The Effect of Tip Shroud Geometries on Last Turbine Stage Efficiency

Last stages of steam turbines and heavy-duty power gas turbines contribute significantly to output power and efficiency of whole turbine. Moreover, radial distribution of parameters downstream of the last stage provides boundary conditions for diffuser design. Thus, the increase of the last stage efficiency and obtainment of favorable radial distribution downstream of the last rotor blade is very important. Due to the long blades of last stages, resonance might occur. To avoid dangerous frequencies a damping wire or damping bolts are used. Such damping elements result in additional losses, so to minimize these losses a damping shroud is used instead. In general, the full damping shroud has to provide both the aerodynamic loss reduction and the resonance frequency offset. However, in most cases due to mechanical integrity limits instead of the full shroud a partial shroud is used. In this case the loss reduction feature of the partial shroud is diminished as compared with the full shroud. Sometimes, the use of the partial shroud results in the decrease of the efficiency compared with a stage with unshrouded rotor blades at small tip clearances. In this paper, a numerical investigation of the flow structure around full and partial shrouds with various geometries as well as the effect of the various shroud geometries on the turbine stage efficiency is carried out. Eight geometries with different number of fins of various heights are studied. Moreover, stage efficiencies for both shrouded and unshrouded blade are compared. Based on this comparison, reasonable design recommendations aimed to reduce the losses within the radial gap over the shroud are developed. In particular, filling the space in the gap with the additional honeycombs is considered and the effect on the flow structure and the last stage efficiency investigated. Numerical results obtained in the paper correspond well to the published test data.