The flow in the exhaust hood of a condensing steam turbine depends to a considerable extent on the inlet swirl of the flow which changes in tandem with the volumetric flow of steam through the last stage. This study gives a description of experiments which were carried out on the exhaust hood of a 500 MW steam turbine under various conditions, e.g. when there is rated power, when there is an idle run, or when there are various pressures in the condenser. The flow in a model exhaust hood was investigated by means of CFD methods. Computations were performed with the help of the FLUENT 5 code which is based on solving the Navier-Stokes equations while taking the RSM and LES models of turbulence into consideration. The results of the computations are in full conformity with the experiments.
The computation model of the 3D viscous flow is used for the analysis of the flow conditions in the model of steam turbine exhaust hood, that was in previous time investigated experimentally. The computation method and the obtained results are described. The calculation is concentrated on the finding of the influence of inlet velocity field and on the influence of compressibility of the flow medium. Especially it followed the fluid motion in the outlet vortex and the occurrence of the areas with flow separation.
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