Reduced-Order Through-Flow Design Code for Highly Loaded, Cooled Axial Turbines

The development of advanced computational fluid dynamic codes for turbine design does not substitute the importance of mean-line codes. Turbine design involves mean-line design, through-flow design, airfoil design, and finally 3D viscous modeling. The preliminary mean-line design continues to play an important role in early design stages. The aim of this paper was to present the methodology of mean-line designing of axial turbines and to discuss the computational methods and procedures used. The paper presents the Lund University Axial Turbine mean-line code (LUAX-T). LUAX-T is a reduced-order through-flow tool that is capable of designing highly loaded, cooled axial turbines. The stage computation consists of three iteration loops — cooling, entropy, and geometry iteration loop. The stage convergence method depends on whether the stage is part of the compressor turbine (CT) or power turbine (PT) stages, final CT stage, or final PT stage. LUAX-T was developed to design axial single- and twin-shaft turbines, and various working fluid and fuel compositions can be specified. LUAX-T uses the modified Ainley and Mathieson loss model, with the cooling computation based on the m*-model. Turbine geometries were established by applying various geometry correlations and methods. The validation was performed against a test turbine that was part of a European turbine development program. LUAX-T validated the axial PT of the test turbine, which consisted of two stages with rotational speed 13000 rpm. LUAX-T showed good agreement with the available performance data on the test turbine. The paper presented also the mean-line design of an axial cooled twin-shaft turbine. Design parameters were kept within limits of current practice. The total turbine power was 109 MW, of which the CT power was 55 MW. The CT was designed with two stages with a rotational speed of 9500 rpm, while the PT had two stages with a rotational speed of 6200 rpm. The total cooling mass flow was calculated to 31 kg/s, which corresponds to 23 % of compressor inlet mass flow. LUAX-T proved capable of designing uncooled and cooled turbines.