Numerical Loss Prediction of high Pressure Steam Turbine airfoils

Steam turbines are widely used in various industrial applications, primarily for power extraction. However, deviation for operating design conditions is a frequent occurrence for such machines, and therefore, understanding their performance at off design conditions is critical to ensure that the needs of the power demanding systems are met as well as ensuring safe operation of the steam turbines. In this thesis, the aerodynamic performance of three different turbine airfoil sections ( baseline, mid radius and tip profile) as a function of angle of incidence and exit Mach numbers, is numerically computed at 0.3 axial chords downstream of the trailing edge. It was found that the average loss coefficient was low, owing to the fact that the flow over the airfoils was well behaved. The loss coefficient also showed a slight decrease with exit Mach number for all three profiles. The mid radius and tip profiles showed near identical performance due to similarity in their geometries. It was also found out that the baseline profile showed a trend of substantial increase in losses at positive incidences, due to the development of an adverse pressure zone on the blade suction side surface. The mid radius profile showed high insensitivity to angle of incidence as well as low exit flow angle deviation in comparison to the baseline blade.