Abstract—Steam turbines play a vital role in power generation as a prime mover which converts kinetic energy of steam into mechanical energy. The turbine normally consists of several stages with each stage consisting of a stationary blade and a rotating blade. Many of the utility steam turbines are of three cylinder constructions, followed by first the high pressure (HP), intermediate pressure (IP) and last low pressure (LP) stage respectively, where high, intermediate and low describe the pressure of the steam. A typical intermediate pressure cylinder module is chosen to carry out the project work. To achieve the above objectives we need to model separately the bladed region and attach the hub/shroud seal region to it by General Grid Interface (GGI). IDEAS software is used for geometric modeling, CFX TURBO-GRID software is used for meshing the bladed region, ICEM-CFD software is used for meshing the hub/shroud region of the seals and CFX Software is used for physics definition, solving and analyzing the problem. Analysis has been carried out for the 8th stage with and without seal. The results are compared and found to be in close comparison with two dimensional (2D) experimental calculations.

Index Terms—Steam turbine, Hub/shroud, General Grid Interface (GGI), IDEAS software, CFX TURBO-GRID software, ICEM-CFD software, CFX software

Cite: Shivakumar Vasmate, "Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) Analysis of Intermediate Pressure Steam Turbine," International Journal of Mechanical Engineering and Robotics Research, Vol.3, No.4, pp. 459-470, October 2014.