Numerical Simulation on Wet Steam Flow

in the Last Stage of Steam Turbine

in Nuclear Power Plant
QIAN Yong XIE Dan-mei TAN Cheng-cheng,ZHAO Xian-bo,
School of Power and Mechanical School of Power and Mechanical HOU You-min,XU Sen,
Engineering Wuhan University Engineering Wuhan University ZHENG Hua-bin
Wuhan, China Wuhan, China School of Power and Mechanical
e-mailqywddj15@163.com e-maildmxie@whu.edu.cn Engineering Wuhan University

AbstractHigh-capacity, low inlet parameters and huge flow are and the blades surface, and the flow rate etc, it is necessary to
the characteristics of the nuclear steam turbine. As a result of study the stimulation of wet steam flow, vapor-liquid two
adopting saturation steam and long blade, water erosion of last phase flow, movement of droplets of different size and
stage blade become more prominent. The secondary droplets volume of sediment.
continuously dynamic impact to the movable vanes in the wake
of hollow stationary blade is the main reason for water erosion. II. THE FLOW CONTROL EQUATIONS AND THE MODELING
So, it is necessary to research wet steam flow, vapor-liquid two
phase flow, movement of droplets of different size and volume of A. Basic equations
sediment. The results of numerical simulation on wet steam 1) The quality conservation equation
two-phase flow in the last stage of nuclear turbine based on
FLUENT software can show the flow characteristics of the wet

steam. The most effective measure to prevent or mitigate the + ( ui ) = Sm
water erosion is that slotting suction ports in suitable locations of t xi 1
the hollow stationary blades concave surface or convex surface.
Research shows that, suction slot should be set up in and around
the hollow stationary blades, in a relatively wide of the near 0.8. 2) The momentum conservation equation

Keywords-Steam turbine; Hollow stationary blade; Numerical

simulation; Suction slot ( ui ) + ( uiuj )
t xj
I. INTRODUCTION
ij
As a sustainable manner of power generation, nuclear = + + gi + Fi
power is playing an increasingly important role in the power xi xj 2
industry system. According to the long-term national energy
development plan, by 2020 the proportion of nuclear power in Where,is static pressure,ij is the stress tensor, gi and Fi
China will reach 4 percent. So, for some time to come, are the gravity and the volume of external force on the
China's nuclear power will keep rapidly developing direction of i.
[1-2].High-capacity, low inlet parameters and huge flow are
the characteristics of the nuclear steam turbine. As a result of 3) energy conservation equation
adopting saturation steam and long blades, water erosion of
last stage blades become more prominent. Serious water ( T ) ( uT ) ( vT ) ( wT )
erosion will reduce stage efficiency significantly, and cause + + +
blades damage, and even pose a threat to the safe operation of t x y z
generating units. So, removing the water effectively to 3
k T k T k T
prevent water erosion is one of the key technologies of the = ( ) ( ) ( ) + ST
safe operation of nuclear power steam turbine units [3]. x cp x y cp y z cp z
The most effective measure to prevent or mitigate the
water erosion is that slotting suction ports in suitable locations Where, is the fluid density, t is the time ,uvw are the
of the hollow stationary blades concave surface or convex micro-vector of U in the axis of x,y,z.T is temperature, k is
surface, by making use of static pressure between the inner heat transfer coefficient for the fluid ,cp is the heat capacity,
and outer slots to remove the moisture film or stream on the ST is internal heat source.
surface, because that will reduce the number of large water
droplets which come from the static blades [4-6]. As the
efficiency of this method is largely dependent on such factors
as position, width, pressure, the angle between suction slot

978-1-4244-2487-0/09/$25.00 2009 IEEE

 4) equation of k- be trapped in the wall. If the particles are non-volatile,
particles tracks terminate here in calculation, otherwise the
particles will be released to the steam;
t k
(k) + ( kui ) = [( + ) ] go through internal porous medium, such as radiation or
t xi xj k xj 4
discontinuity region.
+ Gk + Gb YM + Sk
In this calculation, the particles boundary conditions set
granular form as followed: particles go through the wall and
t y escapeparticles track terminate here in the calculation
( ) + ( ui ) = [( + ) ]
t xi xj xj x Escape; particles are caught in the wallTrap.
5
2 III. NUMERICAL CALCULATION OF THE LAST STAGES

+ C1 (Gk + C 3 Gb) C 2 R + S STATIC BLADES
k k
In this paper, numerical simulation of wet steam-vapor
Where, Gk is the kinetic energy of laminar flow velocity flow is based on FLUENT. Two-dimensional model is
gradient and turbulent, Gk is generated by the buoyancy of the adopted. Considering that the water erosion generally occurs
turbulent kinetic energy, YM is the fluctuate of the transition above the middle section, so only 53%, 73%, 93% length of
from the proliferation in compressible turbulence.C1Z, C2Z, the static blades sections are chosen as calculating examples.
C3Z are constant ,k and z are the turbulence Prandtl Steam turbine of 900 MW in Daya Bay nuclear power station
number of equation k and , Sk and Sz are user-defined. is studied. Bending and twisted static blades are used in the
last stage. The 53%, 73% and 93% length sections of the
B. Wet steam two phase flow model blades geometric parameters are showed in TABLE.
Wet steam is a mixture of two phases, in which vaporous TABLEI Parameters of different length cross-section[7]
phase takes the most part, water droplets formed by the
condensation of liquid phase is the less part. Therefore, in the Cross Chord Exit angle of Pitch
numerical simulation of wet steam flow, general assumptions section b/mm static blade 2y t/mm
are as followed: 53% L 215 16.2 124

1) ignore the speed slipping between droplets and steam;
2) forces between droplets are zero;
3) the quantity of condensation phase is small <0.2;
4) the volume of liquid phase is not considered.
C. Discrete phase model
In wet steam, the number of secondary water droplets is
small while mass of single droplet is heavy. The continuously
dynamic impact of secondary droplets to the moving blades,
forming in the wake of static blades, is the main reason for
moving blades water erosion. The interact forces between
particles and the influence of droplets volume are ignored
because the secondary droplets share of wet steam volume is
very small. The model with random orbital track is employed
in the model of the discrete phase of secondary droplets. In
addition, following assumptions are adopted:
The droplets are ball;
not consider droplets deformation, growth and rupture;
when droplets encounter the wall, deposition happen, but
not rebound.
D. Particles boundary conditions
When the particles collide with the wall, there would be
the following circumstances:
particles in flexible or non-elastic collision reflection;go
through the wall and escapeparticles track terminate here,
in the calculation;
73% L 215 17.3 135
93% L 215 18.5 147
As this two-dimensional model is adopted, triangular grid
is used in the mesh. The mesh grid of 73% length cross
section is illustrated in Figure. The cascade trailing edge
parts are scaled smaller particularly in order to enhance the
accuracy.
Figure1 Mesh grid of 73% length cross section
The example in Figure contain four boundaries as
follows: the wall is the blades foil curve, the left side is the
pressure inlet, the right side is pressure outlet, the top and the
bottom are periodic boundaries. To simplify the calculation,
the heat transfer between steam and steam turbine is not
considered; therefore the wall is thought as insulation. The
two blades are chosen to simulate blading in order to improve
accuracy. The pressure, Mach number are obtained by
iterative calculation. Figure to Figure show the pressure and
Mach number of 53%, 73%, and 93% length section
respectively. the entrance of jet sources. The water droplets tracks of 73%
length cross section with different diameters (2m, 10m,
20m and 200m) are given in Figure5.

Figure2 Pressure and Mach number of 53% length section

(a) d=2m (b) d=10m

(c) d=20m (d) d=200m

Figure3 Pressure and Mach number of 73% length section Figure5 Tracks of 73% length cross section

The primary droplets (with d <2m) have better following

behaviors, which flow out of the exit with the main steam into
the next stage. The water droplets inertia force is increasing
with its diameter. Then more droplets split out from the steam
due to inertia, the droplets will accumulate on the surface of
blade. Secondary dorplets of 20m-200m deposit on the
blades which is shown in figure. While the droplets, whose
diameter is in range of 20m-200m, have poor following
behaviors, their tracks rise superior to steam flow. Most
droplets in the convex surface deposit before the turning point.
So, its reasonable to set suction slot before turning point. But
droplets in the concave part will deposit after the suction slot.
Figure4 Pressure and Mach number of 93% length section Therefore, parts of droplets will not be removed because of
the difficulties of the structure and manufacturing process of
IV. DISCRETE NUMERICAL OF THE LAST STAGE STATIC blades.
BLADES The deposition rate of 73% length cross section is shown
In this paper, discrete phase model DPMis adopted in in TABLEII. From the table it can be seen that primary
the study of the cascade water droplet, as well as the impact of droplets deposition on the blades is very small, only a small
vapor phase flow field. As the range of secondary droplets amount of sediment on the concave surface, while all
diameter is between 20m-200m, so the water droplets secondary droplets will deposit on the blades, and the amount
diameter of 2m, 10m, 20m, 100m, and 200m are of deposition in the concave surface is greater than that of the
chosen for research respectively. In addition, an average convex surface.
particle diameter d=115m droplets are studied. TABLEII Deposition of 73% length cross section
The vapor-liquid two-phase coupling is not calculated in Droplets Deposition on Deposition on No
order to reduce the amount of calculation. Random walk diameter m convex surface concave surface deposition
model to track the movement of water droplets is selected in 2 0 0.03 0.97
order to better understand the impact of turbulence. Steam 10 0.07 0.62 0.31
20 0.15 0.85 0
dispersion of the boundary conditions is maintained on the
200 0.18 0.82 0
basis of the steam activation of discrete model. Boundaries of
entrance and exit are escape, wall is trap. The entrance is In the same way the location of suction slot and condition
of deposition of the 53% and 93% length cross sections can be
drawn.
Track and deposition of droplets with average diameter of
115m along the width are shown in FigureDQG Figure.
Deposition along is distributed as following: 2.29kg/s on
convex surface, and 10.77kg/s on concave surface. Droplets
on the relative width from 0 to 0.5 deposit relatively small and
evenly. The largest depositions locate on the relative width
from 0.75 to 0.80. Deposition on the concave surface increase
while decrease on convex surface. Therefore, suction slot set
here could achieve better efficiency only 13% of the water
droplets without being removed). The closer the dorplets
around the tail,the deposition of droplets smaller in diameter.
REFERENCES
[1] Xu Sen. Numerical simulation on wet steam two-phase flow in the last
stage of nuclear turbine [D]. Wuhan University, 2008
[2] Zheng Huabin. The numerical simulation of the water removal efficiency
of the suction slot on last stage hollow stationary blades of nuclear
power plant turbine[D]. Wuhan University, 2008
[3] Feng Zhenping, LiLiang, Li Guojun. The status and progress of numerical
study on two-phase condensate flows of steam turbine[J]. Shanghai
Turbine .2002,6 (2).
[4] Yao Xiuping, Mao Shuzheng, Sun Bi, Xu Tingxiang. Suction slot design
of nuclear power 600 MW steam turbine at the end of hollow static
blades[J]. Power Engineering, 1998.8,18 (4): 7-14.
[5] British Central Electricity Research Laboratory, Belgium Feng.Carmen
hydrodynamics Institute. Cai Yinian translated.The two-phase flow in
turbine and separator[M].Beijing:Machinery Industry
Press ,1983.40-213
[6] Mao Shuzheng, Huang Yue. Dewetting method and deposition law of
steam turbine at the last stage[D]. Turbine Technology.1988(5): 44-50
[7] Guangdong Nuclear Power Training Center. 900MW PWR systems
and equipment[M]. Beijing: Atomic Energy Press, 2008.

Figure6 Tracks of d=115m dorplets

Figure7 Deposition locations of d=115m dorplets

V. CONCLUSIONS
In this paper, two-phase flow of wet steam at the last stage
of static blade of steam turbine in nuclear power plants is
simulated. The results of numerical simulation based on
FLUENT software can show the flow characteristics of the
wet steam. Track of droplets and condition of deposition are
shown in the figures above, as well as the flow of deposition.
The results show that: with the increase of blade height,
suction slot should be set near the tail, in a relatively wide of
0.8. Deposition on the concave surface increased while
decreased on convex surface.