Three-Dimensional Blade-

Stacking Strategies and

Said Havakechian
Alstom,
Baden 5401, Switzerland
e-mail: said.havakechian@power.alstom.com
John Denton
Emeritus Professor
Whittle Laboratory,
Department of Engineering,
University of Cambridge,
North Yorkshire DL84LG, UK
e-mail: jdd1@cam.ac.uk
Understanding of Flow Physics in
Low-Pressure Steam Turbines—
Part I: Three-Dimensional
Stacking Mechanisms
Optimization of blade stacking in the last stage of low-pressure (LP) steam turbines consti-
tutes one of the most delicate and time-consuming parts of the design process. This is the
first of two papers focusing on the stacking strategies applied to the last stage guide vane
(G0). Following a comprehensive review of the main features that characterize the LP last
stage aerodynamics, the three-dimensional (3D) computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code
used for the investigation and options related to the modeling of wet steam are described.
Aerodynamic problems related to the LP last stage and the principles of 3D stacking are
reviewed in detail. In this first paper, the results of a systematic study on an isolated LP sta-
tor row are used to elucidate the effects of stacking schemes, such as lean, twist, sweep,
and hub profiling. These results show that stator twist not only has the most powerful influ-
ence on the reaction variation but it also produces undesirable spanwise variations in
angular momentum at stator exit. These may be compensated by introducing a positive
stagnation pressure gradient at entry to the last stage. [DOI: 10.1115/1.4031597]

Introduction
The thermodynamic conditions under which a large LP steam
turbine is designed to operate lead to very high volume flow rates
of wet steam at high supersonic speeds in the final stage blades.
High meridional velocities are inevitable at the last stage outlet
and so large exhaust areas are needed to avoid excessive leaving
energy (LE). These give rise to a highly flared casing contour and
long blades with a low hub:tip diameter ratio (DR), typically
DR ¼ Dhub/Dtip ¼ 0.40–0.50, which leads to a highly 3D flow
field. The discharge volume flow of an LP turbine can range from
a few hundreds of m3/s per flow for small steam turbines up to
7000 m3/s per flow for the very large half speed nuclear turbines.
On this basis, LP cylinders (see Fig. 1) are typically characterized
by their exhaust area, or when the hub diameter is known, by their
corresponding last stage rotor blade length.
The volume flow that the last stage is able to handle efficiently
dictates the size and number of LP cylinders and thereby directly
affects the capital cost of the plant. In terms of power output up to
about 20% of the total shaft work can be delivered by the last
stage, justifying the particular care that must be exercised on the
minimization of all loss sources in that stage. Moreover, due to
the well-known reheat effect, the impact of the LP cylinder effi-
ciency, and in particular the rear stages, on the heat rate of a typi-
cal fossil plant is far larger than that of the HP cylinder (over
twice as much).
The LP last stage design process is highly iterative and has to
fulfill the requirements with respect to mechanical integrity and
aerodynamic performance as well as addressing issues of erosion,
assembly, space, materials, manufacturing, and cost. A detailed
account of the LP design process is given in Ref. [1]. The blade
flow path, diffuser design, blade stacking, and profile section
Contributed by the Turbomachinery Committee of ASME for publication in the
JOURNAL OF ENGINEERING FOR GAS TURBINES AND POWER. Manuscript received July 20,
2015; final manuscript received September 10, 2015; published online November 3,
2015. Editor: David Wisler.
design are the four major constituents of the aerodynamic optimi-
zation process that is carried out while satisfying the above
constraints.
Low DR inevitably leads to a large variation of stage loading
coefficient (W) and flow coefficient (u) along the blade span. For
a typical last stage with a stage loading of Wmid  1.0 and flow
coefficient of umid  0.50 at the mean diameter, the radial varia-
tions may range from a near impulse condition with Whub  2.5
near the hub to a highly reaction condition with very low stage
loading, Wtip  0.40, near the tip. The corresponding flow coeffi-
cient may range from uhub  0.80 to utip  0.25. Since the stage
enthalpy drop cannot vary greatly along the span, for a given stage
loading at midspan, the variation of stage loading along the blade
height is proportional to (rmid/r)2 and cannot be influenced signifi-
cantly throughout the aerothermodynamic optimization process.
Equation (1) shows that the loading coefficient can only be var-
ied by changes in exit swirl and in reaction.
w ¼ 2ð1  RH  u tan a2 Þ (1)
Since the exit swirl angle, a2, must be low to achieve low leaving
loss, the blading of low DR turbines inevitably has a large spanwise
variation of stage reaction, typically DRp ¼ (Rp-tip  Rp-hub)  50%.
For this reason, such stages are often referred to as variable reaction
stages as opposed to the well-known impulse and 50% reaction
stages used at higher diameter ratios (DR > 0.75), where the inher-
ent radial pressure gradient is significantly less.
Consequently, in the aerodynamic design of the LP last stage,
effort is focused on controlling the pressure gradient in the
inter blade row gaps such that a reasonable compromise between
blading efficiency and LE is achieved. This involves consideration
of such aspects as: stage reaction (Rp), shock losses, diffuser
recovery, and erosion control. The above parameters are all
inter-related; however, for the sake of clarity, a brief description
of the significance of LE and Rp is given individually in the
following.

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 From the performance standpoint, the LE of the LP last stage
constitutes one of the key parameters that must be minimized
from the very first design phase. For a typical fossil application,
the LE constitutes about 20% of the total-to-total enthalpy drop
through the last stage. For a corresponding last stage with fixed
exhaust area and fixed condenser pressure, 1 kJ/kg reduction in
LE is equivalent to about 0.5% increase in stage total-to-static last
stage efficiency. Minimization of LE is done in two steps: first,
during the initial flow path optimization where the mean stage
loading parameter, stage reaction, and flow coefficient are set;
second, during the detailed blading design where the stacking of
the guide vane and runner blades is acted upon to minimize LE
and to control the aerodynamic losses.
Stage reaction is the next key parameter to be monitored during
the optimization process. The reaction, Rp, based on static pres-
sure changes will be used here in preference to the more usual def-
inition based on enthalpy changes. Stage reaction, in particular
hub reaction, is of great significance in LP last stage design. As
previously mentioned, the loading coefficient is inevitably high at
the hub and Eq. (1) shows that this can only be achieved by a
combination of low reaction and negative exit swirl. High exit
swirl is undesirable as it implies high LE and compromises the
diffuser performance. Hence, the hub reaction must be as low as
practicable. However, too low hub reaction at the design point
implies:
(a) too high absolute Mach number at the last stator trailing
edge (MG0-TE > about 1.6) resulting in high trailing shock
losses.
(b) too high relative Mach number at entry to the hub of the
last rotor (Mrel-L0 > about 0.8) generates a zone of super-
sonic flow at the profile leading edge, this is inevitably ter-
minated by a shock wave which can lead to sizable regions
of shock-induced boundary layer separation in the hub
region of the rotor blade.
Both these effects potentially lead to low efficiency of the flow
near the hub and are particularly damaging for operation at higher
back pressures. This was a common problem in older machines
which were designed before the advent of modern CFD methods.
At the tip, problems are caused by the low stage loading which
Eq. (1) shows requires very high reaction. Here, the high reaction
again produces high rotor relative inlet Mach numbers, which
Fig. 1 (a) Meridional sections of typical double flow LP cylinder and (b) magnified view of LP
last stage
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may exceed 0.8 and so cause problems for the design of the rotor
leading edge. It also causes very high rotor exit relative Mach
numbers, which may exceed 1.8 and cause high shock losses. To
achieve these high Mach numbers efficiently,
converging–diverging blade passages must be used.
It therefore appears that, for a given case, when making judg-
ment on various stacking options, the hub reaction and the span-
wise variation of stage reaction are useful metrics against which
the stacking schemes can be assessed.
Optimization of LP blade stacking is a highly iterative process
during which all the blade rows of the last two stages are changed.
However, these two papers focus on the 3D stacking schemes
applied to the stator blade of the LP last stage (named G0) while
all other rows are assumed to remain unchanged. This decision
has been motivated first by the fact that the G0 blade has a strate-
gic placement in the flow path being located in the region of the
flow where a large density change occurs (wet steam expansion)
giving rise to a large change in blade height and thereby resulting
in a highly flared casing. The latter enhances the three-
dimensionality and complexity of the flow. Second, due to the fact
that the 3D stacking of the last stator has direct impact on key
parameters, such as hub and tip reaction, rotor inlet and outlet
Mach numbers, LE, and erosion behavior. Third, due to mechani-
cal limitations, in many applications changes can only be made to
the guide vanes, while the last rotor must remain fixed. Hence, the
results of this investigation can be of immediate use.
Current state-of-the art designs combine all three major stack-
ing schemes, namely, twist, lean, and sweep. To the best of our
knowledge, there has been no previous systematic and consistent
investigation of the 3D stacking schemes applied to the last stage
with the aim of elucidating individual stacking effects while keep-
ing other parameters unchanged. In particular, many studies of the
individual effect of a given stacking scheme have ignored either
the impact of embedded conditions and/or the constancy of inte-
gral throat area of the blade row under consideration. The main
objective has been to reach the best possible design by using a sin-
gle stacking scheme, or when combination of stacking schemes
was used, the extent of benefits arising from each stacking compo-
nents has not been investigated. The present investigation is an
attempt to address this issue.
In the first paper, a brief review of stacking strategies in gen-
eral, and of their application to the last stator blade in particular,
Transactions of the ASME
 is given. Following a review of the implications of the radial equi-
librium equation, analyses of the effects of twist, lean, and sweep
based on both basic flow physics and on 3D CFD calculations on
an isolated stator row are given. Although an isolated stator
clearly does not include all the complexities of a complete stage
or group of stages, it does allow the individual effects to be clearly
demonstrated.
The second paper [2] contains a consideration of a range of
simple stacking schemes applied to a typical LP steam turbine last
stage stator under embedded conditions. The extent of the changes
for each scheme to achieve a similar stage reaction is determined
iteratively using a two-stage 3D CFD model. It is shown that twist
and lean can be employed to produce equivalent effects on stage
reaction. The impact of axial sweep and hub profiling is also
investigated. The results are examined to determine other key aer-
odynamic parameters that can be used to differentiate between the
schemes.
Background of 3D Blade-Stacking Strategies. Historically,
the necessity of blade stacking was first recognized while dealing
with long blades (h/Dm > about 0.1, corresponding to DR  0.82),
where changes in pressure along the span are significant and uni-
form flow conditions based upon one-dimensional theory are no
longer representative of the large variations of flow properties
along the blade height [3]. The use of constant section prismatic
blades gave excessive variation of their exit flow angle and inhib-
ited any active control of the flow field. The large pitch:chord ra-
tio at the casing, as well as the necessity of adapting the section
camber to match the incoming flow, pushed designers to search
for alternative stacking schemes.
The selection of blade-stacking philosophies has been closely
linked with the theoretical capabilities of resolving the 3D flow. A
variety of basic stacking philosophies based upon physical reason-
ing and simplified theory have emerged. These are typically
derived by making a number of key assumptions leading to con-
siderable simplification of the governing 3D flow equations. These
methods were basically two-dimensional with approximations
used to resolve the flow field in the third dimension. Free vortex,
constant exit angle, and constant specific mass flow distributions
are among the most basic and classical stacking schemes which
have been used in early designs and their respective principal
characteristics, advantages, and disadvantages are extensively dis-
cussed in the literature [4–7].
Evolution of computational methods from the so-called simpli-
fied radial equilibrium theory to the more advanced quasi-three-
dimensional (Q3D) inviscid methods and nowadays to full 3D vis-
cous solvers has offered new flexibilities and opportunities to the
designer to obtain a deeper and more accurate insight into the use-
fulness and limitations of the classical stacking schemes. In addi-
tion, freely tailoring and proactive optimization of the stacking to
achieve a targeted flow structure, while capturing the physical
effects of complex 3D features, such as tangential lean and axial
sweep, have become possible. Differing 3D stacking strategies
have emerged which may be designated as “advanced vortex
design.” Thanks to the advances in modern design practice, aero-
foil stacking has become not only an integral part of long airfoil
design but is also applied to short blading where the overall loss is
dominated by secondary and leakage flows.
CFD Method and the Standard Case. The numerous stacking
options considered were all calculated with the program MULTALL.
This is an evolution of the method described by Denton [8]. The
method is widely used in industry because of its simplicity, speed,
and robustness, it uses an H grid with a simple mixing length tur-
bulence model and mixing planes between blade rows. Because
wall functions are used to calculate the skin friction, it gives rea-
sonable results with remarkably coarse grids.
Only the geometry of the last stage is changed during the inves-
tigation discussed in the second part of this paper but to ensure the
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correct inlet conditions to that stage all calculations were per-
formed on the last two stages. The calculations did not include tip
or hub leakages; they also excluded wetness loss so absolute lev-
els of efficiency are too high, of order 94% total-to-total, which is
considered realistic for such a high aspect ratio turbine with no
leakage. However, the emphasis of this first paper is entirely on
inviscid effects which are not highly dependent on wetness and
leakage.
The datum grid used for all calculations on the datum two-stage
turbine contained 109 axial points, 33 pitchwise points, and 41
spanwise points per blade row. Such a coarse grid cannot be
expected to reveal the fine details of boundary layer behavior but
experience has shown that inviscid effects are well predicted by
such grids, as are changes in efficiency. To illustrate this, calcula-
tions on the datum turbine were performed with refined grids using
109  49  49 points and 180  65  65 points. The results are
summarized in Table 1 and the predicted Mach number variation
after the last stator is compared in Fig. 2. It can be seen that the
results are remarkably grid independent. The difference in power
output is due to small changes in the last rotor exit flow angles
which increase the exit swirl velocity and so reduce the power.
However, with fixed exit static pressure, the increased swirl
increases the exit stagnation pressure as so it also reduces the isen-
tropic power. Hence, the efficiency is only slightly affected.
Modeling of the Working Fluid. Because a very large number
of 3D calculations are performed during the design process, it is
usual to speed up the process by approximating steam properties
by a perfect gas model. This gives realistic results as long as the
steam is either completely dry or, as in this case, completely wet.
It is not realistic to use a perfect gas model if the flow changes
from dry to wet within the calculation. For wet steam, there are
different ways of choosing the specific heat capacity, Cp, and spe-
cific heat ratio, c.
One method, method A, uses a value of c obtained from the
pressure:density ratio along a specified expansion line together
with an average gas constant, R, obtained from the P ¼ q RT rela-
tionship. For the present turbine, this gives Cp ¼ 4016 J/kg K and
c ¼ 1.13.
The second approach, method B, takes Cp from the rate of
change of enthalpy with temperature along a specified expansion
line and c from the relationship T a P(c  1)/calong the same line,
this gives Cp ¼ 7365 J/kg Kand c ¼ 1.063.
Despite the large differences in the constants, these methods
give very similar results when compared to a calculation using the
same grid and same solver with true equilibrium steam properties,
as shown in Table 2.
Surprisingly, the large difference in specific heat capacity
causes only a 2% difference in power output. Despite method B
seeming marginally better, method A is used for all future calcula-
tions in order to maintain compatibility with a large pre-existing
data set. No allowance is made for nonequilibrium effects as cal-
culations which include these are still too time consuming to be
used in the design process.
Aerodynamic Problems of the LP last stage. The last stages
of large steam turbines are characterized by long blades with con-
sequent high velocities and low DRs. The problems arising from
this can be illustrated by considering axisymmetric flow and
applying the well-known streamline curvature equation for the
radial pressure gradient. Applying this along a radial line outside
of a blade row for simplicity gives
1 dP Vh2 Vm2 dVm
¼  cos /  Vm sin / (2)
q dr r rc dm
where the radius of the streamline curvature rc is positive for con-
cave upward curvature. Vm is the meridional velocity and / is the
meridional pitch angle which will be low near the hub but of order
MAY 2016, Vol. 138 / 052603-3
 Table 1 Effect of grid point number Mach number around 1.0 gives acceptable results. Higher rotor
blade speeds would make the problem better at the hub but worse
Percent difference Difference in Percent difference in at the tip and vice versa.
Grid used in mass flow rate efficiency % power output Conventional two-dimensional thinking would suggest that
these problems could be overcome by simply changing the blade
109  33  41 0 0 0
109  49  49 þ0.17 0.18 þ0.42
angles to change the local reaction. However, this is not the case.
180  65  65 0.44 þ0.46 1.21 The radial pressure gradient at stator exit, and hence the spanwise
reaction variation, is determined by the radial equilibrium equa-
tion, Eq. (2), and it can only be changed by changing the terms in
that equation. The most obvious solution is to increase the con-
cave upward streamline curvature. The ratio of the pressure gradi-
ent due to streamline curvature to that due to centripetal
acceleration in Eq. (2) is
 2
curvature Vm r r
¼ ¼ cot2 a2 (4)
centripetal Vh rc rc

and so the effects of streamline curvature increase rapidly as the

Fig. 2 Mach number variation after the last stator
45 deg near the casing. In the gap between a stator and a rotor, Vh
will be very much larger than Vm, typically four times greater, and
rc will be comparable to r so the first term on the right-hand side
is dominant. Hence, a simplified form of the equation, i.e.,
dP qVh2
¼ (3)
dr r use a concave upward curvature on the casing but ideally the cas-
can be used to predict the most important trends.
If we assume uniform stagnation pressure and stagnation tem-
perature downstream of a stator, a specified yaw angle variation
along the span, and a specified Mach number at midspan, we can
integrate the simplified equation to obtain the stator exit Mach
number variation as a function of radius. Figure 3 shows the
results for a uniform stator exit yaw angle of 75 deg but the result
is not greatly dependent on the spanwise angle variation as long
as Vh  Vx. It can be seen that the stator exit Mach number near
the hub becomes undesirably high, i.e., greater than about 1.6, if
the DR is low and the midspan Mach number is high.
If we now specify a rotor blade speed at midspan, we can con-
vert the results into the relative Mach number at the rotor leading
edge. Figure 4 shows this for a typical 3000 rpm machine with a
midspan radius of 1.5 m.
It is difficult to design good rotor blades if the relative inlet
Mach number exceeds about 0.8. This is especially true at the hub
where the blades must be thick to withstand the high centrifugal
loading. Near the tip, high inlet Mach numbers require a thin lead-
ing edge, which is very sensitive to incidence. Figure 4 shows that
it is very difficult to satisfy this requirement at low DRs. At rh/
rtip ¼ 0.5 (rh/rmid ¼ 0.66 and rt/rmid ¼ 1.33), only a stator exit
stator exit flow angle is decreased.
Figure 5 shows the effect of assuming different spanwise-
constant values of streamline curvature on the solution with stator
exit flow angle of 75 deg and midspan Mach number ¼ 1.0. Even
a curvature of rc ¼ 0.25rmid does not have a very large effect. The
effect is smaller at the tip than at the hub because there is a nega-
tive feedback effect whereby, for a fixed midspan pressure, a
reduction in pressure and consequent increase in velocity near the
casing increase the radial pressure gradient, i.e., the Vh2/r term in
Eq. (2), which partly cancels the reduction in pressure. At the hub,
there is positive feedback and changes in pressure are amplified.
Note that a stator exit angle of 65 deg instead of 75 deg would
increase the effect of curvature by a factor of 3 and this is a strong
argument for using relatively open stator angles.
Nevertheless, increases in concave upward streamline curvature
are well worth achieving. The most obvious way is to profile the
hub so that it has a concave upward curvature. An example of this
can be seen in the datum stage, see Fig. 1. It is not practicable to
ing should be conical to avoid applying any concave downward
curvature. However, in many cases, it is necessary to make the
casing cylindrical over the rotor tip gap so as to maintain a low tip
clearance as the rotor moves axially, as shown in Fig. 7. This will
introduce some undesirable concave downward curvature.
It must be emphasized that the low DR is the major cause of
these problems, at a higher value, say 0.6 (rh/rm ¼ 0.75 and rt/
rm ¼ 1.25), Fig. 4 shows that the rotor inlet Mach numbers at hub
and tip are much more tolerable for the same midspan Mach num-
bers. The DR arises because of the need to maximize the exhaust
area in order to minimize the leaving loss and a compromise is
needed because a DR will reduce the leaving loss but increase the
blade loss and vice versa.

Table 2 Effect of steam property approximation

Steam Percent difference Difference Percent

property in mass in difference in
method flow rate efficiency % power output

True steam “equilibrium” 0 0 0

Method A þ0.20 þ0.17 1.98
Method B 0.18 0.11 0.13 Fig. 3 Absolute Mach numbers at stator exit for differing mid-
span Mach numbers. The dashed lines correspond to DR 5 0.5.

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Fig. 4 Relative Mach number at rotor inlet for different mid-
span stator exit Mach numbers. The red lines correspond to
DR 5 0.5.
In order to minimize the leaving loss and maximize its recovery
in the diffuser, the flow leaving the last rotor should have uniform
stagnation pressure and low swirl velocity. The relative Mach
number leaving the last rotor is inevitably high, since, to achieve
low absolute swirl velocity, the relative velocity must be slightly
greater than the blade speed (W ¼ U/sinb, where b is of order
75 deg). Typical blade exit relative Mach numbers at the rotor tip
are of order 1.6–2.0. These high Mach numbers require
convergent–divergent blade passages to minimize shock loss but
nevertheless their loss coefficients are relatively high, especially
at off design conditions. The trailing edge thickness is a major
source of loss at these high Mach numbers. (See Ref. [9]).
Choking Behavior of Flared Cascades. Although their exit
Mach number near the casing may be slightly below unity, the last
stator blades are effectively choked. The mass flow rate through
the last stage is fixed by the upstream stages so the average stag-
nation pressure entering the last stage is almost directly propor-
tional to the total stator throat area. Hence, when changing the
design of the stator, care must be taken to keep the throat area
constant, otherwise the last stage pressure ratio and power output
would change. However, the correct definition of throat area for a
blade with large spanwise components of relative velocity is not
obvious. Around midspan, where the spanwise component of
velocity should not change much as the flow passes through the
blade row, the throat will be in a plane perpendicular to the stack-
ing axis. Near the end walls where the streamlines must follow the
Fig. 5 Effect of streamline curvature on the Mach number varia-
tion at the stator exit. The dashed lines correspond to DR 5 0.5.
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walls, the throat must tend toward that on a stream surface, which
may be inclined at up to about 50 deg to the axis. However, very
close to the end walls, the effective throat is greatly affected by
stream surface twist and it is not clear what value should be used.
Figure 6 shows the computed variation of specific mass flux,
qVx, along the span of a cascade of stator blades. The blades are
typical of last stage stators with 45 deg of flare on the casing but
are set at a very large radius so that the effects of radius change
are negligible. The blade exit Mach number is greater than unity
over the full span so that the specific mass flux is the choking
value. It can be seen that the choking mass flux drops by about
10% toward the casing. This cannot be explained by the blade tip
choking on a 45 deg swept section which would give a drop in
mass flux of only 5.5%. The same blade in a 2D cascade has a
choking mass flux of 50.8 kg/m2 s and the average value of the
flared cascade is about 7% lower than this. In a real last stator
row, a mass flow variation similar to that in Fig. 6 will be super-
imposed on the variation due to any spanwise changes in opening
to pitch ratio.
Clearly choking in a flared blade row is a complex phenomenon
and the safest method of obtaining the throat area is by performing
3D calculations and using the predicted mass flow rate to obtain
the dimensionless mass flow function. If it is desired to change the
last stage inlet stagnation pressure, it is easily achieved by rotating
the whole stator through a constant angle.
Principles of 3D Stacking. Three-dimensional stacking is used
to control the spanwise variation in pressure, and hence in reac-
tion, in the stator–rotor gap and also to improve the blade surface
pressure distribution. The principles behind this are well known
and will only be briefly reviewed here, for more details see Refs.
[10–12]. The types of stacking considered are blade twist, tangen-
tial lean, and meridional sweep. Hub profiling will also be consid-
ered although it does not strictly involve a change in stacking.
As previously mentioned, hub profiling may be used to generate
a concave upward streamline curvature near the hub. Figure 7
shows a typical example of hub curvature on a two-stage turbine
showing the streamline curvature induced. To have maximum
effect, the curvature should be concentrated near the stator trailing
edge. The shorter the axial distance over which the curvature takes
place, the greater will be the curvature but the shorter the radial
distance over which it affects the flow. Figure 7 shows that the
effects of the hub curvature on the streamlines decay rapidly away
from the hub. A simple estimate based on the crude assumption
that the average curvature is half the hub curvature and that it
extends over a distance equal to the hub radius of curvature sug-
gests that the fractional change in dynamic head at the hub is of
order cot2a2. With a2 ¼ 75 deg and M2 ¼ 1.6, as in the turbine of
Fig. 7, this corresponds to a decrease in stator exit Mach number
Fig. 6 Specific mass flux, qVx, kg/m2 s, through a choked cas-
cade of stator blades. The inset shows the streamlines.
MAY 2016, Vol. 138 / 052603-5
 of around 0.05. Although relatively small, this reduction in Mach
number is well worth achieving. It would be significantly greater
with a lower value of a2. The curvature will also have large effects
on the stator surface pressure distribution near the hub.
Blade twist is the most common 3D feature and is nowadays
used on most LP turbines. Because the stator blades are choked
and their inlet stagnation pressure is usually fairly uniform, the
local mass flow rate per unit span is directly proportional to the
local throat area. The difficulty of calculating the true throat area
does not affect the general principle that if the throat is opened
near the hub and closed near to the tip, keeping the total throat
area constant, the flow must move inward as it passes through the
stator. If the following rotor is designed to produce uniform flow,
then the flow must move outward again through the rotor thereby
inducing a concave upward streamline curvature in the
stator–rotor gap.
The results of applying this principle to the same LP turbine as
used in Fig. 7 are illustrated in Fig. 8, where blade twist is com-
bined with a greatly reduced hub curvature. It can be seen that a
concave upward curvature is generated in the stator–rotor gap.
The streamline curvature in the inner half of the span of this figure
can be roughly estimated to be about 20% of the mean radius,
which is sufficient to make significant changes in the spanwise
reaction variation as shown in Fig. 5.
Blade lean may be considered as either true lean, where the
blade sections are moved perpendicular to the chord line, or tan-
gential lean where they are moved in the tangential direction with-
out any axial displacement. While true lean is easier to understand
from theoretical point of view, tangential lean is much more prac-
tical and is widely used, hence only the latter will be considered
here. In fact, usually only one section of the blades, i.e., the stack-
ing axis, is likely to be truly radial because the circumferential
extent of a blade is unlikely to vary directly with radius. For a
blade of constant section, such as the datum stator described later,
there is about 10 deg difference between the lean of the leading
edge and that of the trailing edge, if the leading edge is radial the
trailing edge will be leaned with the suction surface facing
inward.
When the blades are leaned tangentially, the blade force acting
roughly perpendicular to the surface containing the camber line
develops a radial component as shown in Fig. 9. If the lean is such
that the pressure surface faces inward toward the hub, then the
blade force on the fluid acts inward and toward the midspan of a
high aspect ratio blade it will make the streamlines move inward
toward the hub. However, near the endwalls, the streamlines can-
not move and so the blade force must be balanced by an opposing
radial pressure gradient as illustrated in Fig. 9. Thus, lean with the
pressure surface inclined toward an endwall will increase the pres-
sure on that endwall.
Fig. 7 Illustration of induced streamline curvature generated
by hub profiling
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The increased pressure will actually reduce the velocity, and
hence the mass flow rate, near the endwall and so, surprisingly,
the streamlines must move away from that wall. These effects
only occur within the blade row where the blade force exists, and
upstream and downstream of the blades the streamlines will return
to their natural position. If the lean is pressure surface inward near
the hub and suction surface outward near the casing, as it would
be with a linear variation in tangential displacement, both these
effects result in a desirable concave upward streamline curvature
downstream of the stator. The change in stream surface thickness,
which lean produces near the endwalls, also causes large effects
on the blade surface pressure distribution and this must be allowed
for when designing those blade sections.
Figure 10 shows the effect of applying stator lean in a last stage
LP. The outward shift in the streamlines within the stator and the
concave upward curvature in the stator–rotor gap can be clearly
seen.
Blade sweep may be defined as true sweep or meridional
sweep. True sweep occurs whenever the incident streamlines of
the relative flow are not perpendicular to the blade-stacking line
and meridional sweep occurs when the meridional streamlines are
not perpendicular to the tangential projection of that line. The lat-
ter is easier to apply and to visualize and so only meridional
sweep will be considered here. For blades with radial stacking, the
casing flare causes high levels of backward meridional sweep near
the casing of an LP turbine, as seen in Fig. 7. In an LP turbine,
blades are sometimes said to be swept when they are curved for-
ward near the casing so as to intersect the casing more nearly
orthogonally, as shown in Fig. 1. This actually reduces the meridi-
onal sweep of the blade and in this paper such a blade shape will
be referred to as “forward curved.”
The effects of sweep are complex and are discussed in detail by
Pullen and Harvey [13,14]. If the blades are swept but not leaned,
then there is no component of blade force along the stacking axis
and so around midspan of a high aspect ratio swept blade row the
spanwise component of velocity will tend to stay constant as the
flow passes through the row. This effect combined with the high
meridional velocity near the suction surface and the low one near
the pressure surface causes the stream surfaces to be twisted (sin
/ ¼ Vr/Vm). Hence, the assumption of axisymmetric stream surfa-
ces, inherent in the Q3D approach, is not valid and even at mid-
span the flow cannot be accurately predicted by Q3D calculations.
In fact, at very high aspect ratios, the flow can be considered as
the superposition of a 2D flow perpendicular to the stacking line
with a constant spanwise velocity parallel to it.
A disadvantage of sweep is that the spanwise velocity contrib-
utes to the loss but not to the blade lift so profile losses tend to be
higher than for an unswept blade. This is discussed in detail by
Pullan and Harvey [13].
Fig. 8 Effect of blade twist on the streamline curvature
Transactions of the ASME
 Fig. 9 Effects of lean

Near the endwalls, sweep also has a major effect on the blade
surface pressure distribution, this effect is most easily understood
by considering a swept cascade with plane endwalls as illustrated
in Fig. 11. With plane endwalls, there can be no fluid acceleration
perpendicular to the wall and so there can be no pressure gradient
perpendicular to it. This causes the lines of constant pressure to be
bent so as to intersect the endwalls at 90 deg, as illustrated in
Fig. 11. The result is that the pressure is decreased on a backward
swept leading edge, such as the upper endwall of Fig. 11, and
increased on a forward swept one. Hence, the leading edge veloc-
ity and loading are increased on a backward swept leading edge
and decreased on a forward swept one. The effect is reversed at
the trailing edge. In a blade row with flare, this effect only occurs
near the casing, Fig. 12 shows the surface pressure distribution of
the flared cascade illustrated in Fig. 6. The pressure distribution is Fig. 11 Effects of sweep on a cascade
remarkably constant over most of the span and only shows the
effects of sweep near the casing where the leading edge loading is (2) The profile loss should be slightly reduced because of the
increased and the trailing edge loading reduced as predicted by reduced spanwise velocity.
the above arguments. A similar calculation (not shown) with (3) It increases the gap between stator and rotor and the diffu-
45 deg of sweep on both the hub and casing shows much larger sion of the velocity in this gap lowers the pressure and
effects of the sweep. This result suggests that the effects of sweep increases the Mach number at the stator trailing edge.
on the flared stator of an LP turbine are not as great as those pre- (4) The increased stator–rotor gap is also beneficial for erosion
dicted in swept cascades. control.
Pullan and Harvey [14] showed that the changes in blade load-
ing, together with the stream surface twist, have a profound effect Against these, it has the disadvantage of increasing the area of
on the secondary flow and loss in cascades. It must be emphasized the casing exposed to high velocities in the stator–rotor gap and
that these effects cannot be predicted by Q3D calculations and so thereby increasing the entropy generation in that region.
fully 3D calculations are needed to design any swept blade row. Although forward curvature, i.e., reduced sweep, near the cas-
Strong forward curving of last stator is sometimes used near the ing introduces a radial component of blade force this is balanced
casing in order to reduce the meridional sweep, see Fig. 14, so as by the radial pressure gradient within the blade row and so, unless
to make the stacking axis more nearly orthogonal to the meridio- the blade is also leaned, it should not generate a force perpendicu-
nal streamlines and hence to the casing. This form of stacking has lar to the meridional streamlines. On this basis, one would not
several advantages which are as follows:
(1) It makes the flow more nearly predictable by the Q3D
approach.

Fig. 12 Surface pressure distribution on the hub, midspan,

Fig. 10 Effects of stator lean on an LP stage and tip of a flared cascade

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 expect forward curvature to have a large effect on the spanwise
variation in reaction. However, other effects discussed in the next
section do act to improve the reaction. Also a stator stacked more
orthogonally to the casing makes the effects of any blade lean
more pronounced and this can be used to amplify the effects of
lean near the casing.
Effects of 3D Stacking on an Isolated Last Stage
Stator. Throughout this section, the trends discussed above will
be illustrated by means of inviscid calculations on an isolated last
stator row. This is deliberately chosen to be of the simplest possi-
ble geometry as illustrated in Fig. 13. It consists of untwisted
blades, i.e., with the same section on all cylindrical surfaces, in an
annulus with 45 deg of flare on the casing. The DR is 0.45 at the
trailing edge and the blade axial chord is constant. This means
that the pitch:meridional chord ratio varies directly with radius
from a low value of 0.5 at the hub to a high value of 0.91 at the
casing. The blade exit flow angle on a cylindrical surface is 73 deg
near the hub but decreases with radius due to the deviation arising
from the increasing pitch:chord ratio. The exit boundary condition
is applied one axial chord downstream of the trailing edge and
imposes a fixed static pressure ¼ 0.3  Po1, at the hub, combined
with a uniform mass flux along the span, i.e., qVx ¼ constant. This
gives an exit Mach number around 1.5 at the hub. The uniform
mass flux was chosen to model as realistically as possible the
effect of a downstream rotor, which would usually be designed to
produce uniform flow. Hence, the streamline curvature and radial
pressure gradient at stator exit should be similar to that in a com-
plete stage.
Figure 13 shows the streamlines and pitchwise-averaged Mach
number contours through this blade row when the blades are
stacked radially on their leading edge. The streamlines show a
strong tendency to break away from the hub, which is only pre-
vented by the uniform mass flux boundary condition. This is a
common feature of strongly swirling flows and is thought to be an
incipient vortex breakdown. However, the general trend of the
streamlines behind the blades is an undesirable concave down-
ward curvature which will increase the spanwise variation in
reaction.
Fig. 13 Stator with radial stacking. Left—streamlines and
right—pitchwise average Mach numbers.
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The Mach number contours in Fig. 13 show the steep gradient
behind the stator. The hub value of 1.6 is largely fixed by the
imposed hub exit static pressure but the low value of 0.6 at the
casing would cause extreme difficulties for the following rotor.
The casing Mach number is unusually low because the decrease in
exit flow angle with radius causes the streamlines to move out-
ward within the blade row thereby inducing a concave inward cur-
vature downstream of it. This is an example of blade twist in the
wrong direction.
The same blades, i.e., the same blade sections on cylindrical
surfaces and same pitch:chord ratio, were calculated with different
forms of stacking. The casing geometry was unchanged and the
hub geometry was only changed for the case with hub curvature.
The geometrical changes tried are as follows:
(1) applying a linear twist from 8 deg open at the hub and to
5 deg closed at the casing to the test stator, the values being
chosen to keep the total throat area constant.
(2) applying 15 deg of linear tangential lean with the pressure
surface facing toward the hub.
(3) using forward curvature at the casing as illustrated in
Fig. 14. To obtain the curvature, the position of the casing
section was unchanged and the mid and hub sections were
moved forward.
(4) using hub curvature with 10% change in hub radius as illus-
trated in Fig. 14.
The magnitude of these changes was chosen to be the maxi-
mum that was thought to be realistic in a real turbine.
The effects of these geometry changes on the pitchwise average
Mach number just downstream of the stator trailing edge are
shown in Fig. 15. This shows that blade twist has the most power-
ful effect reducing the Mach number to 1.4 at the hub and increas-
ing it to 0.82 at the tip. The magnitude of this effect will clearly
depend on the amount of twist. The 15 deg leaned stator has the
second largest effect at the hub but is the third best at the tip. The
forward curved stator is third best at the hub but second at the tip.
The hub curvature only has a small effect near the hub and gives
nearly identical results to the radial stacking elsewhere.
Fig. 14 Streamlines for the forward curved stator and the sta-
tor with hub curvature
Transactions of the ASME
 midspan, and tip. It can be seen that the loadings are very similar
at the hub, at midspan the curved stator has more expansion on
the suction surface terminated by a weak shock and the loading is
slightly increased, but the loading near the casing is significantly
increased by forward curvature. This is because with orthogonal
2
flow, the loading is proportional to qVm as opposed to qVx2 for the
radially stacked blade.
The mechanisms by which the twisted and leaned stators influ-
ence the flow have been previously explained but the beneficial
effects of forward curvature, especially near the casing, are at first
sight surprising since the unleaned blades should not exert any
spanwise component of blade force. The explanation is a combi-
nation of factors which are follows:
(1) If the hub sections are held fixed and the tip section is
moved forward, i.e., upstream, then the effective DR is
increased.
Fig. 15 Pitchwise-averaged Mach numbers behind the isolated (2) The more orthogonal flow with forward curvature increases
stator the blade loading near the casing, this produces greater
flow turning and increases the exit flow angle by about
4 deg, equivalent to 4 deg of blade twist.
It is also at first sight surprising that the effects of all changes (3) The forward shift of the blade sections near the casing will
shown in Fig. 15 are greater at the casing than at the hub, this move them to a region with lower annulus area thus reduc-
seems to contradict the argument about “feedback” discussed pre- ing the stream tube thickness and the effective throat area
viously. However, this is because the hub Mach number is largely near the casing. This moves the flow toward the hub in the
determined by the fixed downstream static pressure on the hub. In same way as twist.
a real turbine, only the average pressure behind the rotor would be (4) The increased annulus area ratio from the stator trailing
fixed by the condenser pressure and so the changes in stator hub edge to the downstream boundary (or rotor leading edge in
Mach numbers are likely to be larger and those in tip Mach num- practice) gives an increased pressure rise along the casing,
ber to be less. thus reducing the stator exit pressure and increasing the
Figure 16 compares the blade surface pressure distribution of Mach number near the casing.
the radially stacked stator and the forward curved stator at hub,
It is also desirable that the stator exit angular momentum, rVh,
should be spanwise uniform as the rotor can then be designed to
produce uniform work and a uniform exit velocity with no exit
swirl. Figure 17 shows the exit angular momentum for all stacking
schemes and also from the radially stacked blade in a parallel
annulus with the same DR. The radially stacked stator causes the
angular momentum to decrease with radius, which agrees with its
high exit Mach number variation. Hub curvature produces almost
the same variation except for a small reduction in rVh near the
hub. The stator with twist shows the greatest change with a strong
increase in rVh with radius, this would cause a large spanwise var-
iation in stage enthalpy drop, leading to a nonuniform flow after
the rotor and high leaving loss. However, this could easily be con-
trolled by varying the amount of twist. Both leaned and forward
curved stators give relatively uniform rVh, with the curved one
being the most uniform overall. The parallel annulus case is
included to illustrate how the effects of sweep lower the blade
loading of the radially stacked blade near the casing.

Fig. 16 Surface pressure distribution at hub, midspan, and tip.

Top—radially stacked stator. Bottom—forward curved stator. Fig. 17 Angular momentum variation after the stator

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 Discussion and Conclusions Another important message from this investigation is that the
effects of 3D stacking are extremely complex and cannot always
The most important message from this investigation is that the
be predicted, even qualitatively, by simple physical arguments.
problems of LP last stage design stem largely from the use of a
The use of 3D CFD is considered essential for the design of LP
low DR. This causes too low hub reaction and too high tip reac-
stages.
tion. Any reduction in leaving loss arising from a low DR must be
carefully balanced against the potential decrease in stage Nomenclature
efficiency.
There are a variety of methods available to improve the span- Cp ¼ specific heat constant at constant pressure (J/kg K)
wise variation of reaction in a last stage LP. Blade twist is the D¼ local diameter (mm)
most powerful of these, it is easy to apply and the magnitude of its DR ¼ diameter ratio, DR ¼ Dhub/Dtip
effects can be easily controlled by changing the amount of twist. G0 ¼ last stage guide vane
Stator lean also has a significant effect but large amounts of lean G1 ¼ penultimate stage guide vane
may be difficult to apply because of problems at the horizontal h¼ blade height
joint. The change produced by hub curvature is strongly depend- LE ¼ leaving energy (kJ/kg)
ent on the stator exit angle, being greater with more open stators. LP ¼ low-pressure steam turbines
With a stator exit angle of 75 deg, hub curvature has only a limited L0 ¼ last stage runner blade
effect but this is concentrated near the hub where it is most L1 ¼ penultimate stage runner blade
needed. Forward curvature at the casing does not produce a large M¼ Mach number
change in hub reaction but does produce a significant decrease in P¼ static pressure (bar)
reaction at the casing where it increases the stator loading. If com- r¼ radius (m)
bined with localized lean, it should increase the effects of the lean RH ¼ enthalpy-based stage reaction, RH ¼ (DHRunner/DHStage)
on the flow near the casing. Rp ¼ pressure-based stage reaction, Rp ¼ (DPRunner/DPStage)
Apart from its effects on reaction, stator stacking has an impor- U¼ blade speed (m/s)
tant effect on the spanwise variation of stage enthalpy drop due to V¼ absolute flow velocity (m/s)
changes in the angular momentum imparted by the stator. The W¼ relative flow velocity (m/s)
amount of twist or lean required to greatly improve the reaction a¼ absolute flow exit angle (deg) with respect to axial
variation, e.g., that produced by the twisted stator in Fig. 15, will b¼ relative flow exit angle (deg) with respect to axial
cause the angular momentum at stator exit to be highly nonuni- c¼ specific heat ratio, c ¼ Cp/Cv
form (Fig. 17) and this will cause nonuniform flow and increased h¼ circumferential direction
leaving loss after the rotor. The only means of satisfying the ideals q¼ fluid density (kg/m3)
for reaction variation and for leaving loss is to design the penulti- /¼ meridional pitch angle (deg)
mate stage so that the flow entering the last stage has a positive u¼ flow coefficient (Cx/Um)
radial gradient of stagnation pressure. Since the flow leaving the W¼ stage loading, W ¼ (DHStage/Um2)
last stage should ideally have a uniform stagnation pressure, this
will reduce the work required from the last stage near the hub and Subscripts
increase it near the tip. Hence, the stator can be designed with a
h¼ hub
positive radial gradient of angular momentum as required for
m¼ mean (meridional)
reducing the reaction variation.
t¼ tip
It is not possible to give a recommendation for the optimum
x¼ axial direction
stacking strategy based on the isolated stator calculations. The
1¼ blade row inlet
conclusions on this will be discussed in the second paper when the
2¼ blade row exit
effects on the final two stages can be seen. However, it is likely
that a combination of twist and inlet stagnation pressure gradient References
will give good results in most cases. [1] McBean, I., Havakechian, S., and Masserey, P. A., 2010, “The Development of
In addition to its effects on reaction and angular momentum, Last Stage Steam Turbine,” ASME Paper No. GT2010-22747.
stacking can have a large influence on the stator surface pressure [2] Havakechian, S., and Denton, J., 2015, “3D Blade Stacking Strategy and Under-
distribution. This arises because of its effects on both the stream standing of Flow Physics in Low Pressure Steam Turbines: Part II—
Equivalence and Differentiators,” ASME Paper No. GT2015-44125.
tube thickness variation and on the stream surface twist. Near the [3] Sedille, M., 1966, Turbine a Vapeur, Cours de Conservatoire National des Arts
hub, the stator passage should be converging–diverging with the et Metiers, Paris, Chap. 7.
amount of divergence carefully designed to minimize shock loss; [4] Horlock, J. H., 1966, Axial Flow Turbines, Butterworths, Oxford, UK, Chap. 5.
however, the divergence must include the change in stream tube [5] Houberecht, A., 1972, Les Turbines, Vendure, Leuven, Belgium, Chap. 5.
[6] Traupel, W., 1977, “Thermische Turbomaschinen,” Band I, Thermodynamisch—
thickness. Although not shown here, there was a large difference Str€omungstechnische Berechnung, Dritte Auflage, Springer-Verlag, Berlin, Chap. 7.
between the surface pressure distribution of the radially stacked [7] Dejc, M. E., and Trojanovskij, B. M., 1973, Untersuchung und Berechnung
stator and the twisted stator at midspan despite there being only a Axialer Turbinenestufen, VEB Verlag Technik, Berlin.
small difference in blade stagger angle. This illustrates the impor- [8] Denton, J. D., 1991, “The Calculation of Three-Dimensional Viscous Flow
Through Multistage Turbomachines,” ASME J. Turbomach., 114(1), pp. 18–26.
tance of stream tube divergence in that region. The high level of [9] Denton, J. D., 1993, “The 1993 IGTI Scholar Lecture: Loss Mechanism in
backward meridional sweep of the radially stacked stator near the Turbomachines,” ASME J. Turbomach., 115(4), pp. 621–656.
casing causes increased leading edge loading and reduced trailing [10] Denton, J. D., and Xu, L., 1999, “The Exploitation of 3D Flow in Turbomachi-
edge loading, exactly as in a swept cascade. It is also apparent nery Design,” Proc. Inst. Mech. Eng., Part C, 213(2), pp. 125–137.
[11] Weiss, A., 1998, “Aerodynamic Design of Advanced LP Steam Turbines,”
from comparison of the radial stator with the forward curved sta- ABB Rev., 5, pp. 4–11.
tor (Fig. 16) and with the parallel annulus stator (Fig. 17) that the [12] St€uer, H., Truckenm€ uller, F., Borthwick, D., and Denton, J. D., 2005,
blade load is higher when the stator is stacked almost orthogonal “Aerodynamic Concept for Very Large Steam Turbine Last Stages,” ASME Pa-
to the meridional streamlines, this increases the angular per No. GT2005-68746.
[13] Pullan, G., and Harvey, N., 2006, “The Influence of Sweep on Axial Flow Tur-
momentum near the casing downstream of a forward curved stator bine Aerodynamics at Mid-Span,” ASME Paper No. GT2006-91070.
and so helps both the reaction variation and the rotor work [14] Pullan, G., and Harvey, N., 2007, “The Influence of Sweep on Axial Flow Tur-
variation. bine Aerodynamics in the Endwall Region,” ASME Paper No. GT2007-27750.

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