A Novel Dehumidification Strategy to Reduce Liquid Fraction and Condensation Loss in Steam Turbines

Massive droplets can be generated to form two-phase flow in steam turbines, leading to erosion issues to the blades and reduces the reliability of the components. A condensing two-phase flow model was developed to assess the flow structure and loss considering the nonequilibrium condensation phenomenon due to the high expansion behaviour in the transonic flow in linear blade cascades. A novel dehumidification strategy was proposed by introducing turbulent disturbances on the suction side. The results show that the Wilson point of the nonequilibrium condensation process was delayed by increasing the inlet superheated level at the entrance of the blade cascade. With an increase in the inlet superheated level of 25 K, the liquid fraction and condensation loss significantly reduced by 79% and 73%, respectively. The newly designed turbine blades not only remarkably kept the liquid phase region away from the blade walls but also significantly reduced 28.1% averaged liquid fraction and 47.5% condensation loss compared to the original geometry. The results provide an insight to understand the formation and evaporation of the condensed droplets inside steam turbines.

Bistability and nonequilibrium condensation in a driven-dissipative Josephson array: a c-field model

Developing theoretical models for nonequilibrium quantum systems poses significant challenges. Here we develop and study a multimode model of a driven-dissipative Josephson junction chain of atomic Bose-Einstein condensates, as realised in the experiment of Labouvie et al.[Phys. Rev. Lett. 116, 235302 (2016)]. The model is based on c-field theory, a beyond-mean-field approach to Bose-Einstein condensates that incorporates fluctuations due to finite temperature and dissipation. We find the c-field model is capable of capturing all key features of the nonequilibrium phase diagram, including bistability and a critical slowing down in the lower branch of the bistable region. Our model is closely related to the so-called Lugiato-Lefever equation, and thus establishes new connections between nonequilibrium dynamics of ultracold atoms with nonlinear optics, exciton-polariton superfluids, and driven damped sine-Gordon systems.

Stability Prediction of the Nuclear Turbine Blades During Wet Steam Nonequilibrium Condensation Process

Stability of the nuclear turbine blades is difficult to be accurately predicted because the wet steam load (WSL) as well as its induced equivalent damping and stiffness during nonequilibrium condensation process (NECP) is hard to be directly calculated. Generally, in design, NECP is assumed as equilibrium condensation process (ECP), of which the two-phase temperature difference (PTD) between gaseous and liquid is ignored. In this paper, a novel method to calculate the WSL-induced equivalent damping and equivalent stiffness during NECP based on the combined microperturbation method (MPM) and computational fluid dynamics method (CFDM) was proposed. Once the WSL-induced equivalent damping and equivalent stiffness are determined, the stability of the blade-WSL system, of which the blade was modeled by a pretwisted airfoil cantilever beam, can then be predicted based on the Lyapunov's first method. Besides, to estimate the effects of PTD, comparisons between the WSL-induced equivalent damping and equivalent stiffness as well as the unstable area during NECP and ECP were presented. Results show that the WSL-induced equivalent damping and equivalent stiffness during NECP are more sensitive to the inlet boundary due to the irreversible heat transfer caused by PTD during NECP. Accordingly, the unstable area during NECP is about three times larger than during ECP.