Numerical Investigation of Unsteady Blade Row Interactions With Leakage Flow in Steam Turbines

This paper focuses on the interaction of labyrinth seal leakage flows within two stages of a HP and an IP steam turbine. Numerical studies have been carried out with the DLR in-house code TRACE [1] to show the impact of the labyrinth seal leakage flow on the total loss generation in both steady and time accurate simulations. CFD results are verified by the in-house 2D through-flow method of Siemens Energy. The investigations are divided into five steps: 1. Real gas effects, 2. Steady simulations of the core flow alone and its interaction with the cavity flow to provide insights about loss production contributed by the mixing process of the re-entering leakage flow into the main flow, 3. Understanding and modeling of unsteady phenomena within such interacting flows, 4. Effects of reduction of the axial distance between the two stages on the mixing process in time accurate simulations. 5. Comparison of blade loads calculated by Siemens’ CAE tools and predicted by TRACE.Copyright © 2009 by ASME