Working of Steam Turbine

| | Power Plant, Thermal Engineering

Steam turbines are heart of power plant, they are the devices which transform thermal
energy in fluid to mechanical energy. In this video lecture working of steam turbine is
explained in a logical manner.
Summary of above lecture is given below.

Energy Absorption from fluid - Role of Rotor Blades

When high energy fluid (high pressure and high temperature) passes through series of
rotor blades, it absorbs energy from fluid and starts rotating, thus it transforms thermal
energy in fluid to mechanical energy.

Fig.1 Rotating blades of turbine helps in transforming thermal in fluid to mechanical energy
So series of such blade which eventually transform thermal energy are the most vital part of a
steam turbine. One of such rotor set is shown in figure below.

Fig.2 A typical steam turbine rotor

If you take a close look at one of the blade, it would be clear that a blade is a collection of airfoil
cross sections from bottom to top. When flow passes through such airfoils it induces a low
pressure on bottom surface and high pressure on top surface of airfoil as shown in figure below.

Fig.3 Fluid flow around airfoil cross sectioned blade induces a high pressure (P) and low
pressure(P) on blade surfaces
This pressure difference will induce a resultant force in upward direction, thus making
the blade rotate. So some part of fluid energy will get transformed to mechanical energy

of blade. Before analyzing energy transfer from fluid to blade, we will have a close look
at energy associated with a fluid.

Energy Associated with a Fluid

A flowing fluid can have 3 components of energy components

Kinetic energy - Virtue of its velocity

Pressure Energy - Virtue of its pressure
Internal Energy - Virtue of its temperature
Last 2 components of energy together known as enthalpy. So total energy in a fluid can be
represented as sum of kinetic energy and enthalpy.

Energy Transfer to Rotors

When fluid passes through rotor blades it loses some amount of energy to the rotor
blades. Due to this both kinetic and enthalpy energy of fluid come down for a typical
rotor. As kinetic energy comes down velocity of flow decreases. If we directly pass this
stream to next stage of rotor blades it will not transfer much energy because of low
velocity of flow stream. So before passing the stream to next rotor stage we have to
increase the velocity first. This is achieved with use of a set of stationary nozzle blades,
also known as stator. When fluid passes through stator blades velocity of fluid increase
due to its special shape thus one part of enthalpy energy will get converted into kinetic
energy. Thus enthalpy of stream reduces and kinetic energy of stream increase. It is to
be noted that here there is no energy addition or removal from flow, what happens here
is conversion of enthaply energy into kinetic energy. Now this steam of fluid can be
passed to next rotor blades and process can be repeated. Velocity and enthalpy
variation of flow is shown in following figure.

Fig.4 Velocity and enthalpy variations across rotor and stator stages of a typical steam turbine

Degree of Energy Transfer

Total energy transfer to the rotor blade is sum of decrease in kinetic energy and
decrease in enthalpy. Degree of contribution of each term is an important parameter in
axial flow machines. This is represented by a term called of degree of reaction, which is
defined as

Where both enthalpy change and kinetic energy changes are defined across the rotor blade.

0 % Reaction - Impulse Turbines

When D.O.R = 0 there will not be any enthalpy change across the rotor, such a turbine
is known as impulse turbine. Blades of such a turbine would like as shown below.

Fig.5 A typical impulse turbine rotor cross section and flow pattern
Here incoming flow stream hits the blade and produces and impulse force on it. Since enthalpy
across the blade does not change temperature will also remain same. There will be minor pressure
drop across the rotor, but this is almost negligible. Here energy transfer to the blade is purely due
to decrease in kinetic energy of fluid.

100 % Reaction Turbines

When D.O.R = 1 kinetic energy change across the rotor will be zero, energy transfer will
be purely due to decrease in enthalpy. Since kinetic energy is same across the rotor
absolute value of velocities remain same. This is shown in figure below.