inlet and outlet temperatures. In
practice, the exhaust steam is condensed on a bank of
‘‘cold’’ tubes (Fig. 12) and the condensate is collected
in the so-called cold well. Because the condenser is
otherwise sealed, the pressure in the cold well (and in
the whole condensing chamber) is the saturation
pressure corresponding to the condensate tempera-
ture, which for current applications (Tcoolant ¼ 25–
601C) is lower than atmospheric (psat ¼ 0.01–
0.2 bar). The increased pressure differential across
the turbine leads to a larger enthalpy drop of the
steam and to a higher shaft power for the same mass
flow rate. Most turbines in power generation plants
are of the condensing (or C) type.
A noncondensing (or back-pressure) turbine has no
condenser, and its exhaust steam is used directly for
process purposes. Specific processes require different
steam temperatures, but the range of exhaust steam
pressures generally varies between 1.5 and 10.0 bars.
238 Turbines, Steam

Most of the so-called cogeneration units in use by the class 5 turbines, the size of the exhaust end limits the
industry are of the noncondensing (or NC) type. acceptable steam volumetric flow through the final
For the same rated power output and inlet stages because at the usual rotational regimes (1500/
conditions, NC turbines are much more compact 1800 or 3000/3600 rpm) ‘‘long’’ blades (Z1 m) are
than C turbines because the steam at the former’s subject to excessive centrifugal stresses. Therefore,
outlet has a much lower specific volume. For large the largest units (especially in nuclear plants) are
built in a double-flow configuration where there are
two low-pressure turbine bodies for each medium-
TABLE I
pressure one (as shown in Fig. 1A).
Typical Values for Steam Admission Conditions in Modern
Turbines
1.3.3 Extraction Turbines
Throttle
For the overall economy of the steam turbine cycle, it
steam Throttle steam Net power
Type of pressure temperature putput per is often convenient to extract a portion of the steam
application (bars) (1C) unit (MW) evolving in the turbine before it reaches the turbine
exhaust. This involves an extraction turbine. The
Geothermal 5–15 150–250 0.5–10 extraction can be automatic or controlled. In both
Nuclear 45–70 200–300 50–250 cases, steam is extracted through openings properly
Industrial 40–60 400–450 1–50 located on the turbine casing between one stage and
cogeneration
the other. However, in the automatic extraction case
Electrical 120–180 510–550 50–250
power
(Fig. 13A), there is no means of controlling the
generation pressure of the extracted stream, whereas in the
Supercritical 4 220 550–600 50–100 controlled extraction case (Fig. 13B), a system of
throttling valves can modify the pressure drop

TABLE II
Some General Classification Criteria for Steam Turbines

Application field in which the

Criterion Classification standard is most used

Inlet steam Subcritical: pino220 bars and Tin usually o5501C Design and Process Engineering
Conditions
Supercritical: pin4220 bars and Tin usually 45501C Industry
Exhaust pressure ‘‘C’’, condensing if pexhaustopatmospheric and the exhaust steam is condensed Design and Process Engineering
‘‘NC’’, noncondensing otherwise (also called back-pressure)
Main steam flow Axial if the main steam flow path is parallel to the turbine axis Design
path
Radial otherwise
Unit power Class 1: 15–400 kW, noncondensing Industry
Class 2: 450–1500 kW
Class 3: 2000–15,000 kW
Class 4: 15,000–100,000 kW
Class 5: 4 100,000 kW, reheat and condensing
Steam extraction Extraction if a portion of the steam is extracted between stages for process Design and Process Engineering
purposes other than power generation
Non-extraction otherwise Industry
Inlet steam High pressure, above 40 bars Design
pressure
Intermediate pressure, 5–40 bars Industry
Low pressure, o 5 bars
Blade design Impulse if the stage pressure drop takes place only in the nozzles Research
Reaction otherwise Design
 Turbines, Steam 239

4000
Thermodynamic Properties of
Water 3900

3800

96 00
10
0
0 3700
92
8 80 3600
0
84
800 3500
760
3400

0.04
100

g
m /k
720

v=1 3
50

0.4
0.1
20
3300

10
680

10
2
1

0.5
640 3200

a
0.2

MP

40

h (kJ/kg)
600

0.1
3100

100
5
0.0
P=

2
560

0.0

1
3000

0.0

05
520

0.0

02
T= 480 K 2900

0.0
01
0.0
440 2800
400
0.9
8
2700
0.9 360
6
0.9 2600
4 320
0.9
2
0.9
0.8 0 2500
ne
or li

8
0.8
vap

6
.

2400
atm

0.8
0.8 4
ted

~1

0. 2
ura

80 2300
a
Sat

MP
0.
78 6

0.1
0.7 74

2200
P=
0. .72
0

2100
0.7
id

0.62
0.66
0.54
0.58

0
Liqu

2000
4 5 6 7 8 9 10
s (kJ/[kg.K])
FIGURE 11 The Mollier steam chart. From Stanford University, Department of Mechanical Engineering.

between the extraction point and final use, thereby the fluid with the statoric and rotoric blades is very
actively regulating the flow rate of the extracted short (typically 0.1–1.0 ms), so that the amount of
steam. Extractions are commonly used to preheat the energy exchanged between the fluid and blade under
feed water in modern steam cycle-based power plants the form of heat is entirely negligible with respect to
(class 5 C-type turbines) and to supply process steam that exchanged under the form of work. In the ideal
in industrial plants (classes 3, 4, and 5, usually case (no internal friction), the expansion is also
C-type turbines). isentropic (Fig. 14). At the inlet, the steam possesses a
static enthalpy h0(p0,T0) and an absolute velocity V0,
so that its total (stagnation) enthalpy content is
2. ENERGY TRANSFER h0,tot ¼ h0 þ 0.5V20. At stage exit, the static enthalpy
IN A TURBINE has dropped to h2i(p2i,T2i) and the velocity is V2i, so
that the stagnation enthalpy is now h2i,tot ¼
2.1 Expansion of a Fluid through a h2i þ 0.5 V22i. The maximum specific energy that can
be extracted from the fluid under these conditions is
Turbine: Stage Efficiency
called the isentropic (or adiabatic) work:
The flow through a turbine stage is usually modeled
as an adiabatic expansion because the contact time of wad ¼ Dhad ¼ h0;tot  h2i;tot ð1Þ
240 Turbines, Steam

Throttling

T1

Steam inlet

P4
P1

P3
P2

tr 1
ex
P
Enthalpy (kJ/kg)

tr 2
ex
P
Condensate outlet

FIGURE 12 Meridional section of a steam condenser. Design flow

tr 3
expansion line

ex
P
A

High-pressure Throttling valve

steam

r
ex
P
Turbine
discharge

Extraction Discharge to next

turbine body
Entropy (kJ/[kg °C])
B FIGURE 14 A real expansion line through a steam turbine.
Throttling valve
High-pressure Control valve
steam The actual expansion is neither ideal nor adiabatic.
Some heat flows from the hot fluid to the colder
blades, creating a temperature gradient in the
tangential and axial directions at each station.
Boundary layers on the hub and casing walls
originate velocity and temperature gradients in the
radial direction. The flow is highly turbulent; neither
the blade nor the disk and casing surfaces are
Extraction
perfectly smooth. A non-negligible amount of steam
Discharge to next leaks through the unavoidable mechanical gaps and
turbine body flows around the blades, originating ‘‘local recircula-
FIGURE 13 (A) Automatic extraction. (B) Controlled extrac- tions’’ called secondary flows. All of these irreversible
tion. phenomena lead to the production of entropy,
 Turbines, Steam 241

degrading a portion of the steam energy and 1  Ztt

decreasing the overall amount of work provided to Zis;ss ¼ 1 
V02  V2i2
the blades by the fluid. Strictly speaking, a nonideal 1
h0;tot  h2i;tot
expansion cannot be represented on the Mollier chart 2
because the ‘‘local’’ details of the entropy generation aV2i
þ  : ð7Þ
at each (p, T) point along the expansion line are V02  V2i2
2 1
unknown. But conventionally, the points representa- h0;tot  h2i;tot
tive of the inlet and outlet conditions can be
The denominator in the right-hand side of Eq. (6) is
connected with a line that has a concavity toward
greater than 1, so that Zis,tsoZis,tt. With the usual
the right (Fig. 14) because the irreversible entropy
values of DVi (D0.1Dhi,tot) and of a (D0.05), the
generation increases with the stage expansion ratio.
values of Zis,ss and Zis,tt are indistinguishable for
Because of the nonzero slope of the isobars, the actual
practical purposes. When in doubt, Eq. (5) is to be
total enthalpy drop is smaller than the isentropic one
used.
and the ratio of the two is referred to as the isentropic
efficiency:
h0;tot  h2;tot h0;tot  h2;tot 2.2 The Steam Rate
Zis;tt ¼ ¼ : ð2Þ
Dhad h0;tot  h2i;tot It is still common in industrial publications to find
The quantity described by Eq. (2) is called the total- mention of an alternate indicator of turbine perfor-
to-total efficiency as a reminder that the enthalpies mance, the so-called steam rate, defined as the
appearing in its definition are stagnation values. It mass of steam that must flow through the turbine
correctly accounts for the exit kinetic energy, which is to deliver a unit of power. Thus, this quantity
a useful quantity because it contributes to the energy ought to be expressed in kilograms per kilojoule
input in the next stage. Total-to-static and a static-to- but is commonly reported as ‘‘x kilograms per
static efficiencies are also used: kilowatt-hour.’’ The theoretical steam rate (TSR) is
h0;tot  h2;tot simply equal to the reciprocal of the ideal enthalpy
Zis;ts ¼ ð3Þ drop,
h0;tot  h2i
1
TSR ¼ ; ð8Þ
h0  h2 Dhad
Zis;ss ¼ : ð4Þ
h0  h2i whereas the actual steam rate (ASR) is the reciprocal
V2i is always smaller than V0 because in the absolute of the actual work output,
motion the fluid cannot accelerate; furthermore, the m
ASR ¼ throttle ; ð9Þ
actual stage exit velocity V2 is always somewhat Pout
smaller than its ideal counterpart because the same
and the ratio ASR/TSR is equal to the net turbine
flow area must accommodate, ceteris paribus, a lower
efficiency. The steam rate is a redundant (and
volumetric flow rate. It is possible to derive a
therefore useless) indicator that is cumbersome
relationship among the three efficiency expressions.
to use due to the necessary conversion between
Let
different systems of units, and its generality is limited
Dhtot ¼ h0;tot  h2;tot by its explicit dependence on the initial and final
¼ h0;tot  h2i;tot  T0 ðs2  s0 Þ expansion conditions. Its use ought to be discour-
¼ Dhi;tot  T0 Ds aged.

and
2.3 From Zeroth-Order Approximation to
V22 ¼ V2i
2
ð 1  aÞ where ao1:
Three-Dimensional Design
The following is obtained:
The thermodynamic stage efficiency constitutes a
T0 Ds useful global description of the expansion process.
Zis;tt ¼1 ð5Þ
h0;tot  h2i;tot However, the design of a turbine must be based on a
detailed knowledge of the actual coupling between
1 the working fluid and the machine channels. The
Zis;ts ¼ Ztt : ð6Þ
V 2 ð 1  aÞ ‘‘real’’ flow is fully three-dimensional, turbulent, and
1 þ Ztt
2i 
2 h0;tot  h2i;tot unsteady, and this makes a complete description
242 Turbines, Steam

extremely difficult. As in many engineering tasks, we ratios between corresponding forces (or force-related
proceed by successive approximations: quantities) are the same (i.e., if Dpstator,A/Dpsta-
tor,B ¼ scentrifugal,tip,A/scentrifugal,tip,B). Notice that si-
1. First, we consider the so-called zero-dimen-
milarity considers ideal flow concepts only. Strictly
sional problem in which the flow is steady and the
speaking, two geometrically and kinematically simi-
fluid–machine interaction is expressed by global
lar machines are dynamically similar only if the
parameters such as mass (or volume) flow rate,
dissipative features of the flow (leakages, boundary
expansion ratio, average values for the value and
layers, and viscous and inviscid losses) are the same.
direction of velocity at the inlet and outlet of the
With specific reference to a turbine stage, let us
blades, angular velocity of the rotor, and average
consider the following question: can the global design
physical properties of the fluid. We derive, via
parameters of the stage be reduced to a small set of
dimensional analysis, a set of general relations that
fundamental dimensional variables that can be used
constitute a basic design tool.
to construct an even smaller set of dimensionless
2. We then turn our attention to the ideal, steady,
indexes that describe stage performance? A brief
quasi-one-dimensional flow, devoid of boundary
reflection indicates that a stage is described by the
layers on either moving or fixed boundaries, and
mass flow rate it elaborates, the work it extracts, the
derive first-order expressions for the most important
conditions of the fluid and the flow passage area at
characteristic quantities. The flow rate and the
inlet and outlet, a proper measure of its size, and the
specific work are expressed in terms of average
angular velocity of its rotor. A possible set of relevant
velocities, and the stage performance is linked
design parameters is listed in Table III. A fundamental
explicitly to the average flow field parameters.
set of dimensionless parameters that can be con-
3. The effects of boundary layers and other
structed with these quantities is reported in Table IV.
viscous and compressibility phenomena are then
Turbines with equal Reynolds numbers, specific
taken into account, and the results previously
speeds, and specific diameters are dynamically
obtained are corrected to include the effects of
similar (because the losses scale, albeit only approxi-
losses, secondary flows, flow nonuniformities, sonic
mately, with Reynolds numbers). This result, which
phenomena, and so on.
can be derived theoretically and justified on the basis
4. The fully unsteady, three-dimensional flow is
of first- and second-order considerations, has been
studied. As of today, this is possible only under
confirmed by an extraordinarily large and compre-
stringent simplifying assumptions and at the expense
hensive series of experimental results. It has several
of substantial computational resources. Usually,
important consequences. First, the efficiencies of the
cascade or stage simulations are performed to
two machines are also equal. Second, if we know the
investigate particular characteristics of the flow field
performance (Q2,A, oA, and Dhad,A) and the scale
and are validated by comparing their results with
(D2,A) of the first machine, we can derive the
experimental investigations.
corresponding quantities for the second machine
once we fix either its dimensions (D2,B) or one of its
2.3.1 Zeroth-Order Approximation: design specifications (Q2,B or Dhad,B, or oB). The
Dimensional Analysis
Dimensional analysis is a branch of applied mathe-
TABLE III
matics that investigates the relationship between
A Fundamental Set of Design Parameters for a Turbine
global characteristics of a physical phenomenon and
a possibly small set of likewise global parameters Physical phenomena to which
that uniquely define it. This article adopts here a Parameter it relates
simple (but theoretically sound) approach. In turbo-
machinery design, dimensional analysis is essentially Fluid enthalpy drop (Dhtot) Specific work
linked to the concept of similarity. Two machines, A Fluid flow rate (mo) Machine size, power
and B, are said to be geometrically similar if the Fluid density (r(r,T)) Machine size, losses
ratios between homologous dimensions all are equal Rotor and stator dimensions Machine size, mechanical
stresses, flow kinematics
(i.e., if D2,A/D2,B ¼ ctip,A/ctip,B). The same two
Stage efficiency (Zis) Irreversible dissipation in
machines are also said to be kinematically similar if
blade rows
the ratios between corresponding velocities are the
Rotor angular velocity (o) Mechanical stresses, flow
same (i.e., if U2,tip,A/U2,tip,B ¼ V1,A/V1,B). Finally, two kinematics
machines are said to be dynamically similar if the
 Turbines, Steam 243

TABLE IV 0.006

Dynamic viscosity (kg/[m*s])

A Possible Fundamental Set of Dimensionless Parameters for a 0.0055
Turbine 0.005
0.0045
Parameter Definition 0.004
0.0035
Average flow Reynolds rUtip Dtip
Re ¼ m 0.003
number 0.0025
Average flow Mach number Ma ¼ pffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
C
kRT
(C is a local 0.002
representative velocity) 0.0015
pffiffiffiffiffi

1000

1100

1200
1300
200

300

400

500

600

700

800

900
Specific speed o Q2
ns ¼ 3=4
ðDhad Þ

Specific diameter ds ¼
Dtip ðDhad Þ1=4
pffiffiffiffiffi Temperature (°C)
Q2

Head coefficient FIGURE 15 Steam viscosity versus temperature.

Dc ¼ Dh
U2
ad
tip

Flow coefficient j ¼ UQ
tip A
(A is local flow
passage area) losses. For two turbines with the same ns and ds (or
Stage efficiency Zis ¼ wreal
wad
Dc and j, which is the same), a widely used formula,
Degree of reaction h1 h2 originally from Staufer in 1925, states that
Rr ¼ h0;tot h2;tot  
1  Zis;tt;A ReB n
Tip clearance/blade height h
gap
s ¼ hblade (h is average height or ¼ C1 þ C2 ; ð15Þ
ratio 1  Zis;tt;B ReA
clearance)
Rotor blade aspect ratio a ¼ hcblade
blade
(h and c are average where C1E0.30.4, C2E0.70.6, and nE
representative values) 0.20.25. Equation (15) implies that not all losses
are of viscous origin (C1 is the percentage of inviscid
losses on the total).
following relations hold: On the basis of similarity analysis, universal
oA D2;A oB D2;B performance charts can be compiled. If we have
1=2
¼ 1=2
ð10Þ one verified performance map of a given turbine
Dhad;A Dhad;B
stage, similarity theory states (and experimental
oA Q2;A oB Q2;B results confirm) that such a map applies to all stages
¼ ð11Þ with the same pair (ns,ds)—or (c,j), which is the
DA DhA DB DhB
same—so long as their operation implies Reynolds
oA D22;A ¼ oB D22;B ; ð12Þ numbers on the order of the one in the test. The
admissible range is somewhat application dependent,
where Eq. (10) derives from the Reynolds numbers
but for turbines of commercial standard, a variation
equality, assuming that the steam viscosity at the exit
between Re ¼ 105 and Re ¼ 107 leads to a total-to-
of the two machines is the same (see Fig. 15 for the
total efficiency change of approximately 0.05 (from
dependence of m on temperature).
0.87 to 0.92). Two widely used performance maps,
As can be seen in the following, the flow and head
known as the Balje and Smith charts, are shown in
coefficient are also fundamental design parameters.
Figs. 16 and 17, respectively.
They are related to ns and ds by
In spite of the formal identity, there is a substantial
1 practical difference in taking the sets (Re, ns, ds) or
Dc ¼ ð13Þ
ðns ds Þ2 (Re, Dc, j) to represent the variation of the stage
efficiency at different design conditions. By defini-
ns Dc
j ¼ Kshape ; ð14Þ tion, ns/ds maps are dependent on the stage outlet
ds temperature and pressure and, therefore, do not
pdb ð1w Þ
2
b
where Kshape is equal to 2 and 2pdb D for apply strictly to similar machines working under
axial and radial turbines, respectively. The Reynolds different operating conditions. To eliminate this
number definition is clearly conventional. In most inconvenience, ‘‘corrected’’ quantities are sometime
real cases, nowhere in the real flow field does the used, especially in industrial references. If for a
Reynolds number assume the value given by the turbine stage mr is defined as the reference mass flow
formula in Table IV. Nevertheless, if used consis- rate evolving in the stage when the inlet steam is at Tr
tently, it allows a direct relative estimate of global and pr and the rotor is rotating at a reference angular
244 Turbines, Steam

10 of convention. For geometrically and kinematically

8 Free vortex design similar machines, corrected stage performance maps
Re* = 2 × 106
6 Ζ = 30 are displayed in Fig. 18.
p s/h = 0.02
h = 0.
95 t e /t = 0.02
4 2.3.2 First-Order Approximation: The Euler
0.9
Equation and the Velocity Triangles
ds

Consider the flow in a generalized turbine rotor

2
0.8
0.85
(Fig. 19). The fluid enters the upstream side of the
0.7
ηst = 0.6 0.75
rotor with absolute velocity V1 and exits from the
λ = 0.5 0.5 downstream side with velocity V2. Notice that
0.4 0.25
1 0.3 0.2
0 suffixes 1 and 2 refer to the (virtual) geometric
0.6 0.8 1.0 2 4 6 8 10 20 center of the inlet and outlet sections, so that V1 and
ns V2 are proper average velocities, and that the rotor is
FIGURE 16 A typical Balje chart for steam turbines.
rotating with a steady angular velocity o. Newton’s
second law states that the module of the tangential
force acting on the rotor is equal to the rate of
Turbine total-to-total efficiency change of angular momentum in the fluid, jFt j ¼
3.0 dðmVt Þ
dt ; which for steady Vt and m reduces to Ft ¼ Ft1–
40° −60° Ft2 ¼ m(Vt1–Vt2). Therefore, the torque on the rotor
−70° 87
shaft is
88 M ¼ r1 Ft1  r2 Ft2 ¼ mðr1 Vt1  r2 Vt2 Þ: ð18Þ
2.5
30° The specific work (power per unit mass) is then
Stage loading coefficient (ψ = ∠ h 0 /U2)

89 wad ¼ P=m ¼ Mo=m ¼ oðr1 Vt1  r2 Vt2 Þ: ð19Þ

Defining U ¼ or as the rotational velocity, and
2.0
90 −50° recalling that wad ¼ Dhad, we obtain the so-called
Euler equation:
20°
Dhad ¼ o ðr1 Vt1  r2 Vt2 Þ ¼ U1 Vt1  U2 Vt2 : ð20Þ
This equation is fundamental in turbomachinery
1.5
10°
design because it relates the thermodynamic work
(computed via steam charts or thermodynamic
formulas) to the mechanical work expressed in terms
of geometric and (average) kinematic quantities.
1.0 0° Notice that the velocities appearing in Eq. (18) are
90 88
95 94
92 ideal velocities (no losses included) averaged over the
β2
passage area.
β3
The flow kinematics is conveniently represented
0.5 by means of the so-called velocity triangles, which
0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 1.2 are simply a graphical display of the basic velocity
Flow coefficient (φ = Cm /U) vector relationship:
FIGURE 17 A typical Smith chart for a steam turbine with Absolute Velocity Vector
Rr ¼ 0.5.
¼ System Velocity Vector
velocity or, the following relations hold: þ Relative Velocity Vector
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
T=Tr or
mr ¼ m ð16Þ V ¼ U þ W: ð21Þ
p=pr
o These diagrams (Figs. 1 and 19) are drawn on a
or ¼ pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi : single plane, tangent to the pseudo-cone that
T=Tr
represents the machine at radius r. Three values are
Of course, reference conditions are still included in usually provided: at the hub (rh), midspan (rm), and
the preceding definitions, but this reduces to a matter tip (rt). For radial stages, there is only one value at
 Turbines, Steam 245

% N = 60 70 80 90 100 110 120


5 √ θ4

Choked
flow
4

Expansion ratio
η = 90%

(1/πt = Pt5/Pt4 )
t

3 86%
Operating
line
83%

2 80%

1
50 60 70 80 90 100 110 120
Percentage design corrected mass flow times corrected rpm
FIGURE 18 Corrected turbine performance map.

Vj;t ¼ Vj cos a ¼ cj Uj ð23Þ

 
r¹ Vj2 ¼ Vj;x
2 2
þ Vj;t ¼ Uj2 j2j þ c2j ð24Þ
_
V¹
Wj2 ¼ Wj;x
2 2
þ Wj;t
r2
Vr 2  2

2 2
Vx 2
¼ Uj jj þ 1  cj ð25Þ
_
V2
Wj;t ¼ Vj;t  Uj ð26Þ
Vθ2
Vj;x ¼ Wj;x ð27Þ
 
ω Uj2 þ Vj2  Wj2
Uj Vj;t ¼ : ð28Þ
2
Relative total temperatures (Trel ) are defined as well:

Wj2
Tj;tot;rel ¼ Tj þ
2cp
 
Wj2  Vj2
¼ Tj;tot þ
2cp
FIGURE 19 Schematics of the flow in an axial turbine rotor.
Uj2 ð1  2cÞ
¼ Tj;tot þ : ð29Þ
the inlet (r1). These triangles can also be defined in 2cp
terms of one velocity and two angles: the relative Ttot,rel is the stagnation temperature in the rotating
flow angle b and the absolute flow angle a. The frame of reference and, therefore, is the temperature
cascade nomenclature provided in Fig. 1 is not to which the rotor material is subjected.
universally adopted, and sometimes (especially in It is customary to classify turbine stages on the
English monographs) the values b901 and 901a basis of four characteristic indexes identifying their
are used instead. The following relations hold velocity triangles: the degree of reaction Rr, the exit
between the modules of the velocity vectors (‘‘j’’ is swirl o2, the stage loading coefficient Dc ¼ c1e2c2,
a running index denoting the station to which the and the flow coefficient j. The respective values must
triangle refers): be labeled with the radius at which the index is
computed (in the absence of another indication,
Vj;x ¼ Vj sin a ¼ jj Uj ð22Þ blade midspan is to be assumed). The degree of
246 Turbines, Steam
reaction is defined as the ratio of the static enthalpy
drop across the rotor to the decrease of the total
enthalpy across the stage:
h1  h2
Rr ¼
h0;tot  h2;tot

2 
 the expense of the absolute velocity of the steam.
U1  U22  W12  W22
¼
2 

:
U1  U22 þ V12  V22  W12  W22
A stage in which Rr ¼ 0 is said to be an impulse
stage. For axial turbines, Eq. (30) implies that in such
a stage there is no pressure drop across the rotor
(W1 ¼ W2); that is, the entire stage pressure drop is
attained in the inlet nozzle (the stator), and the rotor
absorbs only the fluid’s kinetic energy. All stages for
which Rr40 on a portion of the blade are said to be
reaction stages. The value of Rr is, whenever
possible, limited to approximately 0.5 to limit the
absolute kinetic energy at stage outlet.
A zero exit swirl corresponds to the minimum
absolute kinetic energy at stage exit. For a single
stage and for the end stages of all machines, this is a
desirable condition. For an intermediate stage, where
the exit kinetic energy can be recovered by the next
(bottoming) stage, work maximization often leads to
a negative c2.
The loading coefficient is chosen as large as
possible, compatible with the desired value of the
efficiency (Fig. 20). Common values for axial stages
range from 1 to nearly 3. For radial stages, DcD1.
2.3.2.1 Impulse versus Reaction Stages: Blade
Twist It is useful to provide a more detailed
discussion of impulse and reaction stages. In an
impulse stage, the steam experiences the entire stage
pressure drop in the statoric channels and is ejected
from the stator as a jet (or, better, as a number of
0.9
Cx /U = 0.4
∆ψ = 1
H/b = 3.0
0.8
η
∆ψ = 2
0.7
∆ψ = 3
0.6
1.0 0.5 0 somewhat lower stage efficiency.
Reaction (R ρ )
FIGURE 20 Loading coefficient versus degree of reaction and
stage efficiency.
jets—one for each statoric passage). In the rotor,
these jets flow through a blade with a (nearly)
constant relative velocity along the rotoric passage.
Therefore, the pressure drop in the rotor is zero
(Eq. 30). The stage work is produced in the rotor at
Assuming zero losses in the stator,
ð30Þ
2 

U1  U22 þ V12  V22
h0;tot  h2;tot ¼ ; ð31Þ
2
we see the following:
1. The stage work increases with the expansion
ratio p0/p2 until V1 becomes sonic and the stage is
‘‘choked.’’
2. With the stage work being maximum for
V2,t ¼ 0, it can be easily shown that the optimal U/
V1 ratio for axial turbines is approximately 0.5. In
centripetal turbines, experience shows that (U/
V1)optimalB0.7/0.8.
3. In centripetal turbines, the flow configuration is
such that even if V2 ¼ V1 (which is never realized in
practice because it would lead to high rotoric losses),
the stage would deliver a positive work (U21–U22)/2.
4. Radial centrifugal turbines deliver, for the same
steam conditions and peripheral velocity, a lower
stage work. In fact, they have been abandoned except
for the Ljüngstrm turbine (described in the first
section of the article).
Therefore, in an impulse stage, the rotor is likely
to be unshrouded and devoid of the leakage seals that
abound in the stator. A ‘‘typical’’ axial impulse stage
is depicted in Fig. 21. Notice that for today’s higher
throttle conditions (400–5601C and 30–220 bars),
the sonic velocity in the first nozzle is so high that the
ratio U/V1 would be much lower than 0.5, leading to
a substantial efficiency penalty. An ingenious solu-
tion (first suggested by Curtis) is that of absorbing
the absolute kinetic energy drop in two separate
rotors ‘‘fed’’ by a single stator. The intermediate fixed
blading is simply a deflector (Fig. 21B). This config-
uration is often adopted in the first stage(s) of large
steam turbines because, for the same peripheral
Re = 105 velocity U, the velocity V1 is higher than 2U (its
optimum is atB4U); therefore, the enthalpy (and
pressure) drop per stage is increased. This means not
only a lower overall number of stages but also a
smaller high-pressure casing, and this results in a
lessening of the installation costs. The price is a
Because the ratio of the blade height to the
external diameter is small only for the very first
high-pressure stages, and because the requirement of
 Turbines, Steam 247

A B
P1 Velocity P1 Velocity

Pressure
Ce Pressure Ce
P2 P2
Moving
blades Moving
blades
Blades or
or buckets
Nozzles buckets Nozzles
Fixed
blades
Fixed
blade

Gas inlet Exhaust Gas inlet Exhaust

Nozzle Nozzle
Blade Moving
blades
Wheel Wheel
Shaft

Shaft

FIGURE 21 Impulse stages: (A) simple and (B) velocity compounded (‘‘Curtis’’).

constant total enthalpy along the radius (to avoid
excessive radial motion in the nonrotating channels)
demands that the Euler work given by Eq. (20) be
also constant along the radius, it follows that neither
Vt nor Rr can be constant along the blade. Therefore,
the term reaction stage implies that the degree of
reaction at its midspan diameter is greater than zero.
Actually, there are cases in which Rr ¼ 0 at the hub
and reaches values higher than 0.5 at the tip. For h/
D40.02, the velocity triangles differ markedly at the
hub, midspan, and tip, and the blade must accom-
modate to radially varying V1t and V2t. Several
solutions are possible, with the one called free vortex
(Vt*r ¼ constant) being used most frequently. The
resulting rotation of the blade profile at various radii
around its central radial axis is called ‘‘twisting.’’ An
example of a twisted blade is shown in Fig. 22.
2.3.3 Second-Order Approximation:
Loss Correlations
The difference between the ideal turbine work Dwad
and the actual shaft work is due to the losses in the
turbine. It is common design practice to apportion
these losses to each component and to write
Dw ¼ Dwad  Dhtot;inlet  Dhtot;stator  Dhtot;rotor
 Dhtot;diffuser  Dhtot;exit  lmechanical : ð32Þ
Notice that fluid-related losses have been expressed
in terms of total enthalpy drop. According to the
Gouy–Stodola theorem, this may be also written
Dhtot;j ¼ T0 Dsj ¼ Dej ; ð33Þ
where T0Dsj is the irreversible entropy generation for
the jth loss and Dej is the corresponding exergy
destruction. In what follows, a concise and general
description of how to include these losses in design
calculations is provided.
 Inlet losses. These are due to frictional and flow
turning effects (which cause flow separation and
originate recirculation regions).
 Partial admission losses. In partial admission
stages, there are two additional losses caused by the
drag experienced by the blades in their inactive arc
(‘‘ventilation’’ losses) and by the fact that a portion of
the energy of the statoric jet is perforce lost when the
blade first enters its active arc and when it exits it
(‘‘sector’’ losses).
 Statoric losses. These are due to friction within
the blade row, to secondary flows caused by turning
effects (which cause flow separation and originate
248 Turbines, Steam
A B
~ 440
FIGURE 22 Untwisted (A) and twisted (B) steam turbine
blades.
recirculation regions), to boundary layer growth
along the blade (‘‘blockage’’), and to flow compres-
sibility effects. These losses are usually split into their
individual contributions, which are usually consid-
ered separately during design. Profile losses are
originated by a complex system of vortical structures
along the blade channels that strongly interact with
each other and cannot be conveniently treated
separately (Fig. 23). These losses are usually evalu-
ated by computing or measuring the so-called lift and
drag coefficients, defined as the ratios of the lift and
drag force, respectively, to the kinetic energy of the
oncoming flow (Fig. 24A). A large database exists for
several blade profiles, and designers make use of
‘‘cascade performance charts’’ like the one depicted
in Fig. 24B. If the velocity triangles are known, so is
the cascade efficiency. Sometimes an additional loss,
the wake loss, is included in the profile loss.
Secondary and blockage losses are similarly modeled
in terms of the square of the average meridional
velocity, whereas shock losses, originated by sonic
and supersonic shocks interacting with the boundary
layers and with the wake, are computed on the basis
of semi-empirical charts. Leakage flows (usually
negligible in stators) are due to the unavoidable
leaks around seals and gaps. They depend on the
blade aspect ratio (h=l; height over chord) and gap
size (g/h).
A
Laminar separation
bubble
Stagnation point
vortex
Passage vortex
B Stream surface
Inlet boundary
layer
Endwall
Passage vortex
Endwall Counter vortex
crossflow
FIGURE 23 Vortical structures along the blade channel.
 Rotoric losses. These are modeled in a manner
similar to that of stators. However, here the relevant
velocity is the relative inlet velocity W1:
Dhtot;rotor ¼ Dhtot;profile þ Dhtot;secondary þ Dhtot;blockage
þ Dhtot;shock þ Dhtot;leakage þ Dhtot;windage
¼ 0:5 Krotor W12 ; ð34Þ
where Krotor is a weight-averaged loss coefficient.
 Diffuser losses. These are also due to frictional
and recirculation effects. The diffuser is a component
in which the fluid flows against a pressure gradient
(velocity is recovered into pressure); therefore, it is
intrinsically affected by the highest losses (in
percentage). In steam turbines, the importance of
diffusers is normally negligible.
 Mechanical losses. These are due to frictional
dissipation in bearings and seals. Customarily, they
are accounted for introducing an organic efficiency:
 
lmechanical ¼ 1  Zorganic Dwad ; ð35Þ
with Zorganic ranging from 0.95 to 0.98 for the entire
shaft line (if a shaft supports N stages, the loss
apportioned to each stage is 1  Zorganic =N).
 Turbines, Steam 249

A 1.5 (Fig. 23), it is the local features and their complex

Lift coefficient (CL )

C1 interactions that may make the difference in the stage
1.0 efficiency. It is difficult to capture the individual flow
phenomena through test bench experiments, and a
0.5 large (and increasing) portion of turbine studies are
performed by means of numerical simulations. Such
0 simulations are complex, resource-consuming, and
0.075
Drag coefficient (CDp)

often not univocal (in the sense that some of the

detected phenomena may be purely numerical fea-
0.050
tures and not necessarily reflective of physical
phenomena). Therefore, they must be carefully
0.025 CDp
planned and performed, and their results are always
calibrated against available experimental evidence.
0
−20 −15 −10 −5 0 5 10 Basically, the flow domain (the portion of space in
Incidence (i degrees) which the phenomena are studied) includes a portion
of the interblade passage and also covers a limited
B 2.0 portion of the channel upstream and downstream of
the blade passage. Periodic tangential conditions are
usually assumed (i.e., the basic features of the flow
are considered to be the same in adjacent blade
1.5
passages), and only recently has the coupling between
Lift coefficient (CL)

1.0
0.5
0 study both inviscid (i.e., purely kinematical) and
10 0 10 20
Air outlet angle (α2 [degrees])
FIGURE 24 (A) Lift and drag coefficient for a cascade of fixed
geothermal form. (B) Design lift coefficients.
Once the total stage losses have been computed,
they are used to
1. Correct the ideal Euler work (Eq. 20). and
derive the actual work delivered by each stage
(Eq. 31).
2. Recompute the fluid thermodynamic conditions
at the exit of each stage and draw the actual
expansion line of Fig. 14.
2.3.4 Three-Dimensional Calculation of the Real
Flow in a Complete Turbine Stage
The real flow in a turbine stage is highly turbulent,
fully three-dimensional, and intrinsically unsteady.
Although its general features are well understood
s/c
statoric and rotoric blade rows been simulated in full.
1.5
All of these studies strongly depend on the turbulence
1.0 modeling adopted (‘‘full’’ calculations, or the so-
called DNSs [direct numerical simulations], are still
0.5 impossible on the complex geometries of a turbine
stage and in their operational high Reynolds num-
bers), and some of the effects can be assessed only
under the simplifying assumption of inviscid flow.
Nevertheless, reliable work has been performed to
30 40 50 60 70 viscous (i.e., including boundary layers and wake
interactions) flow features, and the results compare
well with global and local experimental measure-
ments. A situation is now being approached where
blade design can be performed on the basis of
successive approximations, by iterative adjustment
of several design parameters, to determine the best
blade profile for a specified performance. However, at
the industrial level, most of the design activity is still
based on proprietary loss correlations, and fully
three-dimensional simulations are still considered a
helpful tool but not a completely reliable design
procedure. With the advance of computer hardware
(which leads to higher computational speeds and
reduced simulation time), computational fluid dy-
namic research (which provides a better understand-
ing of local flow features), and available software
(which improves the quality of the commercially
available flow models), it is clear that in the near
future, inverse design problems will be solved by
means of standard, well-understood, and relatively
easy-to-use procedures.
250 Turbines, Steam
3. OUTLINE OF A GENERAL
PROCEDURE FOR PRELIMINARY
STEAM TURBINE DESIGN
The actual design of a steam turbine is a complex
task, usually carried out by a multidisciplinary design
team whose members constantly interact with wind
tunnel and test bench specialists. The technology is
mature and extremely resource intensive, so that
production is concentrated in very few locations
worldwide. The independent steam turbine produ-
cers of commercial and industrial relevance (i.e.,
those that develop their own products, do not
produce under license, and generate a significant
number of units per year) amount to no more than
perhaps 15 worldwide. Each has its own design
procedure, formalized in detailed design manuals,
usually meant for internal use only. However, it is
highly likely that all of these proprietary design
procedures follow the very same general logical
flowchart and that the differences lie either in the
formulas used for case-specific calculations (e.g., loss
coefficients, blade angle corrections, material selec-
tion) or in the selection of a particular turbine shape
(due to patent history and/or the company’s techno-
logical background). Therefore, steam turbine design
can in principle be said to follow nine general steps:
1. Calculation of the thermodynamic expansion
process
2. Selection of the type of turbine (single stage vs
multistage, radial vs axial)
3. Selection of the maximum tip speed
4. Calculation of ns and selection of the proper
similarity parameters
5. Tracing of the velocity triangles
6. Loss accounting and possible iteration (go back
to step 3)
7. Preliminary blade design and costing
8. Numerical simulations under realistic operating
conditions
9. Final design and costing
Because of space limitations, a detailed descrip-
tion of each of these phases cannot be provided here.
The discussion is limited to a brief explanation of the
most important features of each design step.
3.1 Calculation of the Thermodynamic
Expansion Process
The expansion process is customarily calcu-
lated manually on s/h graphs such as the Mollier
diagram. More recently, property packages have
been developed that allow the calculation of a
full expansion line on a personal computer. Notice
that to trace the real expansion line, a turbine
efficiency must be assumed here (Fig. 14). Clearly,
this initial assumption requires an iterative verifica-
tion.
3.2 Selection of the Type of Turbine
For small applications, where the design specifica-
tions require a low power output (less than a few
megawatts) in conjunction with a low mass flow rate,
single-stage radial steam turbines are probably most
convenient. In all other cases, single- and multistage
axial turbines dominate the field. The selection can
be made either on the basis of specific experience on
the part of the designer or of the company (there are
companies that produce only a certain type of
machinery) or with the help of ‘‘operating charts’’
(Fig. 25) that condensate decades of experience and
are updated periodically. The semi-empirical Balje’s
charts (Fig. 16) are also a great help because they
indicate the ranges in which a certain type of
machine has performed well at the current stage of
technology.
3.3 Selection of the Maximum Tip Speed
There are two major limitations in turbine design:
excessive mechanical stresses on the blade and disk
and choking of the flow in the blade passages. Both
limitations constrain the maximum allowable tip
velocity Ut. Very early in the design procedure, it is
necessary to assign a value of Ut, and the choice is
usually made on the basis of specific designers’
experience, often explicitly tabulated in design
manuals. Because this choice has a significant
influence on the remaining design parameters, an
iterative procedure must be used.
3.4 Calculation of ns and Selection of the
Proper Similarity Parameters
The specific speed is conventionally computed on the
outlet section of the stage (i.e., the volumetric flow
rate is computed on the basis of the exit steam
density):
rffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
mout
rout
ns ¼ o 3=4 :
Dhtot;stage
 Turbines, Steam 251

A 3.5 Tracing of the Velocity Triangles

2.5 The choice of the number of stages, of the ns, and of
90%
the flow and head coefficients for each stage is far
2.0 from being unique. For example, there are several
91% reasons that suggest an uneven allocation of the Dhtot
92%
among the stages (e.g., the need to maintain an
1.5
optimal value of ns, a convenient construction of the
93% turbine bodies with each containing Nb stages).
1.0 94%
Whatever the choice is, at this point one possesses
all of the information needed to draw the preliminary
0.5 blade profile and can proceed as follows:

Rρ = 0 1. Introducing the chosen value of j into the

0.0 continuity equation applied at the rotor inlet section,
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 1.2 we derive the blade height h (or the hub-to-tip ratio g).
φ
2. From Ut, c, and j, we derive Vt, Vm, a, and b in
B each section of interest. For a radial stage, the inlet
2.5 diameter at blade midspan is used together with both
90%
the tip (shroud) and hub exit values. For axial stages,
2.0 91% it is customary to draw at least three triangles at the
92% hub, midspan, and tip diameter. The c and j given
1.5 by the charts are tip values, and the other values must
93%
be computed properly. Usually, the assumption is
1.0
94% that the Vm is constant along the radius and that Vt
follows the so-called free vortex law: Vt*r ¼ con-
constant. But other choices, especially where the Vt is
0.5
concerned, are possible.
R ρ = 0.5 3. The Euler work is computed at each section,
0.0
and its average value on the entire blade is assessed.
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 1.2
The ideal values for the relative flow angles (b) are
φ
calculated. A proper blade profile may now be
FIGURE 25 (A) Predicted total-to-total efficiencies for axial chosen (or designed anew).
turbines with 0% reaction (impulse stages) and blade aspect ratio
4. From a momentum balance in the relative flow,
(h/b ¼ 10). (B) Predicted total-to-total efficiencies for axial turbines
with 50% reaction and blade aspect ratio (h/b ¼ 10). the pressure drop in the rotor can be calculated.
Hence, the statoric pressure drop is obtained.
5. Once a1 is known along the blade height, the
Confirmed experience has shown that the ns for statoric profile is also determined because it is
steam turbines varies between 0.1 and 4. If values reasonable to assume an entirely axial incoming flow
smaller than 0.1 are obtained, a multistage config- (Vo ¼ Vm,o, or ao ¼ 901).
uration ought to be chosen and a new ns should be
computed using the stage enthalpy drop Dhi ¼ Dhtot/
Nstages. If, on the other extreme, ns exceeds 4 or 5, to
3.6 Loss Accounting and
maintain high stage efficiency, it is mandatory to split
Possible Iteration
the steam flow among M turbine bodies (parallel
operation). M is determined by the condition that Now, the losses expressed by the semi-empirical
Qtot/M is such that the ns based on it falls within the relations discussed previously can be computed, and
range of 0.1 to 4. Once the specific speed is known, their overall effects can be considered before
the remaining similarity parameters (most impor- modifying the velocity triangles. Some of these losses
tantly the head coefficient c and the flow coefficient affect the flow rate, and some others affect the flow
j) can be determined on the basis of semi-empirical section. Therefore, it is necessary to iterate to attain a
diagrams such as the Smith (for axial stages [Figs. 17 reasonable compromise between good overall effi-
and 25]) and Chen–Baines (for radial stages ciency and a feasible design. Of course, the design
[Fig. 26]) charts. specifications are imposed as strong constraints.
252 Turbines, Steam

1.2
81 70.5
80.2 80.8

76
84
80
85.2 84
1.0 86

Loading coefficient (ψ = Cθ2 /U2 )

88
82.2 90.4 88.4
85.8 88 82 78
88 86.2 85.6
87.1 87 82.8
87 84.6 84 82.4
83 86.1 83
85
85 85.5 85.6 84.5 82 80
85.6 79.8
0.8 80.6
84.6
83 83.6 80.6
82.3
82.7 75.4 67
82 80.8 74.5
77.5
74 62.9
Cala and L'Ecuyer (1983) 72
0.6 Miller and L'Ecuyer (1985)
Ricardo (1957) Kofskey and Holeski (1966)
Ricardo (1959) 60.2 Kofskey and Wasserbauer (1966)
Ricardo (1963) Holeski and Futral (1967)
Rodgers (1987) 54 William and Milton (1969)
Pullen et al (1992) Kofskey and Wasserbauer (1969)
Balnes and Yeo (1992) Futral and Holeski (1970)
Watanabe et al (1971) Kofskey and Nusbaum (1972)
0.4
0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5
Flow coefficient (φ = Cm3 /U2 )

FIGURE 26 A Chen–Baines diagram for a radial turbine.

3.7 Preliminary Blade Design and Costing Numerical experiments, which now constitute a
substantial part of research and development
Once all geometrical dimensions are known, the
(R&D) programs in the field, are attractive because,
blades and all other components can be preliminarly
if properly conceived and performed, they share most
sized. The choice of materials is imposed in practice
of the properties of physical experiments but can be
by the environment within which the design activity
carried out at a fraction of the cost and possess an
takes place (with industrial and commercial strate-
intrinsic degree of flexibility that makes their repeti-
gies usually conflicting with purely technical con-
tion under slightly different conditions relatively easy.
siderations). A preliminary costing assessment of the To be useful for design purposes, numerical simula-
machine is developed.
tions must have the following requisites:

 Physical relevance. They must simulate phenom-

3.8 Numerical Simulations under Realistic
ena that are relevant to design engineers. For
Operating Conditions
instance, they must reproduce ranges of Reynolds
As mentioned previously, the relatively simple and numbers and Mach numbers that are found in
essentially two-dimensional procedure based on the commercial turbines.
velocity triangles can capture only the average and  Completeness. They must include a realistically
large-scale details of the flow in the turbine channels. extended portion of the flow domain, so that the
Nevertheless, machines have been designed success- information that designers gather from the results
fully with this method or similar methods for may be immediately applicable to global design
decades, attaining overall efficiencies of more than procedures. For instance, they must include at least
90%. However, the progressive increase of the steam one complete blade passage and possibly a complete
turbine unit power led to a situation where even stage.
minor efficiency improvements became attractive.  Reliability. Their results must not contradict
Because an essentially two-dimensional design can known physical evidence (i.e., they must be cali-
be improved only by extensive testing, an impressive brated against it). In addition, new phenomenologi-
amount of experimental work was performed on cal predictions that emerge from their results must be
models and full-scale stages alike. The advancement in accord with the established knowledge in the field.
of computer technology made it possible to substitute  Robustness. Their results must be reproducible
physical testing with its numerical counterpart. under slightly varied operational conditions within a

reasonable variation of the operating parameters. For
instance, the limit behavior in time for all stable
unsteady simulations must tend to the steady
solution.
 Physical consistency. The models (numerical as
well as physical) embedded in a numerical simulation
must be in agreement with the general physics of
all relevant phenomena. For instance, a turbulent
model that assumes a certain relationship between
the fluctuating velocity components and the local
turbulent kinetic energy cannot violate any of the
known energy balances established by global con-
siderations.
The first numerical simulations (during the 1970s)
were based on inviscid models of the Navier–Stokes
equations and could be applied only to very simple
geometries. Nevertheless, they demonstrated the
capability of capturing some of the known physics.
For instance, they correctly predicted the variation of
the curvature of streamlines at different radii due to a
Coriolis-like effect. During recent years, completely
three-dimensional simulations of complex geometries
have been presented where the entire stage is
simulated (although a correct accounting of the
relative motion of the rotoric and statoric blades is
still problematic). At the current state of the art, a
complete stage can be simulated only under some
simplifying assumptions with regard to its geometry
and the actual flow conditions. It is likely that in the
short to medium run (3–5 years), fully three-
dimensional simulations of realistic geometries can
be carried out using complex turbulent models such
as the LES (large eddy simulation) protocol or the
time-dependent ‘‘RSM’’ (Reynolds stress model).
Such extensive calculations require well over 106
grid points, solve 11 discretized differential equa-
tions per grid point on average, and can be
performed today only on large, massively parallel
computers.
3.9 Final Design and Costing
The two-dimensional design can be updated with the
help of numerical simulations and generally results in
minor modifications to the blade geometry (mostly,
the tip region of the blade and the shape of the casing
at the hub are affected). After some necessary testing,
the design is finalized, is fully engineered, and goes
into production. In this phase, detailed engineering
cost accounting procedures are employed to provide
an appropriately accurate calculation of the turbine
production costs.
Turbines, Steam 253
4. OFF-DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS
Steam turbines are ill suited to follow large (430%)
load variations. A change in the thermodynamic
parameters (pressure and temperature) causes a
change in density and affects the fluid dynamics of
the fluid–blade coupling. Inlet, profile, blockage, and
secondary losses invariably increase if the operating
point deviates from the design one. A mass flow rate
reduction (or increase) at the entrance of any stage is
reflected in a variation of pressures and densities at
stage exit and results in an efficiency penalty as well.
An exception is partial admission stages, where a
rather large mass flow rate adjustment can be made
by increasing or decreasing the number of active
sectors.
Reaction stages can be regulated in a limited way
by adjusting the interstage extractions. But this is not
always possible, with extraction conditions often
being dictated by process requirements. Thus, the
load is usually controlled by throttling the steam
upstream of the first stage. This practice is thermo-
dynamically wasteful and in effect limits the load-
following capabilities of these machines.
Part-load performance charts are easily drawn.
The power delivered by a turbine is P ¼ m*Dh*Zt,
and it is experimentally verified that, for a fixed
condenser pressure, throttling makes the Dh nearly
proportional to the Dp. Because the stage pressure
drop is linked to the stage mass flow rate by the
turbine characteristic line, the partial load curve can
be traced point by point. It can also be shown that a
multistage turbine behaves as a subsonic nozzle near
to its choking point, with its mass flow rate being
nearly linearly proportional to the total expansion
ratio (and therefore to the degree of throttling).
Thus, the delivered power will be proportional to the
mass flow rate. In the P/m plane, the line represent-
ing part-load performance is straight (in this approx-
imation) and is called the Willans line. It will
intersect the m axis at a nonzero point called the
no-load flow rate, and it is completely defined by two
experimental measurements that are easily per-
formed on an installed machine. If extractions are
present, the Willans line is shifted toward higher
mass flow rates and the complete part-load perfor-
mance map takes the appearance shown in Fig. 27.
Notice that this ‘‘fan’’ of Willans lines can still be
derived experimentally on the basis of two measure-
ments for each extraction flow rate.
The Willans line represents a first-order approx-
imation of the real behavior of a multistage
turbine. At its lowest and upmost range, the power
254 Turbines, Steam

comparison with those of their competitors in a very

30
D
broad band of their operational field. They do not
easily adapt to excessive load variations and, there-
fore, are better suited for base load plants. Steam
PS
IG turbine-based cogeneration plants have reached
0
at
25 Willans lines guaranteed exergetic efficiencies of more than 45%,
n
ac
tio IG and combined cycle units (with the steam turbine
ex
tr PS
25
0 bottoming a gas turbine) nowadays exceed 50%.
Throttle flow (kg/s)

/ h
ds at
po
u n
io
n A Although only marginal further increases in their
ct IG
0 00 t ra PS performance can be expected to come from design
0, ex 0
15 s/
h 25
20 C u nd n
at improvements, a more substantial gain may be
po tio
,0
00 tra
c obtained by increasing the temperature and pressure
0 ex IG
10
d s/
h
0
PS of the feed steam. Steam turbines for motive
un 25
0
po
n
at applications (marine and terrestrial) are rapidly
, 00 tio
50 t r ac becoming obsolete because in this field they are
ex
10 s /h being replaced by the lighter and more flexible diesel
u nd
0
po engines and (especially for the higher power outputs)
gas turbines.
Turbine design is also a very mature engineering
B field. Current procedures are quite well defined and
0
10,000 20,000 make extensive use of the automated optimal design
Shaft power (kW) methods. In this respect, a quantitative leap is
necessary in computer speed and numerical methods
FIGURE 27 A typical extraction turbine performance map
showing the Willans lines.
(especially turbulent modeling) to attain an appreci-
able advantage over the current state of the art.
output/mass flow rate dependence is no longer
linear.
SEE ALSO THE
FOLLOWING ARTICLES
5. CONCLUSIONS
Cogeneration  Mechanical Energy  Turbines, Gas
Steam turbines are the most important machines in
the energy conversion field. Their cumulative me-
chanical and electrical installed power exceeds that Further Reading
of any other type of unit by far. Their design and
Balje, O. (1981). ‘‘Turbomachines: A Guide to Design, Selection,
operational procedures are very advanced, and they and Theory.’’ John Wiley, New York.
can be regarded as mature technological compo- Demeulenaere, A., and van den Braembusche, R. A. (1998). Three
nents. They are characterized by the highest stage dimensional inverse method for turbomachinery blading design.
efficiency among all ‘‘prime movers’’ (with Zstage ASME J. Turbomachinery 120, 247–255.
ranging from 0.80 to 0.95), by the highest power Lakshminarayana, B. (1996). ‘‘Fluid Dynamics and Heat Transfer
of Turbomachinery.’’ John Wiley, New York.
output per unit (up to 300 MW for a single body), by Mathis, D. M. (1994). Fundamentals of turbine design. In
one of the highest power densities (up to 700 kW/cm2 ‘‘Handbook of Turbomachinery’’ (E. Logan, Jr., Ed.). Marcel
of active flow area), and by one of the highest mean Dekker, New York.
times between failure (4100,000 h between major Peltier, R. V. (1994). Steam turbines. In ‘‘Handbook of Turbo-
machinery’’ (E. Logan, Jr., Ed.). Marcel Dekker, New York.
overhauls) and also cover an extremely wide range of
Stodola, A. (1945). ‘‘Steam and Gas Turbines.’’ Peter Smith, New
applications (from a few kilowatts as auxiliary York.
power units to more than 1000 MW in major nuclear Wislicenus, G. F. (1947). ‘‘Fluid Mechanics of Turbomachinery.’’
plants). Their installed cost is relatively modest in McGraw–Hill, New York.