Steam Turbines Terminology

• Thermal Energy
o Thermal energy can be described as a flow of energy from one system or
state to another. As the energy moves, a difference in temperature will
occur. The difference in temperature is thermal energy.
• Reciprocating Piston Steam Engine
o A reciprocating engine, also often known as a piston engine, is a heat
engine that uses one or more reciprocating pistons to convert pressure
into a rotating motion.
• Power-to-Weight Ratio
o Power-to-weight ratio is a measurement of actual performance of any
engine or power sources. It is also used a measure of performance of a
vehicle as a whole.
• Thermodynamic Efficiency
o In thermodynamics, the thermal efficiency () is a performance measure of
a thermal device such as an internal combustion engine, a boiler, or a
furnace.
• Reversible Process
o Any process in which a system can be made to pass through the same
states in the reverse order when the process is reversed.
• Heat Engine
o A heat engine is a physical or theoretical device that converts thermal
energy to mechanical output. The mechanical output is called work, and
the thermal energy input is called heat. Heat engines typically run on a
specific thermodynamic cycle. Heat engines can be open to the
atmospheric air or sealed and closed off to the outside (open or closed
cycle).
• Kw
o A unit of power equal to 1,000 watts; equivalent to approx. 1.34
horsepower.
• Mw
o A unit of power: one million watts. A large electrical generating plant can
generate a thousand megawatts of electricity.
• Feedwater Heaters
o A feedwater heater is a power plant component used to pre-heat water
delivered to a steam generating boiler.
• Isentropic Process
o A change that takes place without any increase or decrease in entropy,
such as a process which is both reversible and adiabatic.
• Entropy Process
o Measure of a system's energy that is unavailable for work, or of the degree
of a system's disorder
• Impulse Turbine
 o A prime mover in which fluid under pressure enters a stationary nozzle
where its pressure (potential) energy is converted to velocity (kinetic)
energy and absorbed by the rotor.
• Kinetic Energy
o The energy possessed by a body because of its motion, equal to one half
the mass of the body times the square of its speed.
• "Carry Over Velocity" & "Leaving Loss"
o An impulse turbine has fixed nozzles that orient the steam flow into high
speed jets. These jets contain kinetic energy, which the rotor blades,
shaped like buckets, convert into shaft rotation as the steam jet changes
direction. As the steam flows through the nozzle its pressure falls from
inlet pressure to the exit pressure. Due to this higher ratio of expansion of
steam in the nozzle, the steam leaves the nozzle with a very high velocity.
The steam leaving the moving blades is a large portion of the maximum
velocity of the steam when leaving the nozzle. The loss of energy due to
this higher exit velocity is often called the "carry over velocity" or
"leaving loss".
• Reaction Turbine
o A power-generation prime mover utilizing the steady-flow principle of
fluid acceleration, where nozzles are mounted on the moving element.
• Stator and Rotor
o The active parts of an alternator. The rotor is the inside rotating part that is
connected via slip ring to a DC voltage supplied by the exciter. The rotor
serves is the rotating magnetic field that is induced in the stator where the
output AC mains is generated
• Governor
o A feedback device on a machine or engine that is used to provide
automatic control of pressure, temperature or speed.
• Droop Speed Control
o In Droop Speed Control Mode, the turbine speed is controlled as a
function of turbine load. To increase the power output of the generator, the
controller increases the speed setpoint of the prime mover, but since the
speed cannot change (it is fixed by the frequency of the grid to which the
generator is connected) this frequency difference is used to increase the
energy being admitted to the prime mover. So, the actual speed is being
“allowed” to “droop” below its setpoint.
• Turbo-Electric Propulsion
o A turbo-electric transmission uses electric generators to convert the
mechanical energy of a turbine (steam or gas) into electric energy and
electric motors to convert it back into mechanical energy to power the
driveshafts.