Original Article

Proc IMechE Part A:

J Power and Energy
Computational investigation of 0(0) 1–12
! IMechE 2020

multi-phase flow effects on the Article reuse guidelines:

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performance of the steam turbine DOI: 10.1177/0957650920914808

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exhaust hood

Sreeja Sadasivan1 , Senthil Kumar Arumugam2 and

Mahesh C Aggarwal3

Abstract
In this research work, a computational modeling of multi-phase flow through an asymmetric exhaust hood is presented.
The three-dimensional Navier–Stokes equations along with the standard k  " turbulent model and the Eulerian–Eulerian
multi-phase equations were solved. The coupling of the last stage turbine blades and the exhaust hood has been carried
out using the actuator disc model, which is less computationally demanding. The finite volume-based commercial com-
putational fluid dynamics solver, ANSYS FLUENT, is used for the present numerical simulations. The effects of wetness
on the flow structure and the pressure recovery capacity of a steam turbine exhaust hood have been investigated. One of
the salient findings is that the pressure recovery capacity of a steam turbine exhaust hood enhances due to wetness
effects. Wetness-induced turbulence damping is noted to be playing a crucial role in the enhancement of pressure
recovery capacity of an exhaust hood.

Keywords
Low-pressure steam turbine, exhaust hood, wet steam, Computational Fluid Dynamics, actuator disc model

Date received: 18 September 2019; accepted: 11 January 2020

distribution in the exhaust hood.2 As it is challenging

Introduction
The design and optimization of the exhaust hood of
steam turbines is a live topic of research in the area of
turbomachinery, as the exhaust hood performance
significantly influences the turbine output. A properly
designed exhaust hood ensures efficient conversion of
the Kinetic Energy (KE) of expanded steam to pres-
sure energy.Optimization of an exhaust hood requires
a clear cut idea of flow structure and behavior of flow
in the exhaust hood.1 The initial stages of the low-
pressure steam turbines always work under dry
steam conditions. However, in the last stages of the
turbine, a rapid steam expansion in the direction of
flow causes a significant drop in temperature and
thereby condensation of steam resulting in a two-
phase mixture. Hence, the flow which enters the
exhaust hood generally will have humidity content
of maximum up to 10%. Moreover, the flow in the
exhaust hood is susceptible to homogeneous conden-
sation due to its expansion. Tanuma et al. reported
that the increase in the wetness from 3.5% to 8.2%
showed an appreciable change in the vortex size and
to model the properties of the steam as it is in the wet
state, modeling with real gas effects was attempted.
Cao et al. reported that the presence of wetness
improves the pressure recovery capacity of the
exhaust hood.3 But this work did not focus on the
details of the flow and the exhaust hood pressure
recovery.
Prediction of droplet growth in such a condensa-
tion process was noted as one of the challenging sci-
entific problems.4 However, the developments in
Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) provide an
opportunity to study the condensing flow with a
1
School of Mechanical Engineering, Vellore Institute of Technology,
Vellore, India
2
CO2 Research and Green Technologies Centre, Vellore Institute of
Technology, Vellore, India
3
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Gannon University, Erie, USA
Corresponding author:
Senthil Kumar Arumugam, Vellore Institute of Technology, Vellore,
Tamil Nadu 632014, India.
Email: asenthilkumar@vit.ac.in
2 Proc IMechE Part A: J Power and Energy 0(0)

focus on droplet size, nucleation rate, and latent heat Momentum equation
released during the process.5–7 Many investigators
emphasize the importance of considering wetness @    ij @ ðij   u~ 00i u~ 00j Þ
@p
effects in the flow analysis of steam turbine blades  u~ i u~ j ¼  þ ð2Þ
@xj @xj @xj
and the exhaust hood.8,9 However, most of the inves-
tigations carried out to predict the exhaust hood flow Energy equation
structure assumed a single phase flow.10–13 There are
no conclusive studies with the inclusion of wetness @ h ~ i @ ½u~ i ðij   u~ 00i u~ 00j Þ  ðq j þ  e~00 u~ 00j Þ
effect in the exhaust hood, mainly due to the lack of  u~ j ht ¼
@xj @xj
reliable field data and the demand for very high com- pffiffiffi pffiffiffi ð3Þ
 @ k@ k
putational requirements.  þ 2
 Pk þ "
As far as coupling of the last stage blades (LSBs) @xj @xj
and the exhaust hood in CFD modeling is concerned,
there exists a variety of methods, namely mixing-plane Transport equation of kinetic energy
method,14 frozen rotor method,15 non-linear har-  
monic method,16 ADM,17 etc. Except for the ADM @   @ T @k
 u~ j k ¼ ð þ Þ
approach, the above-mentioned methods are very cen- @xj @xj k @xj
tral processing unit (CPU) intensive. Hence, in this pffiffiffi pffiffiffi ð4Þ
@ k@ k
research work, the ADM is used for capturing the þ Pk  "    2
asymmetric flow in the coupled domain of the turbine @xj @xj
rotor blades and the exhaust hood with wetness
effects. In one of the previous studies of the present Transport equation of dissipation rate
authors,18 the importance of ADM approach in the  
computational analysis of gas turbine exhaust hood @  
 @ T @" "
 u~ j " ¼ ð þ Þ þ C"1 Pk
has been detailed. It has been shown that the ADM is @xj @xj " @xj k
efficient enough to capture the time averaged effect of   2  ð5Þ
"2 T @2 u~ i @ u~ i
turbine blades with less computational power.  C"2 f"2  þ2
k  @xj @xj @xl @xl
The literature survey clearly reveals that the effect of
the condensation process, especially the distribution of
liquid droplets and its size on the pressure loss in the Where
steam turbine exhaust hood, is not well understood due  
to the complex process involved. The primary focus of @u~ i @u~ j 2 @u~ j 2
 u~ 00i u~ 00jÞ ¼ T þ  T  ij
ij  k
the current research is to study the influence of wetness @xj @xi 3 @xj 3
on the flow structure and the pressure recovery capacity  
of the exhaust hood. The process of homogeneous con- ~ @u~ i þ @u~ j  2  @u~ j ij ;  e~00 u~ 00 Þ
ij ffi ðTÞ j
@xj @xi 3 @xj
densation of vapor using the Eulerian–Eulerian
approach is discussed in detail. Another focus of the @T~
¼ KT
current research is to investigate the effects of wetness @xi
  ~
on turbulence intensity in the performance of the 1 @u~ i @u~ j
Pk ¼   u~ 00i u~ 00j Þ þ ; q~ i ffi kðTÞ~ @T
exhaust hood. 2 @xj @xi @xi

The molecular diffusion coefficient and the turbu-

Mathematical model lent model constants are
The finite volume-based software, ANSYS FLUENT
18, is used as the computational tool for the present 2 2
f"2 ðReT Þ ¼ 1  0:3eReT ; ReT ¼ k "
wet-steam flow analysis of the exhaust hood. The gov-
C"1 ¼ 1:440; C"2 ¼ 1:920; k ¼ 1:0; " ¼ 1:3
erning equations in the modeling of the flow mixture
consist of conservation of mass, the compressible
three-dimensional Navier–Stokes equations, the Transport equation of liquid mass fraction
energy equation, and two additional transport equa-
tions – one for liquid mass fraction and the other one @ ðuj Þ
¼ ð6Þ
for the number of liquid droplets per unit volume. @xj
These fundamental equations are coupled with the
k  " turbulence model in tensor form as, Transport equation of the liquid droplets per unit
Continuity equation volume

@   @ ð uj Þ
 u~ j ¼ 0 ð1Þ ¼ J ð7Þ
@xj @xj
Sadasivan et al. 3

According to the classical nucleation theory,19 the

liquid mass fraction rate obtained during the process
of condensation is the sum of the increase in mass of
liquid during nucleation and growth of the droplets

4 r3 @r
¼ l J þ 4 r2 l
3 @t

where the term J proposed by Frenkel20 and the

growth rate of the droplets is defined by
Gyarmathy’s model by considering the heat transfer
rate between the steam and the liquid particles during Figure 1. Geometry of Moore Nozzle B.
the condensation process21
sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
4 r2 
qc v 2  3Kb T
J¼ e and condensation occurring there. Condensation at
ð1 þ Þ l M3m
the throat releases the latent heat and thus increases
@r P þ1 the static temperature and pressure. This proves the
¼ pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi Cp ðTd  TÞ
@t hlv l 2 RT 2 correctness of the numerical strategy employed in the
present study.
 4 3
¼ ; Vd ¼ r
ð1  ÞVd ðl =v Þ 3 d
  
 2 2ð  1Þ hlv hlv Computational approach
r ¼ ; ¼  0:5
l Rv T ln S ð þ 1Þ RT RT Geometry and meshing details
Equation of state In the present computational domain, the exhaust
hood is coupled with the LSBs with the help of the
P ¼ v RTð1  Þ ð8Þ ADM as shown in Figure 3(a). The geometrical model
of Burton et al.12 has been adopted here. The exhaust
hood of a steam turbine consists of a collector section
Validation of Eulerian–Eulerian and an axial–radial diffuser. The asymmetric nature of
the exhaust hood makes the flow highly non-uniform
multi-phase model while guiding the flow from the rotor outlet to the
In order to validate the Eulerian–Eulerian multi- condenser inlet. The mesh for the current model, gen-
phase model, a wet-steam flow through a nozzle has erated with the help of mesh generator ICEM CFD, is
been considered. It can be noted that experimental depicted in Figure 3(b). The computational domain is
data on wet-steam flow through an exhaust hood is divided into three sections. A structured block was
not available in the literature. The nozzle geometry is generated for the first section (from the model inlet
given by Moore et al.,22 shown in Figure 1, has been to the stator outlet/disc-1), whereas an unstructured
used in this study. A total pressure of 25 kPa and a mesh was generated for the second (the stator outlet/
total temperature of 357.6 K were specified at the inlet disc-1 to the rotor outlet/disc-2) and third (from the
of the nozzle to match with the experimental condi- rotor outlet to the condenser inlet) sections due to the
tion of Moore et al.22 The nozzle wall is treated to be high complex nature of the model. The mesh for all
no-slip and adiabatic. At the centerline of the nozzle, the sections was generated with a variation of yþ
the symmetry boundary condition was imposed. between 30 and 200.
A static pressure of 5000 Pa was imposed at the
nozzle exit. The residuals of all the transport variables
Implementation of ADM
were set to be 1106 as the convergence criteria.
The obtained distribution of pressure ratio in the In the current simulations, the last stage turbine rotor
direction of nozzle axis has been compared with the and stator blades were contracted into zero thickness
experimental data of Moore et al. in Figure 2. It can porous discs at the trailing edge of the turbine blade
be noted that there exists a close agreement between rows. The upstream side of the disc represents the
them. This demonstrates the validity of the Eulerian– turbine blade row inlet and the downstream side the
Eulerian multi-phase model. It is noticed that the blade row outlet. The flow behavior of steam from
pressure decreases monotonically till the throat sec- one side of the disc to the other side can take an inter-
tion, rises slightly and then decreases again. If the mittent hop to catch the steam flow turning and
flow were single phase, then the pressure would have entropy generation in the turbine LSB rows. Liu
decreased continuously. The pressure rise at the and Hynes17 have illustrated the behavior of actuator
throat can be attributed to the fact of nucleation disc in the flow domain as shown in Figure 4. In order
4 Proc IMechE Part A: J Power and Energy 0(0)
Figure 2. Pressure ratio distributions along the nozzle axis.
Figure 3. (a) Geometry of steam turbine exhaust hood. (b) Computational domain marked with boundary conditions.
to implement the ADM concept in the current geom-
etry, two discs have been developed by using mesh
interface treatment in the three computational
domains. The energy transfer happening in the real
turbine stage is represented here by specifying the
pressure drop across the actuator discs as a function
of flow velocity in the built-in ‘Fan’ boundary.
In multi-phase flow analysis of the steam turbine
exhaust hood, the following assumptions are used in
the present simulations:
. The variations in entropy depend on the blade loss
coefficients applied at the blade row.
. Actuator disc cannot give any sort of restriction to
steam passing through it.
. The flow is considered as steady and in the merid-
ional plane, the mass flow is conserved.
. The pressure changes discontinuously across the
disc and the velocity is uniform over the actuator
disc.
. The interaction between liquid droplets is
negligible.
. The liquid mass fraction is relatively small
ð 5 0:2Þ.
. The droplet volume is considered as negligible since
the size of the droplet is varying from 0.1 to
100 mm.
. Wet-steam temperature and pressure will be the
same as that of the temperature and pressure of
the vapour phase.
Numerical boundary conditions
In the present numerical simulations, the ‘pressure
inlet’ boundary was imposed at the model inlet
plane. The specified values of the total pressure and
total temperature at the inlet plane are 26,800 Pa and
339 K, respectively. ‘Pressure outlet’ boundary was
specified at the outlet plane of the exhaust hood
Sadasivan et al.
Figure 4. Schematic representation of the ADM by Liu and Hynes.15
Figure 5. Velocity profile imposed at the rotor outlet
(disc-2).
with the static pressure of 12,000 Pa. In the solid wall,
the flow is assumed to be adiabatic. The ‘Fan’ bound-
ary was specified at the negligible thickness plane of
the model. To achieve convergence, initially, the static
pressure drop across the disc-1 was set as 12,889.74 Pa
and for disc-2 as 4901.50 Pa. These values were calcu-
lated from the reported specification details of the
steam turbine.23 Tangential and radial velocity pro-
files as depicted in Figure 5 were introduced at the
actuator disc-2, when the flow residuals dropped to
the level of 103. The wet-steam model was used for
the multi-phase flow analysis of the exhaust hood.
The converging criteria were set to drop the residuals
of mass, momentum, energy, wetness, and turbulence
parameters to 1  106.
Grid sensitivity study
A mesh independency test was conducted to avoid the
grid resulting error in the solution. As shown in
Table 1, the course grid contained 1.2 M cells, whereas
the medium mesh with 3.2 M cells and fine mesh had
4.8 M cells. It is noticed that the difference in overall
5
Table 1. Grid sensitivity study.
Case Coarse Medium Fine
Number of cells (M) 1.5 3.2 4.8
Total pressure loss (Pa) 3367 3255 3259
total pressure loss between the medium and fine grid
levels is not significant. From the study, it can be
concluded that a computational mesh with 3.2 M
cells develops a fulfilling compromise between the
accuracy and computational time requirements for
the calculations.
Results and discussion
Validation of ADM
Initially, the ADM is validated against the experimen-
tal results of dry steam flow through an exhaust hood
found in the literature. The distribution of total pres-
sure along the blade span is one of the significant
factors which determine the total pressure recovery
capacity of the exhaust hood.15 Hence, the numeric-
ally obtained total pressure profile along the radial
direction at the rotor outlet is compared with the
experimental data of Gardzilewicz24 in Figure 6(a).
It can be noted that there exists a close agreement
between the numerical and experimental results
except at the rotor tip region. This slight deviation
could be due to the presence of rotor tip leakage in
the actual case.
In order to gain more confidence in the present
model, one more comparative study has been carried
out. Burton23 have reported the results obtained from
the frozen rotor method applied on the same geom-
etry used in the present investigation for a single
phase flow. Hence, a simulation was carried out
using the ADM with rotor tip leakage jet modeling
and the total pressure distribution at the radial loca-
tion of the rotor outlet of which have been compared
with the results of Burton23 in Figure 6(b). It can be
noted that there exists a close agreement between the
results. The static pressure coefficient (Cp) is one of
the significant factors used to quantify the pressure
recovery capacity of an exhaust hood. Hence, the
Cp value obtained from the present model is
6 Proc IMechE Part A: J Power and Energy 0(0)
Figure 6. (a) Total pressure distribution at the rotor outlet. (b) Total pressure distribution at the rotor outlet with the same
geometry.
compared with the reported frozen rotor results
obtained with the same geometry. The Cp value
obtained for the case of ADM with tip leakage is
found to be 0.243, whereas in the case of the frozen
rotor method, the Cp value is 0.241. These results
prove the capability of the present ADM approach,
which is generally less computationally demanding, in
coupling the LSBs with the exhaust hood.
Effect of wetness on exhaust hood flow structure
In the first phase, numerical experiments were per-
formed to study the effects of nucleation and its
growth that appear due to homogeneous condensa-
tion during the flow. In this phase of the study, no
wetness was imposed at the inlet boundary. The dry
saturated steam will condense when the local pressure
drops below the vapour pressure at any section of the
exhaust hood. Moreover, any local flow separation in
the domain can end up in homogenous condensation
of the steam. The primary focus of this study was to
identify the extent to which wet-steam formation will
affect the flow structure and the performance exhaust
hood. The contour of liquid mass fraction obtained
on the meridional plane of the exhaust hood is pre-
sented in Figure 7(a). It is noted that, in the upper
portion of the exhaust hood, the condensation begins
where the flow gets turned due to the guide vanes. On
the other hand, in the lower portion of the exhaust
hood, the condensation starts even before the flow
gets turned by the guide vane. In Figure 7(b), the
turning of the steam was noted to be causing a local
pressure decrement and hence condensation. All the
reported CFD studies10–16 with dry steam modeling
have shown the asymmetric nature of flows in the
exhaust hood. This is getting reflected in the distribu-
tion of the liquid mass fraction. The streamline pat-
tern presented in Figure 7(c) clearly demonstrates the
net flow deflection and swirling within the exhaust
hood. It is observed that the overall flow deflec-
tion creates two counter-rotating vortices within
the downdraft section of the exhaust hood as
observed by other investigations in the case of dry
flow. The counter-rotating vortices hold low-density
dry steam to their core region. On the other hand,
the steam of high wetness fraction remains at the per-
iphery of the vortex. This is very evident from
Figure 7(d).
In order to get an insight into the physics of nucle-
ation, the contour of the droplet nucleation rate at the
meridional plane has been presented in Figure 8(a). It
is noticed that the nucleation rate is significant at the
upper portion of the diffuser where the flow separ-
ations are maximum. In the lower portion, the nucle-
ation rate is higher in the proximity of the end wall of
the exhaust hood. Further, in order to have more
insight, the droplet nucleation rate has been con-
sidered at a diffuser outlet plane, where the nucleation
first forms, in the upper portion of the exhaust hood
as shown in Figure 8(b). It is observed that the droplet
nucleation rate is lower near the end wall and tip
regions. The maximum nucleation rate occurs at
about 30% distance from the tip of the guide vane.
The static and saturation temperature profiles are
plotted at the same outlet plane in Figure 8(c).
Here, the static temperature values are lower than
the saturation temperature. Hence, condensation
must have occurred at this plane. The degree of super-
cooling is found to be about 23 K, where the nucle-
ation rate is maximum. This indicates a large number
of condensation nuclei present in the primary fluid.
The rate of nucleation then starts to decline just
after the peak position due to the supercooling tem-
perature decrement. It shows that the condensation of
steam will not occur when it just reaches the satur-
ation state.
Sadasivan et al.
Figure 7. (a) Liquid mass fraction contour at the exhaust hood meridional plane. (b) Static pressure contour at half-joint plane of the
exhaust hood. (c) Three-dimensional flow structure in the exhaust hood of the steam turbine. (d) Liquid mass fraction contours of
different sections at exhaust hood outlet.
During the condensation process, the continuous
production of nuclei contributes to a large quantity
of droplets and goes to the process of droplet growth.
At the end of the first nucleation process, the number
of droplets reaches its maximum value near the flow
guide tip region as shown in Figure 8(d) and nucle-
ation region gradually moves to the downstream flow.
It can be noted that the number of liquid droplets
remains constant in almost all the region in the col-
lector plane.
Further to understand the influence of the inlet
wetness level on the overall flow structure, a detailed
investigation has been carried out at different levels of
inlet wetness, viz. 3%, 5%, and 7% and respective
velocity contours at the sectional plane of the exhaust
hood have been depicted in Figure 9. It can be noted
that the sizes of the counter-rotating vortices are
changing with the change in the inlet wetness. There
is a considerable magnification in both vortex cores
when the inlet wetness changes from zero to non-zero.
However, a further increase in wetness creates only a
marginal change in both vortex cores. Thus, the asym-
metry of the exhaust hood flow structure is getting
reduced with an increase in the inlet wetness. This
fact is evident from Figure 10 as well, where the
7
respective velocity contours at the exit plane of the
exhaust hood obtained are depicted. It can be con-
cluded that changes in wetness levels affect the forma-
tion and distribution of flow structure very
significantly. Hence, this emphasizes the importance
of wet-steam modeling.
The above-discussed vortex core changes are to be
revisited under the light of nucleation and droplet for-
mation. To better understand the underlying multi-
phase effect behind the vortex structure change, the
droplet per unit volume at the outlet plane of the
exhaust hood is analyzed in Figure 11. As mentioned
earlier, the exhaust hood flow contains two counter-
rotating vortices formed due to the typical flow turn-
ing at the diffuser section. These counter-rotating
vortex cores are getting formed due to the mutual
interaction of multiple vortices observed at the tip
region of the guide vane. At zero inlet wetness case,
the maximum amount of liquid droplets is observed at
the left side of the left vortex core. Moreover, the
maximum amount of saturated steam is entrapped
by the left vortex core when the inlet wetness is
zero. The right vortex core as well holds a certain
amount of dry steam, but lesser in volume as com-
pared to that of the left vortex core. A remarkable
8 Proc IMechE Part A: J Power and Energy 0(0)

Figure 8. (a) Log10 droplet nucleation rate at the exhaust hood meridional plane. (b) Log10 droplet nucleation rate at the diffuser
outlet plane. (c) Temperature distribution at the diffuser outlet plane. (d) Log10 droplets per unit volume at the diffuser outlet plane.

Figure 9. Velocity contour at the sectional plane: (a) 0% wetness, (b) 3% wetness, (c) 5% wetness, and (d) 7% wetness.
Sadasivan et al. 9

Figure 10. Velocity contour at the condenser inlet: (a) 0% wetness, (b) 3% wetness, (c) 5% wetness, and (d) 7% wetness.

Figure 11. Droplets per unit volume at the outlet of the exhaust hood: (a) 0% wetness, (b) 3% wetness, (c) 5% wetness, and (d) 7%
wetness.

change in the above flow structure occurs when the

inlet contains non-zero wetness. As evident from
Figure 11(b), inlet wetness of 3% leads to the
growth of the right vortex core along with an increase
in the volume of steam trapped in it. However, even at
3% inlet wetness, the vortex cores are asymmetrical
with a higher liquid concentration at the left portion
of the exhaust hood. A further increase in inlet wet-
ness reduces the asymmetry in the exhaust flow struc-
ture. At 5% of inlet wetness, the sizes of counter-
rotating were observed as almost the same.
However, the 7% wetness case is noted to be shifting
the high liquid concentration region to the right half
of the exhaust hood. Hence, it can be inferred that the
inlet wetness has a key impact on the flow structure at
the exhaust hood outlet. Further, the above flow
structure changes may affect the flow turbulence and
pressure recovery capacity of the exhaust hood.
Figure 12. Comparison of total pressure loss in the exhaust
Discussions of such aspects are presented in the sub-
hood.
sequent sections.

loss at the different levels of inlet wetness in addition

Effect of wetness on the total pressure loss
In this section, the effect of inlet wetness on the total
pressure drop has been discussed. The total pressure
loss represents the pressure recovery capacity of an
exhaust hood. Hence, the predicted total pressure
to the total pressure loss obtained using the single
phase approach has been depicted in Figure 12.
The numerical simulations of the exhaust hood
flow structure with the single phase approximation
gave a total pressure loss of 3255 Pa, whereas the
10
Figure 13. Velocity vector at the exhaust hood meridional plane: (a) dry steam, (b) 0% inlet wetness, and (c) 7% inlet wetness.
Figure 14. Turbulent kinetic energy at the condenser inlet plane: (a) dry steam, (b) 0% inlet wetness, and (c) 7% inlet wetness.
multi-phase flow approximations with zero inlet wet-
ness gave a total pressure loss of 2793 Pa. It shows
that the effect of inlet wetness on the performance
improvement of the exhaust hood is significant. The
values of total pressure loss obtained from the wet-
steam analysis for different wetness percentage at the
inlet of the model also shows that an increase in wet-
ness percentage at the inlet of the domain marginally
decreases the total pressure loss of the exhaust hood
system. Hence, it is well understood from the study
that, as real time steam flow through the last stage
row and the exhaust hood is prone to condensation,
it is essential to go for wetness modeling in order to
obtain realistic design data.
The velocity vector obtained at the meridional
plane of exhaust hood for the various cases like
single-phase analysis (dry steam), multi-phase analysis
with 0% inlet wetness, and maximum 7% inlet wet-
ness are compared in Figure 13. It can be observed
that there are three different recirculation zones,
namely flow guide separation, additional vortex and
the flow guide tip separation formed at the vicinity of
Proc IMechE Part A: J Power and Energy 0(0)
the guide vane. The above-mentioned flow separation
and recirculation zone formations are found to be
present in all the investigated cases. However, in the
multi-phase analysis, it can be noted that the strength
of the recirculation zone is decreasing significantly.
This could be attributed to the entropy generation
during the nucleation process. The vortices inside
the diffuser and the collector are the main source for
a higher pressure loss in the steam turbine exhaust
hood. Therefore, it can be concluded that the pressure
recovery capacity of the exhaust hood is increasing
with wetness effect mainly due to the diminishing
trend of the vortices inside the exhaust hood.
Further, the wetness effects on the characteristics
of turbulence flow are also considered for the exhaust
hood flow analysis. A comparative study of the same
three cases for turbulent kinetic energy has been made
on the exhaust hood outlet plane as shown in
Figure 14. It is observed that the magnitude of turbu-
lent kinetic energy is high in the dry steam flow con-
ditions as compared with the 0% and 7% inlet
wetness conditions of the multi-phase analysis.
Sadasivan et al.
Table 2. Mass weighted average values for different cases.
Mass weighted average
Inlet turbulent kinetic
Phase wetness energy (m2/s2)
Single phase NA 1230
Multi-phase 0% 280
Multi-phase 7% 194
NA: Not applicable.
The mass weighted average values of turbulent kinetic
energy for the corresponding cases are tabulated in
Table 2. The influence of droplets on the intensity of
turbulence of the carrier phase is reported by
Crowe.25 He experimentally proved that the attenu-
ation and augmentation of turbulence are depending
on the size of the liquid particles. The presence of
larger liquid particles augments the intensity of turbu-
lence, while the smaller liquid particles attenuate the
turbulence. The results of the present study are in
good agreement with the above reported results, as
the liquid droplets are small in size in the
present simulations. The damping trend of the
turbulence could be attributed to the presence of
very small liquid particles in the exhaust hood. This
leads to a conclusion that the formation of small
liquid droplets during the flow will decrease the tur-
bulence level.
Conclusion
The present numerical study was conducted to ana-
lyze the effects of wetness on the flow structure and
the pressure recovery capacity of the asymmetric
steam turbine exhaust hood. The governing equations
of multi-phase flow were solved coupling the LSBs
and the exhaust hood by the ADM. Due to the asym-
metric geometry of the exhaust hood, the liquid mass
fraction distribution is found to be non-uniform. The
total pressure loss obtained from the numerical study
of exhaust hood in the dry steam flow analysis is
3255 Pa, whereas the multi-phase flow approxima-
tions with 0, 3, 5, and 7% inlet wetness gave a
total pressure loss of 2793, 2668, 2649, and
2629 Pa, respectively. It is found that the pressure
recovery capacity of the exhaust hood is increasing
with wetness effect mainly due to the diminishing
trend of the vortices inside the exhaust hood.
Further, it is observed that the presence of
liquid droplets causes attenuation of turbulence inten-
sity and thus helps in reducing the pressure loss. The
mass weighted average of turbulent kinetic energy at
the exhaust hood outlet plane for the single phase
approximation is found to be 1230 m2/s2,
whereas the case of multi-phase approximation with
0% and 7% inlet wetness gave values of 280 m2/s2 and
194 m2/s2, respectively.
11
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with
respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of
this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research,
authorship, and/or publication of this article.
ORCID iD
Sreeja Sadasivan https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4975-2820
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