Advances in Steam Turbines for Modern Power Plants

Tadashi Tanuma

• Publisher: Woodhead Publishing
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9780081003251
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Renewable Power Resources
• Index: Technology & Engineering

Advances in Steam Turbines for Modern Power Plants provides an authoritative review of steam turbine design optimization, analysis and measurement, the development of steam turbine blades, and other critical components, including turbine retrofitting and steam turbines for renewable power plants.

As a very large proportion of the world's electricity is currently generated in systems driven by steam turbines, (and will most likely remain the case in the future) with steam turbines operating in fossil-fuel, cogeneration, combined cycle, integrated gasification combined cycle, geothermal, solar thermal, and nuclear plants across the world, this book provides a comprehensive assessment of the research and work that has been completed over the past decades.

• Presents an in-depth review on steam turbine design optimization, analysis, and measurement
• Written by a range of experts in the area
• Provides an overview of turbine retrofitting and advanced applications in power generation

Part I

Steam Turbine Cycles and Cycle Design Optimization

Outline

1 Introduction to steam turbines for power plants

2 Steam turbine cycles and cycle design optimization: The Rankine cycle, thermal power cycles, and IGCC power plants

3 Steam turbine cycles and cycle design optimization: Advanced ultra-supercritical thermal power plants and nuclear power plants

4 Steam turbine cycles and cycle design optimization: Combined cycle power plants

5 Steam turbine life cycle cost evaluations and comparison with other power systems

1

Introduction to steam turbines for power plants

T. Tanuma, Teikyo University, Tokyo, Japan

Abstract

The aim of this book is to present the importance of technology in the design and development of steam turbines for modern power plants, showing state-of-the-art detailed technologies and design methodologies for Steam turbine cycles and cycle-design optimization (Part I), Steam turbine analysis, measurement, and monitoring for design optimization (Part II), Development of materials, blades, and important parts of steam turbines (Part III) and Turbine retrofitting, advanced applications in power generation (Part IV). In this chapter, features and roles of steam turbines in power generation and technology trends of steam turbines are presented for the introduction of steam turbines designed for power plants.

Keywords

Steam turbine; power generation; modern power plant; introduction; design; development; technology trends

1.1 Features of steam turbines

The first steam turbine for power generation was designed and built by Sir Charles Algernon Parsons in 1884 in England. Steam turbines have been key components of electrical power generation since the 19th century and are one of the distinctive outcomes of the industrial revolution. Steam turbines have played a major role in power-generation industries, upgrading technology innovations for more than 130 years, and they continue to do so today.

Steam turbines are turbomachinery prime movers in which stator blades accelerate and swirl high-temperature and high-pressure steam provided from their boilers around their rotors, and rotating blades receive impulse forces and reaction forces from the accelerated and swirled steam, and the rotating blades transmit the torque generated by the steam forces to their rotors. A turbine stage consists of a pair of a stator blade row and a rotating blade row. There are many kinds of steam turbines, from single-stage turbines to multi-stage turbines that have 30 or more stages. Therefore, the capacity range of a single unit is very wide, from the hundreds-of-kW class to the 1900-MW class, and the range of applications of steam turbines is also very wide.

Electric power generation is one of main applications of steam turbines. Since high-temperature and high-pressure inlet steam conditions increase efficiency, inlet steam pressures range from 24.1 to 31.0 MPa.g (mega Pascal plus atmospheric pressure), and temperatures range from 593°C to 600°C in typical steam turbines for modern large-scale thermal power plants. Steam turbines under these steam conditions are usually called ultra-supercritical (USC) pressure steam turbines. Unit power outputs of USC power plants typically range from 600 to 1100 MW for one turbine unit, because a large capacity for one unit is advantageous for turbine efficiency. As a representative case of USC steam turbines, a steam turbine usually consists of one single-flow high-pressure (HP) turbine, one single-flow or double-flow intermediate-pressure (IP) turbine, and two double-flow low-pressure (LP) turbines with last-stage blades of 1 m or more in length because the steam volume flow, including extraction steam of the steam turbine outlet in a condenser vacuum condition, increases up to 2000-times that of the inlet. Figs. 1.1 and 1.2 show typical USC steam turbines for modern power plants.

Figure 1.1 700 MW class steam turbine in a large-capacity power plant. HP inlet steam: 24.1 MPa 593°C, IP inlet steam: 593°C. Source: Courtesy from Toshiba Corporation and Hokuriku Electric Power Company.

Figure 1.2 1000 MW class steam turbine in a large-capacity power plant. HP inlet steam: 25.1 MPa 600°C, IP inlet steam: 610°C. Source: Courtesy from Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems Ltd.

1.2 Roles of steam turbines in power generation

Electricity is the world’s fastest-growing form of end-use energy consumption, as it has been for many decades. World electricity generation is projected to increase by a factor of 1.7 by 2040, from 21.6 trillion kilowatt-hours (kWh) in 2012 to 25.8 trillion kWh in 2020 and 36.5 trillion kWh in 2040. An important factor in electricity demand growth is economic growth, especially among the emerging non-Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (non-OECD) countries [1]. Power systems have continued to evolve in order to supply enough electricity into this increasing world market.

Power generation methods can be categorized by fuel as thermal (coal, natural gas, and petroleum), nuclear, and renewable (hydro, wind, biomass, geothermal, solar photovoltaics (PVs), and solar thermal). Steam turbines are widely used in coal-fired, natural gas-fired combined, nuclear, geother...

Table of contents

• Cover image
• Title page
• Table of Contents
• Copyright
• List of Contributors
• Part I: Steam Turbine Cycles and Cycle Design Optimization
• Part II: Steam Turbine Analysis, Measurement and Monitoring for Design Optimization
• Part III: Development of Materials, Blades and Important Parts of Steam Turbines
• Part IV: Turbine Retrofitting and Advanced Applications in Power Generation
• Index