Steam Turbine

San José State University

Charles W. Davidson College of Engineering

ME115 Thermal Engineering Lab

Professor Zaidi

Noah Horario
Kevin Olson
Jose Ramirez
Shane Sharp
Thinh Nguyen

April 4, 2018
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Background and Theory

Steam turbines have been used for a long time for power due to its rotary output motion.
In its earlier applications it was used for powering trains but in today’s world they are primarily
used for generating electricity. Complex steam engines use multiple stages when expanding the
steam to get the process as close to a ideal reversible expansion process as possible.
The steam turbine used in this lab is a Worthington Moore single stage impulse turbine
that is rated at a power output of 30hp. It gets its steam from the power plant on San Jose
State’s campus. The steam goes through an expansion nozzle and converted into velocity
energy, the turbine is then rotated due to the force of the steam acting on the turbine blades.
The objectives of this experiment is to review and apply thermodynamic concepts by
operating a steam turbine. Also by using this steam turbine it will help familiarize the students
with running and getting data from an actual energy conversion device.

Figure 1. Image of a steam turbine and temperature vs entropy graph that shows the theoretical
isentropic process and the actual non-isentropic process.
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Figure 2: Schematic of steam turbine and condenser with labeled points of temperatures and
pressures taken.

Experimental Results
The lab results for the quality of steam at the output of the turbine indicated that the state
was superheated at each load. The power output and rate of heat transfer to the condenser can
be found in the table 1 below.

Load (ft*lb) 20 50 80

Power (hp) 0.4887 1.5861 2.1678

Rate of heat transfer 458091.48 637665.77 782589.81

(Btu/hr)

Table 1: Results at each load of power and rate of heat transfer.

According to the temperature versus entropy graph, pressure and temperature always
remain constant along the saturation mixture line. This implies that as long as the fluid is in a
saturated state, temperature and pressure are dependent on one another. This includes
saturated vapor, saturated liquid, and saturated liquid-vapor mixture.
At the inlet and outlet of the turbine, the transducers indicate that pressure and
temperature are independent and the water is superheated. When the substance is
superheated, students must know both temperature and pressure to determine the enthalpy.
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Therefore, temperature and pressure are independent when they are not along the saturation
line. Secondly, temperature and pressure are dependent on each other when they are along the
saturation line.
The transducers are located at the inlet and outlet of the turbine for multiple reasons.
One aspect is because temperature and pressure are independent of each other at these
points, students need the transducers to take measurements at these points. The other aspect
is this allows students to measure the efficiency of the turbine because the measurements are
taken at the inlet and outlet.

Conclusions and Recommendations

The power output was far below the listed value of 30 hp. This could be due to the
inefficiencies in the steam turbine system such as leaking seals and a low steam pressure
supply from the plant. The efficiency did increase as the load increased as well as the power
output.
The RPM from both data sets are off by 20 to 30 RPM due to the inconsistent steam
supply from the power plant. The RPM and temperatures were constantly fluctuating due to the
inability of the turbine to maintain consistency. For recommendations the turbine should be fixed
or let it warmed up enough in order to work properly. Also, the turbine had several leaks which
can lead to the fluctuation and the errors in calculations.
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References
1. “IC Engine Lab.” ME 115 Thermal Engineering Lab | People | San Jose State
University, stage.sjsu.edu/people/nicole.okamoto/courses/me_115/index.html.

2. Yunus Cengel, Yunus, 2002, Thermodynamics: An Engineering Approach, 4th ed.,

McGraw-Hill, New York.
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Appendices
Equation 1: Derived Equation for power output of turbine from the first law for an open
system (steady state, steady flow)
P turbine = W dot (max ) = 𝜏𝜔= m dot (steam) (h4- h1)

Where h2 is the specific heat of the turbine inlet, h3 is for the turbine outlet, and m"s is the flow
rate of the steam.

Equation 2: The first law of thermodynamics used to find mass flow rate
m dot (steam) (h1 - h2) = m dot CW Cp 𝛥𝑇

Calculation:
20% load 1570 RPM

m dot CW = 56.6 gal / min = 28347.25 lbm / hr

Cp = 1.01 Btu/ lbm.R
𝛥𝑇 = T6 - T4 = 95 - 79 = 16 o F

T7 = 217o F and P3 = 0.1 psig = 14.89 psia

- This is superheated and quality = 1
- h2 = 1150 Btu / lbm

At stage 1:
T4= 79o F and P3 = 0.1 psig = 14.89 psia Commented [1]: https://www.irc.wisc.edu/properties/
- This is compressed liquid and quality = 0
used this one to find enthopy
- h1 = 45 Btu / lbm
Commented [2]: you want me to find the ideal values,
right?
Commented [3]: Can you find the efficiency and
m dot (steam) (h1 - h2) = m dot CW Cp 𝛥𝑇 isentropy? I'm still stuck
Commented [4]: i did but like i said i got a huge
m dot (steam) = (m dot CW Cp 𝛥𝑇)/ (h1 - h2) = 414.56 lbm/hr number
Commented [5]: NVM, I got the wrong h 3s

At stage 4:
T4 = 79o F → h4 = 48 Btu/lbm

P turbine = m dot (steam) (h4- h1) = 414.56 * (48 - 45 ) = 1243.687 Btu/ hr

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Table 2: Data of pressures, temperatures, and mass flow rate at different loads.

Table 3: Data from calculations of enthalpy, h, entropy, s, power, specific volume, mass flow
rate, m, using calculation in appendix.
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𝑒𝑓𝑓. 𝑇𝑢𝑟𝑏𝑖𝑛𝑒 = 𝑊𝑎 /𝑊𝑠 = 𝑚(ℎ2 − ℎ3 )/𝑚(ℎ2 − ℎ3𝑠 )

ℎ2 = 𝑒𝑛𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑙𝑝𝑦 𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑏𝑖𝑛𝑒
ℎ3 = 𝑒𝑛𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑙𝑝𝑦 𝑒𝑥𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑏𝑖𝑛𝑒
ℎ3𝑠 = 𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑎𝑙 𝑒𝑛𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑙𝑝𝑦 𝑒𝑥𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑏𝑖𝑛𝑒
For load at 20
=(1162.3-1153.3)/(1162.3-1150.7)=.776 or 77.6%
For load at 50
=(1162.3-1153.85)/(1162.3-1150.3)=.704 or 70.4%
For load at 80
=(1176.6-1153.3)/(1176.6-1150.7)=.8996 or 89.9%

Load Eff.

20 .776

50 .704

80 .899
Table 4: The load with the corresponding efficiencies at 1570 RPM

Figure 3: Efficiency at different loads.