Plastic Behavior of Steam Turbine Low Pressure Part

Abstract

Low-pressure steam turbine parts are generally exposed to lowest steam parameters only and it could seem that they should not be susceptible to permanent deformation. However, this assumption is incorrect and permanent changes in geometry become visible in low-pressure turbine casings when they are disassembled after the first time in operation. The driving mechanism of the plastic deformation of the low-pressure casings is mainly the non-uniform temperature field. This paper deals with results obtained from a numerical FEM simulation of a steam turbine low pressure part, which includes elastic-plastic behavior of the material, and results measured under the real conditions.