Introduction to Turbomachines

Introduction to Turbomachinery
• A turbomachine is basically a rotating machine
• The rotating wheel is called a rotor / runner / im
peller
• The rotor will be immersed in a fluid continuum
• The fluid medium can be gas / steam / water / air
• Energy transfer takes place either:
 From rotor to fluid, or
From fluid to rotor
 Turbo-machine - Definition

‰A turbomachine is a device where mechanical energy in the

form of shaft work, is transferred either to or from a
continuously flowing fluid by the dynamic action of rotating
blade rows.
The interaction between the fluid and the turbomachine
blades also results in fluid dynamic lift.
A turbomachine produces change in enthalpy of the fluid
passing through it.
Turbo-machine - Classifications
Power Absorbing Turbomachines
Power Producing Turbomachines
Major Turbo-machines
Stagnation Properties

Consider a fluid flowing into a diffuser at a velocity , temperature
V T, pressure P, and
enthalpy h, etc. Here the ordinary properties T, P, h, etc. are called the static properties; that
is, they are measured relative to the flow at the flow velocity. The diffuser is sufficiently
long and the exit area is sufficiently large that the fluid is brought to rest (zero velocity) at the
diffuser exit while no work or heat transfer is done. The resulting state is called the
stagnation state.

We apply the first law per unit mass for one entrance, one exit, and neglect the potential
energies. Let the inlet state be unsubscripted and the exit or stagnation state have the
subscript o.
2 2
V Vo
qnet h  wnet  ho 
2 2
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Since the exit velocity, work, and heat transfer are zero,
2
V
ho  h 
2
The term ho is called the stagnation enthalpy (some authors call this the total enthalpy). It
is the enthalpy the fluid attains when brought to rest adiabatically while no work is done.

If, in addition, the process is also reversible, the process is isentropic, and the inlet and exit
entropies are equal.

so  s
The stagnation enthalpy and entropy define the stagnation state and the isentropic
stagnation pressure, Po. The actual stagnation pressure for irreversible flows will be
somewhat less than the isentropic stagnation pressure as shown below.

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 Stagnation Properties (Perfect Gas)
V2    1 V 2 
h0  h  T0  T 1  2 
2  2 c 

 V 2  T0    1 2 
c pT0  c p T   1  M 
 T  2 
 2c p 

 V 2 
T0  T  
 2c p 

 V 2 
T0  T    1 
 2R 
   1 V 2 
T0  T 1  
 2 RT 
 No Break Through Just A Natural Evolution

• Knowledge of turbo-machines has evolved slowly over

centuries without the benefit of sudden and dramatic
breakthrough for more than 41500 yrs!
• Turbo-machines, such as windmills and waterwheels,
are millenniums old.
 An Evolution from Water Wheel to Hydraulic Turbine

• Waterwheels, which dip their vanes into moving water, were

employed in ancient Egypt, China, and Assyria.
• Waterwheels appeared in Greece in the second century B.C.
and in the Roman Empire during the first century B.C.
• A seven-ft-diameter waterwheel at Monte Cassino was used by
the Romans to grind corn at the rate of 150 kg of corn per hour,
• Waterwheels at Arles ground 320 kg of corn per hour.
• The Doomsday Book, based on a survey ordered by William the
Conqueror, indicates the there were 5,624 water mills in
England in 1086.
• Besides the grinding of grain, waterwheels were used to drive
water pumps and to operate machinery.
• Agricola (1494–1555) showed by illustrations how water
wheels were used to pump water from mines and to crush
metallic ores in the 16th century.
• The pumps were driven by 14 waterwheels, each 12m in
diameter, that were turned by the currents of the Seine.
• The undershot waterwheel, which had an efficiency of only
30%, were used up until the end of the 18th century.
• It was replaced in the 19th century by the overshot
waterwheel with an efficiency of 70 to 90%.
• By 1850, hydraulic turbines began to replace waterwheels.
• The first hydroelectric power plant was built in Germany in
1891 and utilized waterwheels and direct-current power
generation.
• However, the waterwheels were soon replaced with hydraulic
turbines and alternating-current electric power.
 Discovery of Steam and Gas Turbines

• In the second century B.C. Hero of Alexandria invented

rotors driven by steam and by gas, but these machines
produced insignificant amounts of power.
• During the 18th and 19th centuries the reciprocating
steam engine was developed and became the
predominant prime mover for manufacturing and
transportation industries.
• In 1883 the first steam turbines were constructed by de
Laval whose turbines achieved speeds of 26,000 rpm.
• In 1884 a steam turbine, which ran at 17,000 rpm and
comprised 15 wheels on the same shaft, was designed
and built by Charlie Parsons.
• The gas turbine was conceived by John Barber in 1791,
and the first gas turbine was built and tested in 1900 by
Stolze .
• Sanford Moss built a gas turbine in 1902 at Cornell
University.
• At Brown Boveri in 1903, Armenguad and Lemale
combined an axial-flow turbine and centrifugal
compressor to produce a thermal efficiency of 3% .
• In 1905 Holzwarth designed a gas turbine that utilized
constant-volume combustion.
• This turbine was manufactured by Boveri and Thyssen
until the 1930s.
• In 1911 the turbocharger was built and installed in diesel
engines by Sulzer Brothers, and in 1918 the turbocharger
was utilized to increase the power of military aircraft
engines.
• In 1939 the first combustion gas turbine was installed by
Brown Boveri in Switzerland.
• A similar turbine was used in Swiss locomotives in 1942.
• The aircraft gas turbine engine (turbojet) was developed
by Junkers in Germany around 1940.