Turbine internal efficiency

A smaller governing value loss enables improvement of high pressure turbine internal efficiency. 

A slight goverhlng valve loss enables Improvement in the HP turbine internal efficiency A ... 

The actual steam rate is obtained by dividing the theoretical steam rate by the turbine efficiency, which includes thermodynamic and mechanical losses. Alternatively, internal efficiency can be used, and mechanical losses applied in a second step. 

Turbine design Turbine tp Internal efficiency, % Exhaust enthalpy, Btu/lb A/i," Btu/lb Steam rate... 

For one thing, steam produced from hot-lime-softened water will have some amount of silicates. These silicates tend to deposit on the rotor blades of turbines, which use the motive steam as a source of energy. The silicate fouling of the turbine blades reduces the turbine s efficiency. But, more importantly, from an operator s point of view, the silicate deposits eventually break off of the blades. This unbalances the rotor. An unbalanced rotor is the fundamental cause of vibration, Vibrations lead to damage of the shaft bearings and seals. Eventually, vibrations will destroy the turbine s internal components. 

A 165-MW-class gas turbine/generator has been introduced by another manufacturer. This machine, also developed by scaling up a proven design, features a simple-cycle efficiency of 37.5% a turbine inlet temperature of 1235°C a pressure ratio of 30 1, up from 16 1 on the previous generation and an output of 165 MW for gas fuel firing under International Standards Organization (ISO) conditions (101 kPa, 15°C (14.7 psia, 59°F)). A combined-cycle facihty based around this machine could achieve efficiencies up to 58% or a heat rate of about 6209 kj/kWh (5885 Btu/kWh). 

At least two manufacturers have developed and installed machines rated to produce more than 210 MW of electricity in the simple-cycle mode. In both cases, the machines were designed and manufactured through cooperative ventures between two or more international gas turbine developers. One 50-Hz unit, first installed as a peaking power faciUty in France, is rated for a gross output of 212 MW and a net simple-cycle efficiency of 34.2% for natural-gas firing. When integrated into an enhanced three-pressure, combined-cycle with reheat, net plant efficiencies in excess of 54% reportedly can be achieved. 

The objective of the gas turbine designer is to make all the proces.ses in the plant as near to reversible as possible, i.e. to reduce the irreversibilities, both internal and external, and hence to obtain higher thermal efficiency (in a closed cycle gas turbine plant) or higher overall efficiency (in an open gas turbine plant). The concepts of availability and exergy may be used to determine the location and magnitudes of the irreversibilities. 

Thus the cooled reversible cycle [CHT]rci with a first rotor inlet temperature, Tj, will have an internal thermal efficiency exactly the same as that of the uncooled cycle [CHTJru with a higher turbine entry temperature 3 = Tr, and the same pressure ratio. There is no penalty on efficiency in cooling the turbine gases at entry but note that the specific work output, w = (wj — wc)/CpT = [(0 /x) — 11(j — 1), is reduced, since 0 < 0. 

However, it is important to note that this conclusion becomes invalid if the air for cooling the LP turbine is taken from compressor delivery (as in Fig. 4.3b) and then throttled at constant temperature (T2 = Ty) to the lower pressure before being mixed with the gas leaving the HP turbine. The thermal efficiency drops as another internal irreversibility is introduced it can be shown [5] that... 

Without these advances in hard, strong materials based on abundant, and therefore low-cost iron ore, there could have been no industrial revolution in the nineteenth century. Long bridges, sky-scraper buildings, steamships, railways, and more, needed pearlitic steel (low carbon) for their construction. Efficient steam engines, internal combustion engines, turbines, locomotives, various kinds of machine tools, and the like, became effective only when key components of them could be constructed of martensitic steels (medium carbon). 

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