r t83

Nominated Lecture

The Parsons Centenary-a hundred years

of steam turbines
F R Harris, BSc(Eng), ACGI, CEng, FIMechE, Mem ASME
Chief Turbine Engineer, G E C Turbine Generators Limited, Willans Works, Rugby, Warwickshire

The,first practical multi-stage turbine in the form in which we know it today was built by the Hon C . A . Parsons in 1884. After
referring briefly to other pioneers of early turbine development, and outlining the essential diferences between impulse and reaction
turbines, the main part of the lecture is devoted t o a historical survey of steam turbines as applied to the generation of electricity in
central power stations, over the intervening one hundred years. Progress in many areas of interest is described: these include
considerations of blading design, steam conditions, single- and double-reheat, and many mechanical features, as well as condensing and
feed heating plant. Specialized applications of turbines for use with nuclear reactors, for district heating, for use with dry cooling
systems where water is scarce, and for rapid starting are also described. Where possible, significant milestones in development are
identified by year and by builder; progress up to the present day is reported. Some of the problems which sometimes arise with turbine
plant in service are briejy mentioned, and the prospects of developments over the next few years, including the possibility of significant
increases in steam pressure and temperature, are outlined.

1 INTRODUCTION those of size and potential efficiency, over other

contemporary forms of steam plant, and was capable of
The earliest recorded steam turbine is the reaction turb- being built for larger ratings. This was the recognizable
ine of Hero of Alexandria, of 120 BC (Fig. l), ancestor of all modern large steam turbines, which have
regarded at the time as a toy, but used on some later accordingly now reached their centenary year.
occasions for very minor drive applications including
one at a printing works in Edinburgh about 1850. In
1629 Giovanni de Branca, an Italian architect, described
a device in which a jet of steam was projected against a 2 EARLY HISTORY
series of vanes on a rotating wheel (Fig. 2). In the period In 1890 the first of four 75 kW Parsons machines was
from the beginning of records of the British Patent delivered to the Forth Banks station of the Newcastle
office, until 1884, 195 patents relating to turbines were and District Electric Lighting Company; the first
granted (commencing in 1784, a year which included occasion of the use of a steam turbine in a public power
one by James Watt), some of them anticipating in prin- station.
ciple designs which were ultimately to be successful (4).
In France, Tournaire in 1853 proposed a machine very
similar to future steam turbines. In 1883 Carl Gustav
Patrik de Lava1 in Sweden manufactured a form of
Hero’s turbine (British Patent 1655 of 1883) to drive his
cream separators at high speed, although it is reported
that many turbines of such type had already been in use
in USA for several years for similar applications. Credit
for the steam turbine as we now understand it is usually
awarded to the Hon (later Sir) Charles Algernon
Parsons, who in 1884 (British Patent 6735 dated 23
April 1884) (Fig. 3) constructed his first steam turbine
(Fig. 4). Steam entered at the centre of a double-flow
cylinder and expanded axially towards each end
through stages of fixed and rotating blades; the electric
output was about 10 h.p., the speed 18000 r/min, and
the rotor diameter three inches. Each flow had fourteen
stages of flat blades, made by cutting skew slots in rings.
What we are commemorating in 1984 is not simply
the centenary of British Patent 6735; many other
patents preceding it described very similar solutions to
the steam turbine problem. We are commemorating the
construction, in 1884, of Parsons’ first steam turbine,
built in accordance with his patent, and which not only
really worked, but had many advantages, including

This lecture was presented at an Ordinary Meeting held in London on 9 M a y

1984. The M S was received on 6 January 1984 and was accepted for publication
on 6 February 1984. Fig. 1 The reaction turbine of Hero of Alexandria, 120 BC
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184
Fig. 2 The turbine proposed by Giovanni de Branca, 1629
In 1889 de Laval patented (British Patent 7143) his
single-stage turbine, where steam was expanded to very
high speed through a convergent-divergent nozzle,
driving a bladed disc at very high rotational speed. He
introduced the concept of operation above the critical
speed of the very slender shaft; this fortunately made
extremely precise balance unnecessary. A 5 h.p. turbine
ran at 30 000 r/min, and drove through a double-helical
reduction gear.
In 1896 Charles Gordon Curtis patented the velocity-
compounded turbine (tried previously by de Laval but
not patented) which also enabled high steam speeds to
be used with low blade speeds, albeit at low efficiency;
his patents were taken up by GE* and the early Curtis
turbines used several velocity wheels in series. The first
machine, of 600 h.p., with horizontal shaft, was installed
in the GE factory at Schenectady in 1901, and included
two four-row velocity wheels in series. Subsequent
machines had vertical shafts, but this feature was aban-
doned about 1905. Curtis turbines employed several
* See page 221 for list of abbreviations.
Fig. 4 The first Parsons turbine, 1884 (10 h.p., 18000 r/min), at present in the Science Museum
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F R HARRIS
Enving now p~rticulnrly described and ascertained the nature of my said
invention and in what manner the same is to be performed, I declare that what
I claim is :-
1. In a motor the use in combination of a hollow cylinder with projecting ria@
of blades and within it a solid or rotary cylinder with projecting rings of blhdcs 35
upon which motive fluid is enused t o act as it travels i n directions parallel or
appmximately pnrallcl to the axis of the Solid or rotary cylinder the arrangeweut
and operation boiug suhstantiallg such an hereinabove described with reference
to the accompanying d r a w i n s
2. In n motor of tbe !&d referred to in claim 1 the combiuation of two similar 40
setr of rotary parts mounted upon one shaft, one net being placed at each side of
the inlet for actuating fluid in such a way that the entering stream shall divide
right and left and the exhaust take plsce at both ends SO 89 to balanca or
approximately balance tbe eud pressures, substantially 89 described.
10 Notors according to my invention are applicnble to a vaiicty of purposes and if
such an apparatus Le driveu it becoincs a pump nud can bc used for actiiating a
fluid column or producing pressure in a h i d . Sueb a Ruid pressure producrr can
be combined with a multiple motor ocwrding to my invention tu obrsiu motive
power from fuel or combustible gases of any kind. Bor tbis purpose I employ the
15 premure producer to force air or combustible gasey into a furnace (into which thero
may or may not be introduced other fuel (liquid or solid). From tho furitace the
products of combustion can be led in a heated state to the multiplo motor whicb
thcy will actuate. Conveniently the pressure producer and multiple motor can be
mounted on tlie eame shaft, the former to be driveu by the I.itter but I do not
20 confine myself to this arrangement of parts-In 8ome WLW I employ water or
other fluid to cool the blades either hy couduction of best through their rook or
by other suitable amngemeut to etTect their p r o t e c t i ~ ~
(b)
Fig. 3 Extracts from British Patent 6735 granted to the Hon
C. A. Parsons on 23 April 1884:
(a) the first two claims, defining the double-flow
turbine cylinder,
(b) part of the text, describing application to a (cooled)
gas turbine
groups of nozzles admitting steam into separate arcs of
the first stage, with a valve controlling each one; the
valves were operated sequentially by the governor.
Early pioneers of the steam turbine included August
Camille Edmond Rateau (first single-stage impulse turb-
ines in 1894-96, followed by multi-stage models in 1901)
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 A HUNDRED YEARS OF STEAM TURBINES 1x5

and Heinrich Zoelly (first impulse turbine in 1903); both

at first built turbines with stages akin to a Pelton wheel,
with steam admitted tangentially at the disc circum-
ference, with an inward radial component. This concept
was quickly abandoned by Rateau, but Zoelly turbines
were built with several of these Pelton stages, where
each blade had a radial cusp in the middle and steam
exits at each side, followed by conventional axial-flow
stages. Zoelly turbines employed high blade speeds, and
the Pelton blades were tapered to reduce stress.
Rateau turbines, after the rejection of the Pelton prin-
ciple, used a large number (twenty to thirty) of axial
stages. Increased nozzle area from one stage to the next
was achieved by increasing the extent of the arc of
admission, keeping the blade height constant, until
eventually full-arc admission was reached; this principle
was also employed by Curtis. Parsons and other reac-
tion turbines for many years employed ‘belts’ of six or
more stages all of the same blade height, increased flow
area being obtained by changing the setting angle of
each stage. Some turbines were in two cylinders, where
alternative or intermittent sources of steam were avail-
able, and reference is made in 1904 to a 500 h.p. Rateau
machine (Huta-Bankowa, Poland) which appears to be
a two-cylinder cross-compound, with two running lines.
At the same date boiler feed pumps were driven by
Rateau turbines. The constant blade height, increasing
arc of admission, principle was soon abandoned, and
replaced by full admission in all stages, with increasing Fig. 5 Ljungstrom’s first contra-rotating radial flow turbine,
blade height. In the same way that modern reaction (700 h.p., 3000 r/min)
turbines derive from the ideas and concepts of Parsons,
modern impulse turbines are generally regarded as cessful and for its Spithead debut in 1897 Turbinia was
deriving from Rateau. propelled by a three-cylinder axial-flow turbine (156 Ibf/
The Zoelly turbine, also after rejection of the Pelton in’, 2000 r/min) (5) with nine propellers on the three
principle, was characterized by fewer stages than the shafts; in modern parlance this is a cross-compound
Rateau, due to its higher blade speeds, permitted by the turbine arrangement. Parsons abandoned radial turb-
use of forged steel discs (Rateau’s discs were of sheet ines when, in 1894, he recovered the rights to his axial-
metal, riveted to a hub). Nominal full admission was flow patents. He had built several Hero turbines,
used in all stages, with throttling control of the main including in 1893 one of 20 h.p. at 5000 r/min, with a
steam supply, but blanks of decreasing length of arc in diameter over the arms of 34i in, followed by units
successive stages were fitted to the fixed blade dia- using up to five Hero arms in series, and later using
phragms. Zoelly also introduced two-cylinder turbines three Hero arms followed by a double-sided radial-flow
with only one bearing between cylinders; vertical Curtis disc. These turbines were inefficient and were not
turbines already had only one bearing between turbine pursued. Radial-flow was revived by SSW (1931-58) for
and generator. H P cylinders.
A different kind of turbine, with radially outward Parsons, Curtis, Rateau and Zoelly all had the same
flow through two sets of contra-rotating blades, was aim, to utilize the energy in steam at relatively high
built by Birger Ljungstrom in 1908 (Fig. 5), and the first pressure without the disadvantage of very high rota-
commercial machine (Willesden, 1000 kW) was installed tional speed; the high-speed de Lava1 turbines were
in 1910. Parsons himself, who had constructed and restricted in application and rating because they were
patented his axial-flow turbine while a partner of Clark, single-stage, and because of the requirement for a
Chapman, and Company, left that company in 1889 reduction gear, but the type still survives for small
and formed his own company to pursue his turbine industrial and refinery drives.
interests, but could not take his patents with him. Frus- As is usually the case in this competitive world,
trated from further development of the axial-flow Parsons’ success led to many other companies embark-
turbine, he turned to radial-flow with alternate rings of ing on the construction of steam turbines, but there is
stationary and rotating blades, and in 1890 introduced little question that in the early years, the Parsons
such machines using, at first, unsuccessfully, inward- designs, made by the parent firm and several licencees,
flow, but later, more successfully, outward-flow. The including BBC and Westinghouse, were pre-eminent.
first condensing turbine (Cambridge, 100 kW, 4800 During these years very many of the detail features of
r/min, CAP, 1891), was a radial outward-flow design; today’s turbines (for instance castellated labyrinth
the largest such turbine constructed (2000 h.p., 3000 glands, gland sealing by steam) were introduced by
r/min, 1894), was for the famous Turbinia, the first Parsons.
steam-turbine-propelled ship. The particular com- Steam turbines have, in the last hundred years, been
bination of turbine and (single) propeller was not suc- used in many different applications : driving ships,
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186
pumps, fans and compressors, and even a few loco-
motives. In none of these applications, however, does
the steam turbine have the field to itself. It is in the
generation of electricity, particularly in large central
power stations, that the steam turbine at present has no
rival, existing or foreseeable, and it is this area that will
now be considered.
A by-product of steam turbine development has been
the gas turbine, with its own specialized technology,
which seems unlikely to supersede the steam turbine for
electricity generation, either by itself or as part of a
combined steam-gas cycle, except for the lower ratings.
The first successful commercial continuous combustion
gas turbine designed for power production only
(Neuchiitel, Switzerland, 4 MW, BBC, 1940, although
BBC compressor-turbine units for use in chemical
process plants had already produced electric power) (6)
was not built until after Parsons’ death in 1931. He had
for many years been considering the problem of this
type of prime mover, of which a clear description is
given in the text of his original patent, and he had in
1902 built the first of several commercial axial-flow
compressors. Before leaving for the sea voyage on which
he died, he is reported as saying that he thought he had
the solution to the gas turbine problem, and would
work out the details during the voyage (7).
It is therefore very appropriate that, in this one hun-
dredth year of the steam turbine as we know it, tribute
be paid in particular to that remarkable engineer, Sir
Charles Parsons, whose contribution to turbine tech-
nology has been so immense.
3 TURBINE SPEEDS
Early generation and distribution was by direct current,
and d.c. systems remained in some areas for fifty years.
Direct current generators could run at any speed suit-
able for the design of generator (for example, Parsons’
first turbine-generator, at 18 000 r/min). The develop-
ment and eventual universal adoption of alternating
current generators required that the generators oper-
ated at a speed related to the system frequency. After a
great deal of initial variation the world is now sub-
divided into regions where generation is at 50 Hz, and
others at 60 Hz; 40 Hz was common in Britain until the
1920s, but is now abandoned. Japan has some regions
at 50 Hz and some at 60 Hz. The two-pole generator
requires to run at 3000 r/min for 50 Hz generation or at
3600 r/min for 60 Hz (full-speed): no faster speed is
possible, but generators can run at half these speeds
with four poles, or at one-third these speeds with six
poles (half-speed or one-third speed turbines, and so
on).
One unusual system is operated by the German
Federal State Railways, with generation at 165 Hz, by
units whose speed (for a two-pole generator) is 1000 r/
min.
4 TURBINE TYPES
In the forty or so years following the construction of the
first Parsons turbine, many competitors appeared. The
1927 edition of Stodola (1) lists thirty-seven varieties of
turbines, many of these carrying their inventor’s name.
From the beginning, two categories of turbine emerged,
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F R HARRIS
known at the time as ‘impulse’ and ‘reaction’. The
impulse turbine converted the whole of the heat drop in
each stage into velocity in the fixed blades, with no heat
drop (or pressure drop) in the moving blades, which
merely imposed a change in direction on to the steam
emerging from the fixed blades. The reaction turbine
(more properly 50 per cent reaction) converted approx-
imately half of the stage heat drop into velocity in the
fixed blades; this velocity, together with the remainder
of the stage heat drop, was transformed into mechanical
energy in the moving blades so that there was then a
pressure drop across the moving blades. For the same
blade speeds in both designs, the 50 per cent reaction
turbine required, for best efficiency, twice the number of
stages of the impulse type, and to this day reaction
turbines contain more stages than impulse turbines.
Parsons and his early licencees, including West-
inghouse and BBC, manufactured reaction turbines,
while by about 1920 most other builders made impulse
turbines, some retaining reaction-style L P cylinders for
many years. Impulse turbines normally comprise blades
carried on a number of discs, either integral with, or
attached to, a smaller diameter shaft; this has the
advantage of allowing a relatively small diameter for the
interstage labyrinth leakage seal supported from the
split diaphragm which carries the fixed blades. The
pressure drop across the disc is notionally zero in an
impulse turbine so that there is no large axial thrust on
the rotor due to pressure forces across the discs. In a
reaction turbine the pressure drops across the discs, if
there were any, would result in a large axial thrust on
the rotor; reaction turbines therefore nearly all use
cylindrical (‘drum-type’) rotors where the surface is
either smooth, or where any ‘discs’ are only vestigial.
The argument as to whether impulse turbines or reac-
tion turbines are superior has many facets, some of
which will be referred to later; there seems little doubt
that if either were significantly better overall, it would
have completely ousted the other, something which has
not happened over the last hundred years. Worldwide,
the number of builders of impulse turbines exceeds
those of reaction turbines, but in many instances this is
as a result of historical background and experience, and
cannot be taken as a demonstration of the superiority of
the impulse type.
The words ‘reaction’ and ‘impulse’ are in any case by
now misnomers. Work in the 1930s by several turbine
builders, triggered by Darrieus (CEM, 1929) (8) led to
the greater understanding of fluid flow, at first in a
cylindrical annulus but later in strongly coned channels
also, and the concept of vortex flow in one or other of
its variants indicated the natural tendency for reaction,
defined as the heat drop in the moving blade as a frac-
tion of the stage heat drop, to increase from blade root
to tip. In accordance with the changed flow conditions
along the blade height, blade inlet and outlet angles
required to vary for best efficiency; this resulted in the
well-known twisted blade profiles, used by 1939 by
several builders (9, 10). Modern blade profiles show
little increase in stage losses with changed steam inlet
angle; because twisted blades are more expensive to
make than those of constant section, they are frequently
not economic in H P and I P reaction cylinders, where
steam velocities are lower than in the corresponding
impulse designs. Current practice is that ‘impulse’ turb-
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 A HUNDRED YEARS OF STEAM TURBINES
ines commonly use reactions at root section which have
sometimes crept up to 20 per cent or so, in order to
avoid problems of poor efficiency associated with zero
or possibly negative reaction; ‘reaction’ turbines use
reactions at root which have sometimes crept down to
30-40 per cent; this is consistent with satisfaction of
radial equilibrium for a stage with 50 per cent reaction
at mid-height, and also reduces the number of stages.
Because of this convergence, a much more meaningful
demarcation of turbine types is into ‘disc-and-
diaphragm’ turbines using low-reaction blading, and
‘drum-rotor’ turbines using high-reaction blading, typi-
cally 50 per cent at mid-height. However, in deference
to popular terminology, the inaccurate terms impulse
and reaction will continue to be used hereafter. In the
later rows of L P cylinders, where long blades are
employed, the two types are almost indistinguishable.
A variation from these two broad styles is the radial-
flow turbine introduced by Ljungstrom, having two
contra-rotating rotors with interleaved rings of moving
blades, each driving its own generator. It has no fixed
blades, and, since heat drop occurs in every moving
blade row, it is a 100 per cent reaction turbine. Initially
built in small ratings, its scope was later extended by
the addition of axial-flow L P parts (11). The turbines
were masterpieces of painstaking craftsmanship and
were of high efficiency, but are no longer built except for
small outputs.
Contra-rotating axial-flow steam turbines have not
been built, but the first ducted-fan (or bypass) jet engine
(the MV F3, 1943) incorporated both turbine and com-
pressor blading of this type (12).
Although the analogies are imperfect, the Hero and
Branca devices can be regarded as the first reaction and
impulse turbines, respectively ; the Hero device is more
properly an example of jet propulsion.
5 FEATURES OF PROGRESS IN VARIOUS FIELDS
There are many areas of interest in the steam turbine
and its closely-associated auxiliaries, and the progress of
development in some of the more important areas is
described in the following sections. In this survey an
attempt has been made to identify each step in develop-
ment to a specific builder wherever possible, and to
indicate the service date of the plant.
5.1 Blading design
The heart of the turbine design lies in its blading, and
particularly in its moving blades. For many years, these
were mostly of uniform cross-section, initially with close
radial tip clearances (reaction turbines) or fairly close
axial clearances to the edge of the shrouding (impulse
turbines). Shrouding was adopted right from the start
for impulse turbines. It stiffened the bladed assembly,
shared the effect of non-uniform tangential steam force
between the several blades in a ‘packet’, and obviated
the need for close radial tip clearances; because an
impulse stage had nominally no pressure drop across
the moving blades, always having ‘balance holes’ in the
disc, there was no need felt for radial blade tip seals.
Shrouding was also tried several times by Parsons on
his early turbines, but it was concluded after tests that
the increased skin friction outweighed the benefit due to
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187
better sealing; he later adopted end-tightened blading,
with close axial clearance to shrouding on both fixed
and moving blades, in 1912, but this development was
not followed by his licencees, who for many years used
unshrouded blades. Nowadays, however, many reaction
turbines employ shrouding, for both fixed and moving
blades (in some instances as a suJstitute for lacing,
which has associated performance losses), more recently
with shroud integral with the blade.
Modern turbines use moving blades which for most
impulse stages and many reaction stages have twisted
profiles so that their inlet and outlet angles conform at
all heights to those required by the calculated three-
dimensional steam flow. The actual blade profile
between inlet and outlet, at any height, is designed to
meet the necessary strength requirements while offering
least aerodynamic loss ; the design process is normally
one of calculation of flow and pressure distribution
around the profile, followed by aerodynamic tests on a
cascade of those profiles showing the best promise, fol-
lowed by tests in a multi-stage experimental turbine at
reduced scale. For long LP blades such development
has to be undertaken for profiles corresponding to
several blade heights, since the variation of flow condi-
tions, and of profiles, along these blades is very great.
These long blades pose very difficult problems in
mechanical design as well as in aerodynamics (13). A
last-stage LP blade is severely tapered so that the cross-
sectional area at the tip is only about 15 per cent of that
at the root, in order to restrict centrifugal stresses to a
reasonable level; the area variation is such that the cen-
trifugal stress is almost uniform, and at the maximum
allowable level, along the inner half of the blade height.
The blade cross-section at each height must also be
such as to limit the bending stress caused by the steady
steam forces. Very importantly, the natural frequencies
of vibration of the blade at speed must not coincide
with any exciting frequency which may be present in the
turbine; coincidence with these frequencies can result in
resonant blade vibration and fatigue failure. For short
blades the only relevant exciting frequency arises from
circumferential non-uniformity in flow in wakes follow-
ing each fixed blade trailing edge, where excitation
frequency = (number of fixed blades) x (speed in revol-
utions per second). For long blades this nozzle passing
frequency is of little relevance, being very high relative
to the moving blade frequencies, but lack of complete
circumferential uniformity in the flow path can generate
excitation at one, two, three, four, etc times running
speed, and resonance with these potential exciting fre-
quencies must be avoided not only at design speed but
also by a margin either side which will, in service,
permit small variations in operating speed. It is now
usual to ensure freedom from resonance with these low-
integral multiples of running speed up to at least six
times running speed; at higher multiples the excitation
forces are likely to be much reduced, which is just as
well, because at higher-integral excitations it is not pos-
sible to keep clear of such resonances except over very
restricted speed ranges.
Verification of blade resonant frequencies at speed is
normally achieved for long blades by running a com-
plete, full-size, bladed disc in a vacuum chamber at
speeds up to about 120 per cent of design, and exciting
blade vibration by a.c. or d.c. electromagnets (14). The
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188 F R HARRIS

other at speed; although last-stage LP blades usually

are not shrouded, for stress reasons, this type of shroud
is incorporated in the 47.2 in LMZ titanium last-stage
blade (18).
Circumferential lacing of the conventional kind,
employing wires either loose (which rely on the fric-
tional component of centrifugal force to restrain tangen-
tial blade movement), or silver-soldered to the blades,
has been used for very many years either to damp vibra-
tions, to raise blade frequencies, or to transmit forces to
other blades in a packet. Both varieties of lacing are
now generally recognized not to be completely reliable
in these tasks, and their use is now greatly diminished;
their absence leads to a small improvement in blading
efficiency.
Radial seals at the moving blade tip are important to
efficiency, particularly on short blades, and modern
shrouded impulse and reaction designs both use multi-
baffle labyrinth seals (Fig. 7). Many builders ensure that
all sealing surfaces, including at the tip of the last-stage
LP blades, are cylindrical and not conical, so that differ-
ential axial expansion between moving blade rows and
fixed parts, which becomes large in multi-cylinder turb-
ines, does not lead to any change in radial clearance or
in sealing efficacy, thus avoiding performance loss.
Moving blades are attached to the rotors by a wide
variety of methods, but the longest last-stage LP blades
now very commonly have a side-entry serrated fir-tree
attachment, either straight or curved.
Fixed blade design is far less elaborate than moving
blade design, since the blades are not subjected to
centrifugal effects, and the flow is always being well
accelerated, so that there is usually little likelihood of
flow separation and attendant losses; but in last L P
stages transonic flow (subsonic at inlet, supersonic at
Fig. 6 Last-stage LP blades, with loosely-fitting zig-zag con- outlet) brings aerodynamic problems even in fixed blade
necting rods near the tips (GEC) design. (Early researches into losses in fixed blades were

resulting blade vibration resonances are detected by

strain gauges, the signals being transmitted by slip-rings
or by telemetry. The stiffening effect of centrifugal force
increases the frequencies (in some instances by 100 per
cent or more compared with the stationary values); the
test is necessary to confirm calculations and to demon-
strate freedom from resonance in service.
It may be mentioned in passing that in smaller turb-
ines which have to operate at variable speed, such as for
ship propulsion, it is not possible to avoid all reson-
ances, and the successful policy is to strengthen the
moving blades so that the vibratory stresses induced by
operation at a resonant condition are not high enough
to cause fatigue failure; or to introduce damping.
Some builders employ free-standing last-stage blades
(and in other stages) (15), while others use a variety of
connections between last stage blades in order to
achieve some beneficial control over vibration. Each
blade untwists due to the effect of centrifugal force, and
such connections can either permit the relative move-
ment caused (16) (Fig. 6) or be rigid, restraining such
untwist (17). The torsional forces involved in restraining
the blades against untwist, should a rigid connection be
used, are large, and the connections must be appropri-
ately robust. In some blades the untwisting force is used, Fig. 7 Typical stages of (a) reaction (KWU), and (b) impulse
by the employment of interlocking integral shrouds, to (MAN), turbines, showing blade fastenings and details
lock up all the shrouds into close contact with each of inter-stage seals
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 A HUNDRED YEARS OF STEAM TURBINES
organized and recorded by this Institution in six
reports, published 1923-30, of the Steam Nozzles
Research Committee) (19). Improvement in performance
has been claimed, particularly in extreme designs such
as last-stage L P stages, by using humped sidewall prof-
iles at the inner diameter (ZO), and by slanting the blade
outlet edges so as to discharge steam on to the moving
blades with an inward radial component (21).
Erosion of the moving blades was a problem right
from the start, as the steam was not always initially
superheated, but erosion of the outer part of the leading
edge of the last-stage L P blades became a severe
problem in the late 1 9 2 0 ~and
~ this for many years acted
as a restraint against high tip speeds; the first blades to
use really high tip speeds, 1788 ft/s, were introduced in
1962 (Blyth, 275 MW, EE, 36 in blades), and were ini-
tially expected to have a relatively limited life of seven
years or less. Subsequent appreciation of the mechanism
of droplet erosion, backed up now by extensive experi-
ence, indicates that erosion is currently much less of a
threat than was once feared. This is largely due to the
adoption of higher heat drops in the last stage, together
with higher mass-flow loading; the consequent higher
pressure at inlet to the moving blades leads to smaller
sizes of droplets, whose vectors can more rapidly
approach that of the entraining steam, resulting in
reduction in impact velocity and in erosive effect.
Sophisticated methods of erosion prediction have been
developed (22), which are continuously calibrated by
service experience, and it is likely that some modern
designs of long last-stage blades will last for the full
machine life of thirty years or so without replacement
on account of erosion. Last-stage blades have for many
years been protected at the leading edge for some dis-
tance inwards from the tip, by an edge-hardening
process, or by the attachment by silver soldering, or,
more recently, by electron-beam welding, of a shield
made from hard material such as stellite or tool steel. A
construction used by many builders employs hollow
fixed blades in the last few L P stages, where the interior
of each blade is connected to a lower pressure area, and
water films which agglomerate on the fixed blade sur-
faces, particularly near the tip, are sucked away through
slots near the outlet edge, and prevented from causing
erosion of the following moving blades.
5.2 Reheat
Reheating steam part-way along the expansion, a prac-
tice introduced in compound reciprocating engines,
improves the cycle efficiency (a greater fraction of the
heat added is at high temperature), reduces steam flow
for equal output, and reduces exhaust wetness. It also
improves the turbine efficiency because less of the
expansion is in the wet region, and permits the adoption
of higher initial pressures, which can further contribute
to improved cycle efficiency, without the increased
exhaust wetness which would be experienced without
reheat. The disadvantages include pressure drop and
heat loss in the pipes conveying the partly-expanded
steam to and from the reheater, and complication of the
boiler plant; in addition, steam interceptor valves are
necessary at reheat inlet to the turbine, since the large
quantity of steam in the reheater would otherwise cause
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1SY
excessive overspeed following loss of electrical load.
These additional complications, together with reluc-
tance on the part of the boiler-makers, and the failure of
early British reheat units to meet their expected effi-
ciency, led to the adoption of reheat being very slow. In
the event, the complications were much less than fore-
cast, particularly when the concept of one boiler per
turbine was successfully introduced in USA in the
1930s, and by the 1950s reheat had become almost uni-
versal for large plant. It had by then been realized that
the early practice of reheating to a temperature lower
than the initial temperature was illogical and hindered
the reheat cycle from showing its true potential. The
reheat pressure, typically about a quarter of initial
steam pressure, is usually a little above the thermo-
dynamic optimum, in order to reduce the cost of the
steam piping.
Reheating for turbines had been suggested by various
engineers. Ferranti's patent of 1903 envisaged virtually
continuous reheat, after each stage. Parsons himself had
employed in 1891 a form of reheat, by the steam-
jacketing principle, where hollow diaphragms for his
radial-flow turbines were supplied with live steam to
stop condensation on the working surfaces (23). A later
factory test in 1900 on a 1000 kW axial-flow unit (his
first two-cylinder machine, Fig. 17) with initial condi-
tions 134 lbf/in2, about 450"F, was made with the HP
exhaust (10.4 lbf/in2 abs 189°F) reheated in a
separately-fired boiler to 261°F. The test showed no
advantage with this relatively small degree of reheat,
and it was not pursued at that time (23).
One of five machines at Carville (1 1 MW, 2400 r/min,
250/650", CAP, 1916-20) although designed for live
steam reheat, was not put into service as a reheat
machine; it was subsequently tested in 1921 when incor-
porating reheating by live steam to 406"F, and showed
0.5 per cent improvement in steam consumption. An
earlier Parsons machine, Blaydon Burn (3 MW, 190/
600°), where the steam was raised from waste heat, is
quoted as incorporating flue-gas reheat, 'already put
into practice at Carville' (23), so presumably also did
not initially operate with reheat. The precise dates of
service for these installations with reheat are not clear,
and credit for being the first plant in which reheat was
commercially applied is normally given to two units,
each of 20 MW at North Tees (450/650"/500", 2400
r/min, MV, 1920) (Fig. 8), having some dependence on
ideas of Baumann and Ferranti but principally inspired
by Merz, with reheating by flue-gas in a reheater section
of the boiler (24). These two turbines were also the first
two-cylinder impulse units in the UK. Subsequent
application in America dates from 1924 (Philo, 40 MW,
550/700"/700", GE).
For early units, the steam was reheated by either:
(a) a separately-fired reheat boiler;
(b) live steam, in a tubed heat exchanger;
(c) a separate section of the boiler, reheating by flue-
gas.
Method (a) soon lost favour, but was not finally
abandoned until the 1940s.
Method (b), the method previously employed in
reciprocating steam engines, produced a small efficiency
improvement not by cycle improvement but only by
reduction in exhaust wetness; it was a thermodynamic
Proc lnstn Mech Engrs Vol 1Y8A N o 9
190
Fig. 8 20 MW, 2400 r/min turbine for North Tees, the first commercial
application of reheat; note also the Baumann multi-exhaust (MV)
misconception, later revived and applied with advan-
tage to nuclear wet-steam turbines.
Method (c) ultimately became universal, but in
Britain was not fully incorporated until 1938.
The application of reheat in large plant occurred
gradually; by 1931 four British installations were
reported, nine in Europe, and nine in USA (25). In 1936
the most efficient station in the world was Port Wash-
ington (85 MW, 1800 r/min, 1230/825"/825", Allis-
Chalmers, 1935), with 31.1 per cent annual average
efficiency (26). This was also one of the first plants to
have a unit boiler, that is, one boiler for one turbine.
G E reported twenty-six of their condensing reheat turb-
ines in service by 1942, the largest of 208 MW, at 600/
730"/500" (State Line, 1929) with reheating by live
steam; the highest steam conditions were 2300/940"/
900", for a 76 MW unit (Twin Branch, 1941) with
reheating in the boiler (27). An additional ten non-
condensing reheat machines, the largest of 20 MW, were
also listed.
In many instances in USA reheat was introduced by
providing a new 'topping' turbine at high pressure, its
exhaust being reheated at a lower pressure, the steam
then passing through an existing L P turbine.
In Britain, the first large reheat units were four 50
MW turbines at Dunston (600/800"/800", 1500 r/min,
CAP, 1932). These were the last turbines whose design
was supervised by Sir Charles Parsons himself, and
incorporated hollow last-stage moving blades, to reduce
stresses in blade and rotor (23). These were followed by
full-speed cross-compound units (Brimsdown, 52 M W,
1900/930"/810", MV, 1938; and 60 MW, 1900/930"/
940", MV, 1943; each of these units having provision for
both reheating by live steam, not used in practice, and
flue-gas reheat); and eventually the first large tandem-
compound full-speed British reheat machines which
employed flue-gas reheat (Littlebrook, 60 MW, 1235/
825"/825", MV, 1949; and Dunston ' B 50 MW, 615/
850"/850", CAP, 1949); at these temperatures pipes and
superheater tubes in mild steel were still possible. They
in turn were followed chronologically by many non-
reheat units of 60 MW and 100 MW, until finally all
British fossil-fired machines of 100 MW and above
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F R HARRIS
ordered after 1954 employed reheat, initially at 1500/
975"/950", progressing to 2300/1050"/1000" at 200 MW
and reaching 2300/1050"/1050" when the rating reached
275 MW. In continental Europe, adoption of reheat had
commenced in the late 1920s, but its spread after 1939
for units of large rating was delayed. Several smaller
units of 50-100 MW were built; a 50 MW, 3000 r/min,
unit (Oderwerke, 1565/887"/887", AEG) entered service
in 1938 (28).
Although reheat is now universal for large turbines,
there are areas in the world where fuel has been so
cheap that the complication and expense of reheat was
for some time not considered worth the savings in fuel
consumption. Such areas included South Africa, and
Victoria in Australia, and non-reheat machines of 200
MW at up to I500/lO5O0 were supplied by several
builders (AEG, AEI, MAN, CAP).
Between the 1920s and 1940s G E supplied several
mercury turbines, superposed on existing steam turbine
plant, working on a binary fluid cycle, where the heat in
the condensing mercury produced steam for use in a
steam turbine. This is an ingenious and thermodynami-
cally efficient cycle, based on the achievement, with
mercury, of high saturation temperature at relatively
low pressure, but is complicated in practice. A 1000 KW
unit was operated in GE's own power plant in 1917; the
first turbine in commercial service was a single-stage
unit of 1.8 MW (Hartford, 35/812", 1923) and one of the
largest was a five-stage unit at Kearny (20 MW
mercury, 30 MW steam) using mercury at 140/975",
which showed a thermal efficiency, based on a com-
bined output, of 37.2 per cent (29). The improvement of
efficiency of normal steam turbines by increase in steam
conditions, together with the eventual rapid acceptance
of reheat, provided equivalent performance gains with
less complication and at much less cost, and only a few
mercury turbines were ever built.
Extension of the reheat principle led to the intro-
duction of double-reheat machines, where the steam is
reheated twice, at different pressures, again permitting
adoption of higher initial pressures, with a heat rate
improvement over single-reheat units of about 2 per
cent. All double-reheat units so far have operated at
@ IMechE 1984
 A HUNDRED YEARS OF STEAM TURBINES
supercritical pressure, indeed in the early applications of
supercritical pressure most of such units were double-
reheat. The first two turbines to employ double-reheat
entered service within a few months of each other. At
Huls Chemical Factory in Germany a 16 MW back
pressure turbine (3000 r/min, 4260/1112") exhausted
partly to a 72 MW single-reheat machine at 1500/1040"/
1040°, and partly to another 16 MW back-pressure
machine at 1500/950". All three turbines were by SSW
and entered service in November 1956. This was the
first turbine plant at supercritical pressure, and the
assembly of machines was in all its essentials a cross-
compound double-reheat unit (30). At Philo a super-
critical double-reheat unit of 125 MW (TC, 3600 r/min,
4500/11 50°/10500/10000, GE) followed closely behind,
entering service in June 1957 (32), followed in 1960 by
the Eddystone unit (325 MW, CC, 5000/1200°/10500/
1050", W) (31).
Subsequent double-reheat units (33) have mostly been
at the lower supercritical gauge pressure of 3500 lbf/in2,
temperatures being commonly 1000°F at main steam
inlet, with first and second reheats at 100(r1050"F in
USA and Japan. Temperatures were usually a little
lower in Europe, where only six such units are in
service, four in Germany (110-220 MW, MAN, AEG,
SSW, 1962-67), and two in Italy (La Spezia, 600 MW,
W/Tosi, 1966-7).
The difficult part of the design of a double-reheat
turbine is the second I P cylinder, which has to accept
large inlet volume flows (because of the relatively low
pressure) and therefore long inlet blades, at high tem-
perature. The first I P cylinder on the other hand is at
higher pressure and smaller volume flow relative to a
single-reheat machine, and has shorter inlet blades. The
first reheat pressure is usually 30 per cent or so of initial
pressure (compared with about 25 per cent for single
reheat); the second reheat pressure is 10 per cent or less
of initial pressure. For these reasons, and since both H P
and first IP cylinder heat drops are lower than in single-
reheat machines, most US double-reheat machines, of
which the largest are of 738 MW, use combined HP-IP
cylinders, at ratings where frequently the single-reheat
equivalent uses separate H P and I P cylinders (Fig. 9).
Most European units retain separate H P and first I P
cylinders.
N o proposals have yet been made for triple-reheat; a
small benefit in performance would result, but at serious
cost in large third-reheat pipes, and posing the difficult
problem of high temperature at the inlet to an L P cylin-
der; this is already 700°F or so in double-reheat
machines. It is very doubtful that such a development
would be economic.
Steam-to-steam reheat, in either one or two stages, is
now universal in saturated-steam nuclear turbines, and
is referred to later.
5.3 Steam conditions
Sir Charles Parsons' first steam turbine was supplied
with steam at 80 lbf/in2, saturated. From that date,
there has been a general steady increase in both initial
temperature (at a surprisingly steady average rate of
12°F a year from 1904 to 1960, when 1200°F entered
service), and pressure. The thermodynamic efficiency of
the cycle always improves with increases in tem-
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191
Fig. 9 Combined HP and first IP sections of a large 3600
r/min double-reheat turbine (GE)
perature, and, in regions of practical interest, in press-
ure, although allowance must be made for the
increasing feed pump power, but increased initial press-
ure leads to increased exhaust wetness unless accompa-
nied by increased initial temperature or by adoption of
reheat.
Increases in steam conditions obviously affect the
boiler as well as the turbine, and it has not been clear in
the past which was the laggard; certainly there is more
material at high steam conditions in the boiler and its
steam pipes than in the turbine, and the cost implica-
tions are usually more evident in the boiler plant and
piping.
Creep was first recognized as a factor in design in the
1920s, but it was not until the 1930s or even later that
the art emerged, pioneered by Bailey (MV) (34), of inter-
preting material test data so as to produce economical
designs for operation at high temperatures. As early as
1929 BTH built a 10 MW turbine for Detroit at 1000°F
(with an unsplit H P casing), but the pressure, 365 lbf/
in2, was relatively low (35). There were also advanced
units such as at Witkowitz in Czechoslovakia (19 MW,
1704/914"/662", Erste Briinner, 1928; and 36 MW,
1850/932"/680", BBC, 1929) (36); the first of these units
had an unsplit H P outer casing while the second unit
had its first stage H P blades welded to the disc (37). By
1939 average practice seemed to be settling out at about
950/900" in USA, figures significantly higher than in the
UK.
In the 1940s live steam and reheat temperatures
increased to what were then regarded as the economic
limits for boilers; 1000°F or sometimes a little less for
oil fuel, limited by corrosion from ash products, and
1050°F for coal or gas, limited by the desire to avoid an
increase in material costs due to extended use of austen-
itic steels. The first 1050°F machines were of 100 MW
(Sewaren, 3600 r/min, 1500/1050", G E and W, synchro-
nized on consecutive days in 1948) (38), and in the early
1950s, reheat machines were built for 2350/1100"/1050"
(Kearny, 145 MW, GE, 1953; and Burlington, 185 MW,
W, 1955) (39, 40). The present position regarding tem-
Proc Instn Mech Engrs Vol 198A No 9
192
perature is that 1000°F appears to be the maximum
almost worldwide, with relatively few coal-fired units
outside Britain and France now operating at the 1050°F
allowable temperature. In USA, where in the 1940s and
1950s many units with initial steam temperatures of
1050°F or higher were built, in the decade to 1970 only
five large units at 1050°F were ordered, with 211 at
1000°F (a further thirteen 1000°F units had first or
second reheat temperatures of 1050°F); in the decade to
1980 no 1050°F machines were ordered, compared with
239 at 1000°F (41). In Japan, of ninety-eight large
machines entering service in the fifteen years 196s74,
sixty-two employed initial temperatures of 1050°F. In
the fifteen years 1975-89, of forty-one large machines,
only two will be at 1050°F. Many 300 MW USSR
machines were designed for 1075°F but were subse-
quently operated at the reduced temperature of 1005°F.
Pressures rose steadily, and at present are in the
range 230G2800 Ibf/in2 for subcritical conditions, while
the development of once-through boilers generating
steam at supercritical conditions has led to many
installations at 3500 lbf/in2 or more. The first experi-
mental boiler (Benson, 1924) was operated in conjunc-
tion with a 360 kW (EE) turbine running at 25000
r/min. The steam was pressure-reduced and desuper-
heated (to 1407/842") before admission to the turbine.
Later turbines were similarly operated at reduced con-
ditions from supercritical Benson boilers at Non-
nendam, Berlin (experimental, 1320/752", 1000 kW,
10 000 r/min, EW, 1926), Gartenfeld, Berlin (2625/788",
3200 kW, 6000 r/min, EW, 1927) (36), and Langer-
brugge, Belgium (2840/824", 4000 kW, 7500 r/min, BBC,
1930) (37). The first turbines themselves to enter service
at supercritical conditions were the double-reheat
machines at Hiils (SSW 1956), and Philo (GE, 1957)
already mentioned; such pressure leads to high cycle
efficiency and to smaller H P turbine components. Most
of the supercritical installations have been in USA,
(where their popularity has temporarily declined; 128
units were ordered in the fourteen years 1963-76, only
eight in the six years 1977-82) (41), in Japan, and in
USSR where units of 300 MW and above are super-
critical and where, by 1982, 181 supercritical units were
in service. In the UK there are two 375 MW super-
critical units each at 3500/1100"/1050" (Drakelow, EE,
1966; and AEI, 1967); in Europe there are numerous
supercritical units, some of them small back-pressure
installations, and also several double-reheat machines.
The supercritical double-reheat cycle was introduced
into Europe and USA in the late 1950s. This improves
the heat consumption by about 3.9 per cent (3500/
l0OO0/l OOOo/lOOOo compared with 2400/1000"/1000")
and also reduces exhaust wetness; a useful feature, par-
ticularly if pressures should later increase still further.
Most double-reheat turbines have been built by GE,
Westinghouse, or their Japanese associates, and all
operate at supercritical pressures. Steam temperatures
for these machines have largely settled out at 1000°/
1025"/1050"F, with an occasional 1050°F first reheat
temperature (41). The double reheat machines presented
difficult problems of matching of steam temperatures
during starting and load changing and were for some
time disliked by operators for that reason. However, the
shakedown period now appears to be over, and the
machines are showing operating characteristics
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F R HARRIS
(reliability, etc.) equal to the less advanced single reheat
units. In USA twenty-four double reheat units were
ordered in 1961-68, only two since 1968 (41).
The steam conditions so far presented are for run-of-
the-mill large units. As is to be expected, isolated units
of a prototype nature have occasionally been installed,
pioneering significant advances in steam conditions.
Examples of such units are:
Baudour (Belgium) (EW)
115 M W 2400/1112'/lOSW TC 1956 (42)
Philo (USA) (GE)
125 MW 4S00/1150"/1050"/1000" TC 1957 (32)
Hattingen (Germany) (AEG)
107 MW 3698/1121"/986" TC 1958 (43)
Eddystone (USA) (W)
325 MW 5000/1200°/10500/10500 CC 1960 (31)
Kashira (USSR) (KTGZ)
100 M W 4270/1200"/ 1050" Topping 1967 (44)
reheat
Figure 10 shows the H P cylinders of some of these
pioneering high-temperature turbines.
While the boiler-turbine units were not always com-
pletely successful, and did not always operate at their
design steam conditions (at Philo and Eddystone, for
example, main steam temperatures had to be reduced
because of boiler corrosion problems, while the Kashira
unit operated at 3990/1 150°), they have provided valu-
able pointers to design solutions for subsequent
improved, but somewhat less ambitious, plants.
Although the Philo unit has been retired several years
ago, the Eddystone unit is still in service at 470011130"/
1050"/1050" and in recent years has shown an avail-
ability typical of machines of its rating. Reference is
made later to the possible future adoption of similarly
advanced steam conditions.
If high steam conditions are to be adopted, the
necessary advanced materials are always easier to
procure in the smaller sizes appropriate to lower
ratings; some operating stresses in such turbines are
also usually low. There have been many small machines
built in Europe, usually of the back-pressure type for
chemical plant, for operation at very advanced tem-
peratures; and these have yielded valuable materials
experience for subsequent use at higher ratings (45).
Pioneering examples include SSW back-pressure
machines, 11 MW (Leverkusen, 1951) at 2120/1112", a
radial-flow machine; and 14 MW (Leverkusen, 1955) at
21 75/1190", in Germany (46).
5.4 Cylinder arrangements
The normal arrangement of steam entering at one end
of a cylinder and leaving at the other (or flowing from
the middle to both ends) has been subject to variants.
The practice of bypassing an initial stage or group of
stages, so that live steam was admitted to a stage having
a larger swallowing capacity than the first, was once
almost universal; if the boiler (or more commonly the
range of boilers) could supply enough steam, loads
above economic could then be carried, providing over-
load capacity. Such a construction, really requiring a
range of boilers, exposed parts other than the normal
inlet to high steam conditions; it was abandoned in
Britain about 1950, and is now only rarely used else-
where.
@ IMechE 1984
 (f)
Fig. 10 H P cylinders of pioneering high-temperature tur-
bines
(a) Delray, Detroit, 10 MW, 3000 r/min, 365/1000",
BTH, 1929, unsplit shell
(b) Sewaren, 100 MW, 3600 r/min, 1500/1050, GE,
1948
(c) Leverkusen, 11 MW back-pressure, 3000 r/min,
2120/1112", SSW, 1951, unsplit shell, radial flow with
axial first stage
(d) Kearny, 145 MW, 3600 r/min, 2350/1100"/1050",
GE, 1953
(e) Huls, 17 MW back-pressure, 3000 r/min, 4230/
1112", SSW, 1956, the first supercritical turbine
(f) Philo, 125 MW, 3600 r/min, 4500/1150"/1050"/
1050", GE, 1957
(g) Eddystone, 325 MW, 3600/3600 r/min, SOW/
1200"/1050", W, 1960
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194 F R HARRIS

Double-shell cylinder construction where the pressure

difference, and usually the temperature gradient as well,
across each shell is reduced compared with a single
shell, was introduced in USA in the late 1930s (47), and
is now universal in one form or another in high tem-
perature machines for H P and most I P cylinders, and is
usual for most L P cylinders. L P cylinders sometimes
have a larger temperature range from inlet to exhaust
than any other cylinder, and the inner casing may itself
be of double-shell construction to reduce thermal
stresses; L P inner shells are also sometimes lagged or
cladded externally for the same purpose, as well as to
avoid heat losses.
All reheat machines in the UK reheated the steam
between the H P and initially the L P (later the IP) cylin-
ders, but many early two-cylinder US machines (GE,
Allis-Chalmers) extracted the cold reheat steam from
part-way along the high-pressure part of the first cylin-
der, and returned it, reheated, a little further along the
same cylinder, the expansion continuing in the same
direction (27, 48). The difference in casing temperatures
over a very short axial length was recognized as a
potential problem, but at the relatively low tem-
peratures then current, there was little trouble.
A development of this type of construction intro-
duced in 1950 (1 00 M W, GE) again used a single cylin-
der to house both the H P and I P elements on a single
rotor, but they were now opposed in flow direction (49).
Live steam entered near the middle of the cylinder and
expanded towards one end, from which it was returned
to the reheater; the reheated steam was admitted near
the middle, and expanded towards the other end from
which it was led to the L P cylinders. The two sets of hot
steam inlets were now in the middle of the cylinder, and
both ends were at lower temperature (Fig. 11). Such
cylinders have been built in large numbers by GE,
Westinghouse, their associates, and others, and are in
service at ratings up to 700 MW or more for steam
conditions up to 3500/1000"/1000"(50). The possibilities
exist of temperature gradients near the middle of the (b)
casing, due to difficulty in matching the two steam tem-
peratures from the boiler; or, where the HP part is Fig. 11 3600 r/min combined HP-IP cylinders, 2400/1000"/
double-shell and the IP part is single-shell (as some- 1000", (a) W, (b) GE
times with GE) to the juxtaposition of spaces at hot
reheat and cold reheat temperatures. Nevertheless, the compound) (47).
construction, which is less costly and saves space, Early impulse turbines were shorter than their reac-
remains popular in USA and Japan. In double-reheat tion counterparts, and although several of the earliest
units, the G E Philo turbine included first-reheat and examples (Rateau) employed two cylinders, single-
second-reheat I P blading similarly combined, and cylinder impulse machines were usual from about 1907,
opposed in direction, on a single rotor, as did a later and eventually ratings up to 85 MW or so were
200 MW SSW unit (Franken 11, 1966) (30). The West- achieved in single cylinders at 1800 r/min. Such turbines
inghouse Eddystone turbine combined on one rotor the relied to some extent on close axial clearances to
first-reheat and reversed-flow second-reheat IP blading, control tip leakage and to maintain efficiency; when
making a total of three sections, on one rotor. eventually multi-cylinder impulse turbines were built,
The 1500 MW nuclear machine being built by close control of axial clearance in a long machine led to
Alsthom (51) also employs a combined HP-IP cylinder the need for one thrust bearing for each cylinder includ-
(Fig. 12) at low inlet temperatures, which in this particu- ing the L P cylinder, the rotors then being connected by
lar application gives significant advantages of efficiency claw couplings which permitted relative axial move-
and plant layout; the KTGZ two-cylinder 500 MW, ment. This arrangement, used also in some reaction
1500 r/min nuclear turbine also has a combined HP-IP turbines, while satisfactory at low ratings of 30 MW or
cylinder, with a single double-flow L P cylinder. so, gave trouble when applied to larger machines where
An unusual cylinder arrangement, met in the 1930s in the torque was so great as to prevent free axial sliding
USA but no longer used, located a 3600 r/min HP of the coupling elements, and thrust bearings failed due
cylinder and its generator on top of the associated L P to overload. In the 1940s radial seals began to replace
cylinder and generator, usually 1800 r/min (steeple- axial seals and all the rotors were then bolted rigidly
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 A HUNDRED YEARS OF STEAM TURBINES 195

Fig. 12 Combined HP-IP cylinder of 1500 MW, 1500 r/min nuclear turbine
(Alsthom)

together, with a single thrust bearing. For such designs, flow around the outside of the inner shell to the second
the steam in the HP and IP cylinders flowed in opposite group of HP stages, through which it passed in the
axial directions, and an approximate balance of net opposite direction (45). The pressure and temperature
thrust could be achieved without large balance glands differences across the inner shell were reduced at the
at inlet; but because of large possible variations in net expense of increased pressure and temperature for the
th.-,.nt 77-Ao..
L I I I U ~ L UIIULI
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rejection combined with malfunctioning steam valves, it struction was a feature of EE designs from 200 MW
has sometimes been found prudent to balance the thrust (High Marnham, 1959) to 600 MW (Longannet, 1970)
of each single-flow cylinder individually, by suitable (52); it is also used by LMZ over the range 20&1200
choice of the inlet gland diameter. MW (18),by Skoda (53), and in Alsthom 600 MW units
A type of H P cylinder introduced by AEG on a high- (Fig. 13).
temperature back-pressure turbine (Feldmiihle Reisholz, The H P inner shell, exposed to high steam conditions
10.7 MW, 2275/1112", 5500 r/min, 1957), admitted and potential thermal stresses, is likely to distort
steam near the centre of the cylinder, from whence it unevenly, and such thermal distortion is exacerbated by
expanded towards one end; it was then turned round to the presence of heavy joint flanges. Reaction turbines

Fig. 13 HP cylinder of a 600 MW, 3000 r/min impulse turbine showing the
double-flow nozzle-governed first stage, This also illustrates the
reverse-flow HP cylinder construction (Alsthom)
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196
Fig. 14 HP cylinder of reaction turbine with unsplit outer shell and exter-
nally pressurized inner shell (KWU)
commonly carry interstage and tip seals directly from
the inner shell (as distinct from impulse turbines which
normally carry both types of seal from the relatively
undistorting diaphragm), so that distortion either in
service or when being dismantled is undesirable. Design
solutions which reduce the flange dimensions of the
inner shell to vestigial proportions, thereby reducing
distortion, are used by KWU and BBC. The KWU
concept (Fig. 14) uses an unsplit outer shell which is
exposed to almost full steam pressure, so that in this
respect its pressure loading is not reduced; however,
since it has no horizontal joint, it suffers no distortion.
The split inner shell, pressure sealed to the outer at each
end, is subjected along most of its length to a net exter-
nal steam pressure and most of its length requires no
joint flange or bolts at all to withstand the pressure
stresses, only to deal with the thermal forces which may
arise. The BBC concept (Fig. 15) is to impose net
inward radial forces on the inner shell by shrinking on a
series of rings; again the shell joint bolts need be only of
nominal size, and the flange is non-existent.
Some of the British 660 MW machines, in service at
2300/1050" or 1000" (AEI, GEC, CAP, 1970s) were orig-
Fig. 15 HP cylinder of reaction turbine with rings shrunk on to the inner
shell (BBC)
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F R HARRIS
inally designed to be suitable for higher initial steam
conditions, and employed a triple-shell H P cylinder,
where the intermediate casing was unsplit and the inter-
space to the inner casing was exposed to almost full
steam pressure, again reducing the necessary size of
flange at the inner casing joint because the differential
pressure acted radially inwards (Fig. 16). A similar con-
struction had previously been used in Europe for
smaller turbines at high steam conditions (e.g. Hat-
tingen, Germany, 107 MW, 3698/1121"/986", AEG,
1958) (43). In 1956 Allis-Chalmers proposed a design of
H P cylinder for 3500/1150", and built and tested a
prototype at even higher temperatures, where the rotor
and diaphragms were contained within two concentric
unsplit shells, inside a conventionally split outer shell
(54). SSW for many years built single-rotation multi-
disc radial-flow H P cylinders, using an unsplit outer
casing; the design resulted in short rotors suitable for
high temperatures, and for rapid load variation. Some
builders (AEI, GE, GEC), where full-arc admission
nozzle boxes were provided on throttle-controlled
machines in order to reduce steam conditions at entry
to the inner shell, used unsplit nozzle box assemblies,
@ IMechE 1984
 A HUNDRED YEARS OF STEAM TURBINES
/ I
Fig. 16 Triple-shell HP cylinder of 660 MW turbine with
unsplit intermediate sleeve (GEC)
threaded over the end of the rotor. All unsplit casings
entail a degree of end-assembly, and there are many
early examples of their use on small high-temperature
naval and other turbines.
Sir Charles Parsons' first turbine was of the double-
flow type, and double-flow has always since been
adopted when the duty required exceeded that achiev-
able in a single flow, or when there was an ambition to
avoid a large axial thrust on the rotor. Double-flow LP
cylinders were introduced at a very early date, the LP
duty eventually being extended by using several such
cylinders in parallel.
Transition from single to double flow halves the mass
flow to be handled in each flow, and reduces blade
heights and stresses, although it lengthens the rotor, and
makes the desirable high rotor transverse stiffness more
difficult to achieve for an impulse turbine with its
smaller hub diameter. The double-flow H P or IP cylin-
der has the advantage that it does not have one of its
ends at high temperature with the attendant potential
problems of distortion that are not so severe when the
high-temperature part is in the middle. It also generates
no axial thrust; when all the other cylinders are also
double-flow this is an advantage. Additionally, for reac-
tion turbines, the large diameter inlet gland, necessary
for thrust balance, and always an important source of
leakage, is now absent, but the double-flow cylinder,
with its shorter blades, and probably with fewer stages,
has a lower blading efficiency than its single-flow equiv-
alent.
Double-flow I P cylinders are very common at ratings
of 500 MW or more, although there are many single-
flow examples of 600 MW and over.
Double-flow H P cylinders for high temperature turb-
ines are encountered only in reaction turbines (Thorpe
Marsh, 550 MW, 3000 r/min, CAP, 1964; West-
inghouse, 3600 r/min, most single-reheat units above
650 MW; Cumberland, 1300 MW, 3600 r/min, BBC,
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197
1972). This is presumably because of the ability to
achieve adequate rigidity even with a long-span rotor, if
it is drum-type, coupled with the benefit of reduced
blade and rotor stresses, but it is also difficult to achieve
with reaction-type moving blades the strength and
robustness required by a single-flow first stage. The
arduous duty of first-stage H P blades, particularly for
nozzle-controlled machines, sometimes requires a
double-flow first stage on an otherwise single-flow
impulse rotor, but the throttle-controlled Paradise H P
cylinder (1 130 MW, 3600 r/min, GE, 1969) (55) has a
single-flow first stage, as has the LMZ 1200 MW, 3000
r/min, design (1980) (18).
Most nuclear turbines for use with water-cooled reac-
tors have double-flow H P cylinders, but this is by no
means essential, as is shown by the Alsthom 1500 MW,
1500 r/min, units (51) for which the H P and IP blading
are each single-flow (Fig. 12).
In order to preserve the fine radial internal clearances
of rotor glands or tip seals, desirable both for main-
tenance of efficiency and to avoid damaging rubbing
contact, it is necessary to support the diaphragms from
the inner shell, the inner shell from the outer shell, and
the outer shell from the bearing pedestals, in a manner
such that normal thermal expansion in the radial direc-
tion keeps the stationary seal surfaces concentric with
the rotor. This is traditionally achieved by the kine-
matic principle of supporting each member from its
neighbour by radial sliding surfaces, allowing unre-
stricted but guided radial movement. These guide sur-
faces are normally four in number, and are positioned
at top and bottom centre-line and at or just below the
horizontal joint; where H P and I P outer shells are sup-
ported from pedestals, it is now universal practice for
each support to be at exact centre-line height, frequently
from the underside of the horizontal joint flange of the
top half shell. By these means, each member is con-
strained to remain concentric with its neighbour. The
same kinematic principle is also applied to the support
of the housings carrying the gland seals at cylinder ends.
Low-pressure inner casings are normally supported
by their outer casings, which in turn are supported from
the foundation; sometimes even these outer casings are
supported at or near the centre-line, particularly where
the exhaust temperature is likely to be high, for example
at the high condenser pressures encountered in turbines
employing dry cooling.
Because the LP outer shell is a large component,
sometimes unduly flexible and prone to deflection either
from thermal effects or by changes in condenser press-
ure, several builders have supported the inner shell
directly from the foundation by means of rigid frames:
AEG (56) and BBC, (57) have used transverse supports
and Alsthom has proposed using longitudinal supports
(51). Flexible seals are provided where the support
structure penetrates the outer casing, which is then
merely a vacuum box, whose deflections do not matter.
Other builders concentrate on providing adequate rigid-
ity in the outer casing only where necessary to support
the inner casing; the rest of the outer casing, including
the flexible ends, may deflect as it wishes. The sealing
glands at the rotor ends are carried from the pedestals
so that they remain concentric with the rotor, and a
flexible connection between the gland housing and the
casing end walls completes the vacuum seal.
Proc Instn Mech Engrs Vol 198A No 9
198
Fig. 17 1000 kW, 1500 r/min turbine (150/450") for Elberfeld, Germany,
1900; the first two-cylinder tandem compound unit (CAP); reheat
was employed experimentally, during works test
5.5 Rating
The earliest turbines were of the singIe-cylinder type. It
soon became necessary, particularly with reaction tur-
bines having a very large number of stages-a 1908
Parsons 5 MW, 750 r/min turbine had 109 stages in a
single cylinder-to divide the expansion into a H P
cylinder, and a L P cylinder sometimes of a single-flow
design, sometimes of double-flow. (Elberfeld, Germany,
1000 KW, CAP, 1900, was, after Turbinia one of the
earliest examples, Fig. 17.) Impulse turbines, with their
fewer stages, remained generally of single-cylinder con-
struction till a much later date.
Larger ratings were, and still are, seen as offering
advantages in efficiency and in capital cost per kilowatt,
and ratings increased steadily until about a decade ago.
Increased ratings require increased steam flows, and for
good efficiency also require increased total exhaust
annulus area. This can be provided by increasing the
number of flows of last-stage blades, or by increasing
the annulus area of each flow. Last-stage blades have
steadily increased in length, the longest in service today
at 3000 r/min being 47.2 in, in titanium (LMZ); BBC
have made blades of similar length in steel (13). The
annulus areas for such blades are 122 and 132 ft2
respectively; areas in the 85-105 ft2 range are made by
most builders. At 3600 r/min, the largest areas in
service, all of about 66 ft2, are achieved with blade
lengths of 34.5 in (KWU), 34.25 in (Rateau/MAN), 33.5
in (GE), and 31 in (W) (58). Increases to these sizes have
required steady development not only of blade designs,
but also of the materials for both blades and rotor.
Titanium, with its high strength-to-density ratio, is an
obvious contender for these blades, but its high cost is a
disadvantage; its erosion resistance is, however, better
than stainless steel. Its great resistance to stress corro-
sion has led to its use, particularly in USA (BBC, W), in
penultimate L P stages where at changing loads the
steam can alternate between wet and dry, leading to
concentration of possibly corrodent material from the
steam (59).
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F R HARRIS
c
Since full-speed machines are limited in exhaust area
per flow, one solution is to run at half-speed with a
four-pole generator. In principle, linear dimensions can
then be doubled, leading to a quadrupling of the
annulus area. Up to about 1929, nearly all turbines
larger than 25 MW, both impulse and reaction, ran at
half-speed or one-third or even one-quarter speed, but
as soon as adequate exhaust area could be provided at
full-speed, the more expensive half-speed machines were
abandoned. As a point of interest, 25 MW 60 Hz gener-
ators at 3600 r/min became available only in 1935. The
larger exhaust areas achievable at half-speed required
that at least the L P rotors ran at half-speed; in USA
early designs were tandem-compound, with the H P
rotors coupled to the L P rotors and also running at
half-speed, but eventually the cross-compound principle
was used, with an H P cylinder driving one generator
and a completely independent LP cylinder driving
another generator, at slower speed, the steam passing in
series through both cylinders. Several early large US
cross-compounds used H P lines at 1800 r/min and LP
lines at 1200 r/min, 900 r/min, or even 720 r/min, and in
some instances (State Line, 208 MW, GE, 1929) three
lines were used. Cross-compound machines never
achieved very widespread use in Europe, but were very
common in USA, where examples up to 1130 MW
(Paradise, G E 1969) (55) and 1145 MW (Belews Creek,
W, 1974) have been built, with full-speed H P and I P
cylinders, the L P cylinders being half-speed. Since 50
Hz annulus areas can be designed to be 1.44 times the
size of 60 Hz annulus areas having the same stresses
and blade speeds (and aerodynamics), the necessity of
using half-speed machines to provide large exhaust
areas is obviously more pressing in 60 Hz countries.
Cross-compound designs result in two shorter lines of
shaft than a single long tandem-compound design, and
the ratings of the twin generators are approximately,
and conveniently, halved. Such considerations led to
cross-compound designs where both shafts ran at full-
speed, usually with one shaft having an H P cylinder, the
other an IP cylinder, each shaft with one or more L P
@ IMechE 1984
 A HUNDRED YEARS OF STEAM TURBINES
1000") (BBC)
cylinders, and each driving a half-size generator. An
early Parsons example (Bankfoot, 4000 kW, CC, 200/
538", 2400/2400 r/min, 1910) had the H P cylinder
driving one generator, the L P cylinder driving the
other; this was probably the first 'equal-speed' cross-
compound generating unit; the second set of Turbinia
machinery was, of course, cross-compound (1897). Such
equal-speed machines were the first to employ six
exhaust flows, three on each shaft (GE, 3600 r/min,
1960); similar units in the UK employed eight flows,
four on each shaft (Thorpe Marsh, 550 MW, 3000
r/min, CAP, 1964 (60); Longannet, 600 MW, 3000
r/min, EE, 1970), and the largest high-temperature tur-
bines at present in service, of 1300 MW, also employing
eight exhaust flows, are of this type (Cumberland, USA,
3600 r/min, BBC, 1972)(Fig. 18) (61).
Full speed tandem-compound machines have for
many years been able to meet most fossil-fired ratings
required at 50 Hz, where the largest machine in service
is 1200 MW (Kostroma, USSR, LMZ, 1980) (Fig. 19)
(62); Western European machines do not yet exceed
about 75&800 MW. At 60 Hz, tandem-compound
machines in the 850-900 MW bracket are in service in
USA (GE, MAN, W); until the 1960s most of the very
large US machines were cross-compound 3600/1800
r/min designs, but no such cross-compounds have been
ordered there since 1968 (41). Large cross-compound
machines are also common in Japan, at 50 Hz (1000
MW, Sodegaura, 3000/1500 r/min; Toshiba, 1974;
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199
Hitachi, 1977; Mitsubishi, 1979; and many at 600 MW,
3000/3000 r/min) but apparently not at 60 Hz (63).
The number of L P flows on one shaft has gradually
increased. Double-flow L P cylinders were introduced
very early for reaction turbines, and in 1931 BBC
employed three flows on one shaft at 3000 r/min (37).
Four flows at full speed were first introduced in 1934
(Schelle, Belgium, 60 MW, SSW) (64) and later became
common both in USA and Europe. Six flows were
introduced in USA on 3600/3600 r/min cross-
compound units in the 1960s with three flows on each
line; in Britain, where post-war ratings of reheat
machines increased rapidly, 500 MW six-flow tandem-
compound units, by all four British builders, entered
service from 1966 (60, 65). These were the world's
largest tandem-compound units at the time, all larger 60
Hz units being cross-compound. Further six-flow
tandem-compound units followed in France (600 MW,
Rateau/CEM, 1968) (66), Germany (525 MW, MAN,
1974) (67) and, later in Britain, 660 MW units (AEI,
GEC, CAP, from 1974). The first US six-flow tandem
compound machine was of 590 MW (Cardinal, 1967,
GE); only relatively few US six-flow high-speed tandem
turbines have been built, four flows being considered
adequate for most units.
Means of increasing the exhaust area without dupli-
cating the whole of an L P flow include the Baumann
multi-exhaust (MV, 1919) (68) (Fig. 8) where the flow
through an inner annular portion of the penultimate
Proc Instn Mech Engrs Vol 198A No 9
 Fig, 19 1200 MW, 3000 r/min tandem-compound turbine (3500/1000"/1000"), the largest 3000 r/min unit in service (LMZ)

c
W
P
W
 A HUNDRED YEARS OF STEAM TURBINES
Fig. 20 One of two LP cylinders of a 600 MW, 3000 r/min turbine, showing
the division of steam between four exhaust flows (Alsthom)
stage proceeded through the last stage to the condenser;
that through the outer annular portion proceeded
directly to the condenser, the outer part of the penulti-
mate stage employing a much higher heat drop than the
inner. This was eventually used in machines up to 375
MW with four LP flows, and was also adopted and
refined in LMZ designs, up to their 200 MW unit with
three flows.
The idea of dividing the LP steam flow into two parts
at some point along its expansion allowing one half to
continue downstream through the remaining L P stages
to the condenser while diverting the other half to
another group of similar L P stages elsewhere on the
same rotor, was used on early reaction turbines where
steam was sometimes passed to the second L P partial
flow through the inside of the hollow drum rotor. A
development of this idea, where steam was led by ducts
around the outside of one group of exhaust stages to a
second group on the same rotor, has been used by BBC
(69), Alsthom (66), and others. The Alsthom 600 MW
machines (Le Havre, 1969) (66) include two L P rotors
each with four such L P exhaust flows, although each
rotor has only two flows of the earlier stages of blading;
these are the only tandem-compound fossil-fired
machines to use eight exhaust flows (Fig. 20). All of
these concepts result in longer and more flexible rotors
than the conventional double-flow rotors which they
replace, and are now not often used.
Besides the endeavour to provide as much exhaust
area as possible there is also the aim in some plants,
usually for operation with warm cooling water and
@ IMechE 1984
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20 1
therefore higher condenser pressure, to provide the least
expensive and most compact turbine. This development
has been very marked in USA, where both G E and
Westinghouse have many units in service of 400 MW
and over with only one double-flow L P cylinder. At
3000 r/min, KWU have built a 525 MW unit (Trombay,
India, 2.6 in Hg condenser pressure) with only one L P
cylinder. The L P blading to handle such large mass
flows must be specifically designed for great strength
and rigidity.
In the field of saturated-steam turbines for use with
water-cooled reactors, the steam flow per unit output is
greater (1.5 or more times) than for fossil-fired turbines.
This, combined with the unusually great cost advan-
tages of scale for the reactor, has led to the requirement
for very large exhaust areas. At 60 Hz, with only
restricted full-speed areas available, turbines are now
exclusively half-speed, but at 50 Hz, where larger full-
speed exhaust areas already exist, there is an economic
choice to be made between full-speed and the more
costly half-speed turbines, certainly up to about 1200
MW, depending on cooling water temperature and
other factors (70). The largest nuclear turbines in service
at present are, at 3000 r/min Gosgen, Switzerland, 970
MW, KWU, 1979, with Leibstadt, Switzerland, 1000
MW, BBC, just entered service in 1984; at 1500 r/min,
Biblis ‘B’, Germany, 1300 MW, KWU, 1977, with
Kruemmel, Germany, 1316 MW, KWU, and Paluel,
France, 1347 MW, CEM, to enter service in 1984; and
at 1800 r/m McGuire, USA, 1220 MW, W, 1981, with
Grand Gulf, USA, 1306 MW, KWU, and Palo Verde,
Proc Instn Mech Engrs Vol 198A No 9
202
I l
Fig. 21 1041 MW, 3000 r/min nuclear turbine; Trillo, Spain (KWU)
USA, 1359 MW, GE, to enter service in 1984.
Larger full-speed 50 Hz nuclear machines are being
built by BBC (Graben, Switzerland 1200 MW) (71);
KWU (Trillo, Spain, 1041 MW, Fig. 21) (36); 1000 MW
units are also being built by Skoda (Temelin,
Czechoslovakia), and in the USSR (72). The first three
of these machines have six exhaust flows, but the USSR
units have two double-flow L P cylinders at each end of
a double-flow H P cylinder. Two BBC 660 MW units at
Olkiluoto (Finland, 1978-80) have four L P cylinders in
tandem, while the STAL 460 MW unit at Oskarshamn
(Sweden, 1972) includes a radial-flow central H P
element, with five L P flows on each side. N o cross-
compound nuclear units have yet been proposed.
At 1500 r/min, 1500 MW nuclear machines, with
three double-flow L P cylinders, are being built by
Alsthom (51). KTGZ have published several alternative
design proposals for a 2000 MW 1500 r/min nuclear
turbine, consisting of a double-flow HP cylinder and
either four double-flow LP cylinders of existing design
or three of new design (73). One of the new L P designs
embodies a derivative of the Baumann multi-exhaust,
with 57 in blades; a second uses conventional blades 71
in long.
Tandem-compound fossil-fired machines at half-speed
or one-third speed were common for many years; a 50
Hz example was at Battersea (105 MW, 570/800", MV,
1935), and half-speed units were still being built in
Britain in the 1950s, for relatively modest steam condi-
tions. With the advent of 1000°F steam temperatures,
such machines were discontinued, but it has recently
been suggested that half-speed tandem high-
temperature reheat machines of 1600-1800 MW are
feasible and attractive, in spite of their greater metal
thicknesses and possibly slower starting and loading
rates (74). The largest high-temperature tandem-
compound half-speed machines in service are in Canada
(Lakeview, 300 MW, 2300/1000"/1000", CAP, 1968).
The radial-flow turbine reached the limits of its devel-
opment with two STAL machines, a four-exhaust four-
shaft cross-compound machine at Stennungsund,
Sweden (275 MW, 2000/1000"/1000", 1966), and the
in-line nuclear ten-exhaust two-shaft machine of 460
MW at Oskarshamn mentioned above.
5.6 Rotor design
The first Parsons rotors were built up by shrinking
discs, with blades integral with the rim, on a central
shaft. In 1893 the construction was changed, and drum-
type rotors were used, made from hollow castings of
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F R HARRIS
i
relatively small diameter, shrunk on to shaft ends or on
to complete shafts, with separately made blades. The
feature of almost smooth cylindrical or conical rotor
surfaces remains to this day, but the use of castings was
discontinued over the period 1910-15; they were
replaced by solid or hollow forgings.
Impulse turbines, generally using larger pitch diam-
eters for the blading, used individual discs shrunk on
and keyed to a central shaft. For some years such discs
were made of boiler plate, sometimes riveted to a hub
(75), and in some instances were even made in halves
(MV, 1922) (76) and attached to the central shaft by a
multi-fork pinned construction, as is still used for blade
fastenings. By the 1930s, single-piece forgings for small
rotors became available, which obviated any disc
attachment problem, and all H P and I P rotors, impulse
and reaction, have now for many years been obtainable
as monobloc forgings; some reaction builders have used
a hollow centre-piece with one or both ends bolted on
(CAP). Many designs have the characteristic that as
rating increases, the number of stages on each rotor
decreases, and the diameter increases, the bladed length
remaining about the same.
It was not until the 1960s that forgings suitable for
the largest 3000 r/min LP rotors (which are of course
larger than those for 3600 r/min) became reliably avail-
able, and the long-established built-up shrunk-on disc
construction is now obsolete for nearly all full-speed
rotors. One intermediate step had been to make an LP
rotor by bolting together at the centre two half-size
solid forgings (Meaford, 60 MW, BTH, 1956). Shrunk-
on discs are still used, however, for the LP rotors of
some half-speed machines, principally for nuclear appli-
cations, although single-piece forgings of a quality and
size suitable for 1800 r/min use have recently become
available, at a somewhat high cost. In the 1970s there
was trouble when major problems, worldwide, were
revealed in built-up rotors of both fossil-fired and
nuclear units due to stress-corrosion cracking in discs,
principally at the bore (77). Such cracking was predomi-
nantly associated with the presence of keyways and
their stress concentrations and was found mainly in
those discs where, in service, the steam just became wet.
In such locations variation in load leads to the intro-
duction and subsequent evaporation of water, and
deposition of impurities. Improvements in steel quality,
and the elimination of keyways, has greatly reduced the
possibility of future trouble from this cause.
The way in which larger and larger exhaust areas
have been introduced for full-speed 50 Hz and 60 Hz
turbines, leading for most fossil-fired units to the obso-
0 IMechE 1984
 A H U N D R E D YEARS OF STEAM TURBINES
lescence of half-speed L P cylinders, is a good example
of the development of mechanical, aerodynamic, and
materials technology. It has resulted in more economic
turbines; although the total available exhaust areas at
half-speed can usually exceed those available at full-
speed, thereby achieving better efficiency, the signifi-
cantly lower cost of the full-speed unit is frequently
sufficient to outweigh the difference in efficiency, and to
make it the preferred choice.
Rotors welded together from small individual forged
pieces offer many attractions, and BBC have since 1932
employed this construction for HP, IP and L P rotors
(78). It has also been adopted more recently by KTGZ,
LMZ, and Alsthom (51) (and projected by Skoda) (79),
and is therefore now applied to both impulse and reac-
tion applications, at full-speed and half-speed. KTGZ
proposals for 2000 MW half-speed nuclear units envis-
age L P rotors where the centre portion consists of eight
forgings welded together, with separate shaft ends
bolted on at site, to ease problems of transport and
handling.
A construction used by many builders for many
years, for example for combined IP-LP rotors, carrying
the I P blading and one of three LP flows, was to shrink
L P discs on to a shaft forged integrally with the I P part
of the rotor. This was necessary because the material of
the solid IP part was chosen for its high-temperature
strength and was not suitable for the high stresses
encountered in the last LP stages. This construction,
formerly used also in single-cylinder turbines, is rarely
used in modern designs.
A method used by Westinghouse for many years for
L P rotors employs a monobloc forging with separate
last-stage discs bolted on or shrunk on at each end,
making use of the better material properties obtainable
in the discs than could be obtained in the large rotor
forging.
Most early turbines supported each turbine and gen-
erator rotor on two bearings but the re-adoption of
solidly-coupled rotors led in many turbines in the 1940s
to the omission of some bearings, so that pedestals
between rotors contained only one bearing. This prac-
tice, used in early Curtis vertical turbines, had been
introduced in horizontal turbines in 1906 by Rateau
and others. Many builders have used this single-bearing
concept for large turbines, but at present BBC (Fig. 18)
and KWU (Fig. 21), both building reaction turbines, are
its main adherents. The advantages and disadvantages
of the omission of bearings are always topics for lively
discussion among designers; its advantage lies in
freedom from problems of misalignment between two
bearings in one pedestal, as sometimes happens due to
thermal or mechanical distortion of pedestal or founda-
tion, and a consequent change in critical speed leading
to rough running; disadvantages include problems of
bearing loading, and balance of rotors with only one
journal (or sometimes none), particularly regarding
retention of factory balance after site assembly. The
two-bearing design provides additional damping, and
facilitates achievement of high transverse rotor stiffness
(and so is advantageous for disc-and-diaphragm rotors,
where the diameter of the hub is smaller than that of the
drum-type reaction rotor), but at expense of ambiguity
of load-sharing between adjacent bearings, and of
power loss in the extra bearings.
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203
Throughout the history of the steam turbine, rotor
critical speeds have been sometimes below, sometimes
above, running speed. De Laval’s pioneer work showed
that stable operation above critical speed is possible,
and to this day many rotors, including most L P rotors,
have critical speeds below running speed. H P and IP
rotors have critical speeds above or below running
speeds, depending on the builder; there are advantages,
referred to later, in having these critical speeds as high
as possible. Modern calculation methods, dealing with
several coupled rotors, and allowing for flexibility and
damping in the bearing oil films and support structures,
are needed to predict the response of the rotors at any
speed to a specified mass unbalance at a specified axial
position (SO). Confusion existed for many years because
calculations ignored support flexibility and forecast
critical speeds of anything up to twice that at which the
rotor actually resonated in service.
Parsons introduced in 1890 his ‘concentric bearing’
where the journal ran in three concentric tubes, the
intervening lubricating oil films forming cushions which
allowed some degree of misalignment and damped out
vibration; modern forms of such bearings are used
today in high-speed gas turbines and compressors. This
bearing was adopted when his original bearing design,
consisting of a stack of stationary discs, with small
radial clearances alternately to shaft and to bearing
housing, gave trouble because some of the discs cut into
the shaft; this design also was highly damped by friction
between the discs. Use of these highly damped bearings
probably concealed stability problems due to oil whip
in some of his early turbines, particularly the radial-flow
versions, whose shafts were very slender.
5.7 Steam admission and control
Early turbines, including those of de Laval, used several
separate nozzles through which steam was supplied to
the rotating blades. Steam admission to these nozzles
was controlled by valves operated by hand to regulate
the load. The concept of automatic sequential opening
of valves, where each valve supplies steam to one arc of
the first stage, containing a group of fixed blades, was
introduced by GE (81). This sequential nozzle-control
where the steam supply is dictated by the number of
control valves open, differs from throttle-control, where
admission is normally over the complete circumference
of the first stage, and control is by throttling the whole
of the main steam supply.
Nozzle-control results in efficiencies at partial load
superior to those of throttle-controlled machines; the
full-load efficiency is a little worse, because of inter-
ruptions to the circumferential uniformity of steam flow
to the first stage by the partitions between the various
arcs of admission, and because of wider and less efficient
moving blades in the first stage. This increase in blade
width, compared with a throttle-controlled machine, is
necessary in order to achieve the rigidity and strength
to withstand not only the perpetually repeated impact
loading at entry to and exit from the steam flow from
the various arcs of admission, but also the increased
steam forces at part-load, when there is a greatly
increased pressure drop across the first stage. These
blades have, in the past, been very susceptible to failure,
and nowadays usually have shrouding integral with the
Proc Instn Mech Engrs Vol 198A No 9
204
blade form, rather than using any less secure method of
attachment. Such first-stage blades made from the solid,
including shrouding, in groups of three, have been used
(W); BBC have welded them to the disc rim.
Large utilities such as CEGB in Britain have so many
interconnected units in service that each can be kept in
efficient operation at high load, system load reduction
being achieved by shutting down complete units, so that
there is no benefit from the adoption of nozzle control
for individual units. Many other utilities require to run
units at low load (for example, overnight) and nozzle-
control is still commonly used on such machines. With
increasing unit sizes and high inlet conditions, the
design of the very wide first stage blades becomes diffi-
cult; some large units therefore employ two half-
capacity first stages in parallel, with a double-flow
steam admission nozzle-box between them, discharging
half the steam flow in each direction into the two rows.
Steam from one of the flows finds it way around the
nozzle box to the single-flow second stage inlet (Fig. 13).
A major disadvantage of nozzle-control is that the
change in steam temperature after the first stage for a
given change in output is very much greater than in a
throttle-controlled machine (82), and this reduces the
rate at which load can be changed without inducing
high thermal stresses. Rapid starting and loading are
essential requirements for modern units and are achiev-
able more securely with throttle control.
It is possible to operate a turbine, with full-arc admis-
sion to the first stage, with its governing valves always
wide open, load being changed by changing the boiler
firing rate and hence the steam flow and the boiler
pressure (83). This sliding-pressure operation leads to
improved partial-load performance, compared with
throttle-control at constant boiler pressure; part of the
gain is because the feed pump power is reduced in line
with the reduced pressure in the boiler. Such an
arrangement results in almost no change of steam tem-
peratures with load, provided that the temperature from
the boiler is kept constant; and hence in very small
thermal stresses in the turbine. The disadvantage is that
it is impossible to increase load at a faster rate than that
resulting from increased firing to the boiler, a situation
that is not normally tolerable. To overcome this
problem without surrendering too much of the advan-
tage of the method, it is usual to reduce power from 100
per cent to about 85 per cent simply by throttling the
steam supply, with constant boiler pressure; further
reduction in output is achieved by lowering the boiler
pressure while maintaining the governing valves in this
partly closed position. A limited instantaneous load
pick-up is then possible by opening the governing
valves fully. It is possible, with a turbine used for district
heating, to operate with fully open valves, instantaneous
load pick-up being achieved when required, by tempo-
rarily restricting steam flow to the district water heaters.
Boiler pressure cannot of course be reduced indefinitely
and there is a cut-off point (30 per cent or so of full
pressure, depending on the boiler design) below which
sliding-pressure operation is not practical.
A further, hybrid, method of control, suitable for
nozzle-controlled machines, reduces load by sequential
closing of valves and isolation of their associated arcs of
admission while maintaining full boiler pressure, in the
normal nozzle-controlled manner, followed at the
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F R HARRIS
Steam conditions 2400 Ibf/in2 gauge 1000"F/I00OaF
1600\\\Condenser pressure 2.5 in Hg abs
\
\
Full arc admission
Constant pressure operation
-Constant pressure operation
Hybrid operation
400-
200-
0-
is i0 is 160
Turbine-generator output, per cent
Fig. 22 Variation of turbine specific heat consumption with
load, for different modes of operation and control
(KWU)
lowest loads by operation with the last group (usually
two) arcs of admission, with their valves kept fully open,
load reduction from that point being achieved by
reduction in boiler pressure (84). The way in which these
different control methods affect the partial-load heat
consumption is shown in Fig. 22.
A feature introduced by Westinghouse and Sulzer in
about 1904 (81), later embodied in many reaction
machines, particularly by BBC, and still used in small
turbines, employs an impulse first stage, or sometimes a
Curtis velocity wheel, followed by reaction stages at a
much smaller diameter. The impulse stage, and even
more so the velocity wheel, absorbs a large heat drop,
corresponding to a large number of reaction stages, and
ensures that the bulk of the casing, except for the
nozzle-box, is subjected only to the relatively low exit
pressure and temperature from the first stage. These
turbines were frequently nozzle-controlled, and the first,
large diameter, stage became known as the control
stage. This is still the classic design of European indus-
trial machines.
Steam inlet pipes to cylinders have traditionally been
radial, or nearly so, with the steam flow then spreading
around the circumference of the inlet belt, or nozzle-
box, before entering the passages between the fixed
blades of the first stage. A different arrangement allows
steam to enter a spiral scroll casing, contoured so as to
accelerate the steam to the necessary high tangential
velocity, from which it enters the moving blades without
having passed through any fixed blades with their
associated flow losses. Such a vaneless scroll casing was
employed, not very successfully, by Whittle on his first
jet engine (85), and a modified version which included
some uncambered steadying vanes at scroll exit was
used, successfully, on the pioneering gas turbine for the
0 IMechE 1984
 A HUNDRED YEARS OF STEAM TURBINES
merchant ship Auris (5500 h.p., BTH, 1958) (86). KWU
proposed in 1975 the introduction of this unobstructed
vortex admission system to H P cylinders of large steam
turbines, also suggesting that turbines so equipped had
better partial-load performance than with nozzle-
control (87). BBC on some of their full-speed and half-
speed LP cylinders for nuclear machines use a
double-spiral scroll inlet (57), with two tangential inlet
pipes, one at each side of the cylinder, with steadying
vanes at outlet with their length parallel to the turbine
axis; the steam issues from these vanes in a radially
inward direction with a considerable circumferential
velocity component, and is then turned axially into each
flow of the first stage moving blades. Such an arrange-
ment can reduce losses and shorten the rotor.
Turbine speed control, where speed was sensed for
many years by a fly-ball governor (basically of the
James Watt type, as modified by Hartnell and others a
hundred years ago to incorporate springs) or by the
discharge pressure of an oil pump driven from the
turbine shaft, has in the last twenty years changed
almost totally for large units. These now use elec-
tronically based systems, where speed is measured by
counting the passage of the teeth in a disc on the
turbine rotor, and the signals are processed elec-
tronically to position the steam valves. Such systems
give great precision of control, with very rapid response,
and allow ready integration into more complex control
systems such as automatic unit load scheduling, com-
bined boiler/turbine unit control, or automatically con-
trolled run-up and loading (88). An auto run-up system
ensures that starting and load-changing are executed
consistently and at the fastest rate which does not result
in any of the many operational parameters such as
vibration, differential expansion, metal temperature, or
metal temperature gradient, exceeding permitted levels.
It is also commonly extended to ensure that thermal
stresses in major components, measured by metal tem-
perature differences, which can be arranged to give
good simulations of thermal stress, do not exceed speci-
fied limits, thereby safeguarding against the possibility
of eventual thermal fatigue cracking (39).
Steam stop valves have always relied on springs for
closing, sometimes with hydraulic assistance; opening
the valves against the spring force was by hydraulic
cylinders with lubricating oil as the servo medium. Gov-
erning valves were frequently closed, as well as opened,
by hydraulic means, or sometimes by steam, but most
are nowadays closed by springs and opened by hydrau-
lic cylinders. Valve operating gear for large turbines is
itself large, and must be fast-operating to give rapid
response. This is now achieved by using much higher
servo pressures, 1800 Ibf/in2 or so, where the possible
fire risk due to fluid leakage at high pressures has led to
the use of a separate servo fluid system using synthetic
fire-resistant fluid. The use dates from the 1930s but has
become widespread only in the last twenty years. Some
USSR turbines use water, containing anti-corrosion
inhibitors, as a servo fluid, with special component
material selection (90).
6 NUCLEAR TURBINES
On 20 December 1951, Experimental Breeder Reactor,
EBR-1, in Idaho, USA, generated 100 W of electrical
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205
power, in a steam turbine designed for 200 kW at 4051
429". This was the first production of nuclear electrical
power.
Because some varieties of nuclear turbines differ sig-
nificantly from turbines supplied with steam from fossil-
fired sources, and in some instances put the clock back
sixty years or more in respect of steam conditions, they
are dealt with briefly in this section.
The first British Magnox nuclear reactors (91), which
were gas-cooled graphite-moderated, as were early
French reactors (92), produced steam at relatively low
conditions. The first commercial stations in service were
Berkeley (4 x 83 MW, AEI, 1962), and Bradwell (6 x 52
MW, CAP, 1962), although the first power reactor at
Calder Hall plutonium plant (8 x 30 MW, 185/590",
CAP) had commenced generating in 1956. The largest
turbines built were of 30G330 MW, mostly at full-speed
(Sizewell, 1966; Wylfa, 1971, EE) but some at half-speed
(Oldbury, 1967, AEI). In several instances the gas circu-
lators were turbine-driven, their turbines being inte-
grated into the thermodynamic cycle. Typical steam
conditions at the main turbine were 640/735", and in
some units water separation and steam reheating were
incorporated.
In the late 1960s, the advanced gas-cooled reactor
(AGR) was adopted in Britain, with steam conditions of
2300/1000", with reheat, in the reactor, also to 1000"F,
superseding the Magnox reactor (93). With these steam
conditions, turbine plant was the same as that for fossil-
fired stations except that, for reasons associated with
the steam and gas cycle of the reactor, the required
feedwater temperature was lower and no H P heaters
were employed. Fourteen of these turbines, each of 660
MW, are in service (the first since 1976) or under con-
struction (AEI, GEC, CAP), and there is at present no
indication of any significant change either in steam con-
ditions or rating for possible future AGR plant.
The first major power-producing water-cooled reac-
tors were for US submarine propulsion, and produced
saturated steam at about 300 lbf/in2. The shore-based
prototype generated power in 1953, and USS Nautilus,
the first nuclear-powered submarine, was commissioned
in 1954. The first commercial generating unit to
produce power from such a (pressurized water) reactor
was the Westinghouse plant at Shippingport (100 MW,
1800 r/min, 545 lbf/in2, 1957, non-reheat with water
separation between H P and L P cylinders, Fig. 23) (94).
Subsequent development of several varieties of water-
cooled reactor (for example the boiling water reactor,
the first experimental version of which produced power
in 1955), has led to the need for turbines, up to the
largest sizes, for operation with saturated steam, nowa-
days typically at 80&1000 lbf/in2, 0.25 per cent wet (95).
Steam expanded from these conditions directly to con-
denser pressure would reach a wetness fraction of about
23 per cent, leading to poor efficiency and severe erosive
attack. In order to avoid this problem, thebteam is, at
some intermediate point in the expansion, dried by
removal of water, and is usually reheated as well (96).
The steam is expanded in an H P cylinder, completely
within the wet region, to a pressure of 10-15 per cent of
the initial pressure, at which its wetness reaches about
1&14 per cent; the steam then passes through an exter-
nal moisture separator, where the water droplets are
removed by mechanical means, and the then nearly dry
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206 F R HARRIS

Fig. 23 100 MW, 1800 r/min turbine, (545 lbf/in2, saturated, with external
separator). the first commercial nuclear generating unit, at Shipping-
Port (W)

steam is superheated in a tubed steam-to-steam reheater live steam in a tubed reheater in the receiver, but the
using live steam, sometimes with a preceding stage of aim was more to reduce erosion than to improve effi-
reheat using steam bled from part-way along the H P ciency; eventually reheat in the boiler became
cylinder as well, before proceeding to the L P cylinders. universal.) There is however great difficulty in a water-
Steam conditions and general stress levels are not high cooled reactor in arranging to reheat steam inside the
in the H P cylinder, but special material selection is reactor vessel, and this, coupled to the desire to avoid
necessary and extensive material protection of various additional penetrations in the reactor containment, such
areas has to be provided, particularly at joint contact as would be necessary for the cold and hot reheat steam
faces, against the very severe erosive attack of wet steam pipes if reheat were in the reactor, leads to the conse-
at high pressure. Fortunately, erosive attack on the quence that in all modern water-cooled nuclear reheat
blading and rotor is virtually absent, on account of the plants reheating is carried out in steam-to-steam
very small size of water droplets in the H P steam. Most
makers aim to extract water droplets from the steam
during expansion in the HP cylinder; the droplets flung
off the moving blades can be captured and prevented
from falling back into the flow (Fig. 24). The most
rewarding method takes advantage of the extraction of
a relatively large amount of steam, to a feedheater or to
a bled steam reheater; this steam carries with it a good
deal of the water present.
The earlier machines, including units up to 1100 MW
at 1800 r/min (Browns Ferry, BWR, GE, 1973) (97),
employed moisture separation without reheat; one such
machine (Wurgassen, 670 MW, 1500 r/min, BWR,
AEG, 1972) reduced wetness by separation twice, at two
different pressures, and such a cycle arrangement is still
being considered for large units (51). However, for
current designs of large turbines reheat, in either one
stage or in two stages at the same pressure, is now
universal. It provides a useful improvement in efficiency,
but also significantly reduces L P wetness and problems
of erosion. (Some early fossil-fired machines incorpo-
rated water separation, by settling in an intermediate Fig. 24 Latter stages of HP cylinder blading in a nuclear
receiver, and some additionally incorporated reheat by turbine, showing provision for water removal (BBC)
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 A HUNDRED YEARS OF STEAM TURBINES
reheaters, which do not require additional containment
penetrations. AGRs, however, are able to reheat the
steam inside the reactor vessel.
Reheat by live steam was first used at Trino Vercel-
lese, Italy (187 MW, 1500 r/min, PWR, Tosi, 1964) (98).
Reheat by bled steam only was incorporated in a 100
MW turbine at Winfrith Heath (3000 r/min, SGHWR,
AEI, 1967) (99). Bled steam reheat followed by live
steam reheat was used at Sizewell ‘A’ (325 MW, 3000
r/min, 646/729”, Magnox, EE, 1966), but this machine
operates on steam with initial superheat. Two-stage
reheat was first used in wet-steam turbines at Oyster
Creek (641 MW), and Nine Mile Point (620 MW) (both
1800 r/min, BWR, GE, 1969).
Because of the large quantity of steam entrained in
the separator-reheater vessels, valves, frequently of
butterfly type for low pressure loss, are provided after
the reheater. They close on sudden loss of load, in the
same way as intercept valves in fossil-fired machines,
and for the same purpose of limiting transient speed
rise. Some early machines did not have such valves, and
were designed to withstand the consequent speed rise of
about 30 per cent. In non-reheat machines the speed
rise was higher than that calculated, because the films of
water covering the whole of the turbine internal surfaces
flashed into steam when the pressure decayed following
shut-off of the steam supply, this extra steam thereby
contributing to the speed rise.
For modern wet-steam turbines, the steam conditions
, I t inlet to the L P cylinders, after reheat, can be
arranged by suitable choice of the pressure at which
separation and reheating is carried out, to accord
closely with those encountered in L P cylinders of
normal fossil-fired units. The reheat pressure so chosen
is usually close to that which results in maximum effi-
ciency of the cycle. No special material choices or pro-
tective measures are therefore necessary in these L P
components, except that alloys containing cobalt, such
as the stellite of erosion shields, are sometimes prohibi-
ted, usually in direct-cycle plants such as BWR, because
of the long-term radiation hazards of a cobalt isotope
which can be produced by irradiation in the reactor.
Copper is also sometimes disliked.
The ratings so far achieved for turbines for water-
cooled reactors have already been listed.
7 TURBINES FOR DISTRICT HEATING
The apparent inability to make economic use of the
large amount of low-grade energy rejected in cooling
water has always been regarded as unfortunate, and the
advantages of using this energy, or most of it, to supply
slightly higher-grade heat to domestic and other users
has always been recognized, leading to many district
heating applications.
The medium of heat supply is usually hot water, at a
temperature in the range 175-260°F. The water, which
circulates in a closed distribution system, can be heated
by condensing steam at the corresponding pressure
(7-35 lbf/in2 abs). Such steam could be condensed from
the exhaust of a back-pressure turbine, and this is some-
times done, but a more flexible scheme uses steam
extracted from a condensing turbine at one or more
suitable points (normally not more than two points; the
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207
more, the more efficient, but the more complicated) and
condensing it in a corresponding series of water heaters.
The requirement is usually for a variable supply of hot
water at a specified constant temperature, which implies
for good efficiency that the steam extracted to the final
water heater has to be at a suitable level of pressure,
preferably without having to be throttled. Economic
provision of this feature over a wide load range requires
a pressure-maintaining control valve in the main flow
through the steam turbine, and a 1000 h.p. turbine SO
equipped was described by Zoelly in 1911. Nowadays
this is conveniently executed by the provision of a
butterfly valve in the crossover connection between I P
and L P cylinders, with steam extraction for water
heating upstream of the valve. (Alternatively, a slotted
rotating disc type of valve is incorporated into one of
the turbine diaphragms, forming a control device within
the cylinder) (100). For large turbine ratings, if two
stages of heating are used, improved economy may
result from duplication of this arrangement in a parallel
flow at another pressure, and an elegant solution is to
have an asymmetric double-flow I P cylinder with differ-
ent pressures at the two ends, exhausting either to two
separate (different) L P cylinders or to two separated
(different) flows of a single L P cylinder (Fig. 25), each
crossover pipe having its own separately controlled
butterfly valve with upstream extraction to one of the
two water heaters. This principle, of using district
heating steam from two separate controlled extractions,
was first used on a 165 MW unit (Vaasa, Finland, CAP,
1972). By such means, the temperature rise of the water
in the two heaters can be made approximately equal,
with thermodynamic advantage. As electrical load
reduces, the valves close and maintain the steam press-
ures to the heaters near to the full-load values, the
steam flow through the L P cylinder eventually being
reduced only to that essential to prevent overheating.
Greater economy over a wide range of thermal and
electrical outputs can be achieved at the expense of
greater complication of the system; where a boiler feed
pump turbine is used, its exhaust steam can also advan-
tageously be integrated into the water heating process
(101).
Such a plant has of course, the very minimum heat
rejection to waste, this being capable of reduction to
little more than chimney losses plus that due to con-
densing the LP ventilating steam, together with aux-
iliary power such as for feed pumps, extraction pumps,
and boiler auxiliaries, and in these days of fuel conser-
vation it is increasingly attractive, since the total ‘efi-
ciency’ or utilization of heat in the fuel, can be over 80
per cent. In countries with cold winters and where many
city-dwellers live in large apartment blocks (northern
and central Europe, USSR), district heating systems
supplied from turbines are widely used, transmitting hot
water up to 20 km from the station. In the UK, however,
where winters are not so severe and where large apart-
ment blocks are not quite so widespread, many investi-
gations over the years have declared such schemes to be
uneconomic unless some artificially high cost advantage
is put on conservation of energy; a small scheme
entered service in London in 1947, using two back-
pressure turbines (Pimlico, 2 x 1350 kW, MV).
District heating turbines have been built having
maximum electrical power ratings up to 375 MW at
Proc lnstn Mech Engrs Vol 198A No 9
208
Fig. 25 3000 r/min reheat turbine for district heating, with two stages of
controlled-pressure steam extraction, one from each end of the
asymmetric double-flow IP cylinder (270 MW electrical output, 320
MW heat output, BBC)
Studstrup, Denmark (3500/995"/1004", 257°F water
outlet temperature, BBC, 1983, with a maximum heat
output of 488 MW); also 377 MW at Vienna (2840/
995"/995", 264°F water outlet temperature, KWU, 1979,
maximum heat output 279 MW) (102).
Nuclear turbines, which have lower efficiency and
proportionately higher heat rejection than fossil-fired
plant, are beginning to be adapted for district heating
purposes. Skoda 220 MW units in Czechoslovakia and
in East Germany will shortly enter such service, and 500
MW units specifically designed for district heating are
under construction in USSR (103, 104).
8 TURBINES FOR FREQUENT AND
RAPID STARTING
In the 1960s the projected increase in proportion of
nuclear plant, with the obvious preference that it should
always run at base load because of its low operating
cost, combined with the reduced operational flexibility
of some of the high-efficiency high-condition boiler-
turbine units being brought into service, led to a need
for plant designed especially for cyclic duty. Some util-
ities required very fast starting times: for very low load
factors gas turbines, with their high fuel costs, were
used, but for intermediate load factors special two-shift
boiler-turbine steam plants were designed in the late
1960s. Steam turbines in Britain have for over twenty-
five years been required to restart, after a six to eight
hour shut-down, to full load in thirty minutes from
steam admission; units of 660 MW, with design features
permitting flexible operation, operate very successfully
in this two-shifting mode, so that in Britain there has
been no call for special plant for quick-starting.
The compromise between efficiency and rapid start-
ing capability led, in USA, to the choice of steam condi-
tions in the region of 1800/950"/950" for quick-start
reheat machines. Flexibility was further enhanced by
the use of throttle-control with full arc admission, which
reduces thermal stresses during load changes, and larger
internal clearances; the feed heating train was less
extensive than usual. These choices led to a slightly
lower efficiency than that of base-load plant.
Many such turbines have been built over a wide
range of ratings in USA, from 265 MW (Benning, 1800/
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F R HARRIS
950"/950", GE, 1968) to 690 MW (105), most of the
smaller units having combined HP-IP cylinders. In
Europe, a 230 MW non-reheat machine (Altbach,
Germany, AEG, 1973) (Fig. 26) consisting of a single
cylinder, double-flow with nozzle-box and with triple
shell construction, at 1877/995" has been built; times to
full-load from steam admission are six minutes for a hot
start and sixty minutes from cold (56); the starts are
controlled by a wall-temperature measuring device.
Two similar machines have been built by BBC
(Kyndby, Denmark, 280 MW, 1145/932", 1974) (106),
probably the largest existing single-cylinder turbines.
A two-cylinder I50 MW unit (Hafen, Hamburg, 1 136/
896", MAN, 1971) (107) claims starting times, to full-
load, of thirteen minutes after a ten hour shut-down and
seventeen minutes from cold.
For all these quick-start turbines, correspondingly
rapid-response boiler plant is obviously necessary.
9 DRY COOLING SYSTEMS
In areas where water is not plentiful, air can be used for
cooling, either in a direct system where the steam is
condensed in an air-cooled condenser, or in an indirect
system where cooling water is cooled in an air-cooled
heat exchanger and then used in a conventional con-
denser. Unfortunately such arid areas sometimes have
very large variations in air temperature, resulting not
only in the turbine back-pressure being high anyway
because of the use of air, but also in very large seasonal
or diurnal variations in the back-pressure. The volume
flow at turbine exhaust is greatly reduced, so that
exhaust annulus areas are smaller for a given output,
but care has to be taken to ensure that the last-stage
blades in particular are strong enough both to deal with
the undiminished mass flow, and are able to operate
satisfactorily over a wide range of aerodynamic condi-
tions which may be far removed from design.
Early large units employing dry-cooling were at
Rugeley (120 MW, EE, 1961) (IOS), Ibbenburen
(Germany, 150 MW, SSW,:1967), both using the indi-
rect system, and Utrillas (Spain, 160 MW, SSW, 1971)
(109), using the direct system. The largest such turbine
in service at present is of 330 MW rating (Wyodak,
@ IMechE 1984
 209

+-
A HUNDRED YEARS OF STEAM TURBINES

In

Fig. 26 230 MW, 3000 r/min non-reheat single-cylinder turbine for very
rapid starting (AEG)

USA, direct system, GE, 1978, design condenser press- dynamic advantages of turbine drive were recognized as
ure 3 Ibf/in2 abs, maximum 7.4 lbf/in2 abs, maximum being important. For a short time it was popular, prin-
air temperature 104"F, minimum -40°F) (110), but for cipally in the USA, but to a small extent in Europe, to
South Africa, where 200 MW units (Grootvlei, MAN) drive the pump from the main turbine shaft through a
(lll),have been in service since 1971, using indirect dry speed-controlling fluid coupling (for example Blyth, 275
cooling, a further eighteen units, each of about 650 MW MW, EE, 1962), but this arrangement has many draw-
rating, are currently being built (GEC, KWU, MAN). backs, and is not now used.
Some of these will use the direct system, some the indi-
rect.
Units using the direct system frequently locate the
air-cooled condenser on the roof of the station, where
its plan area can greatly exceed that of the turbine hall
(Fig. 27). Fans circulating the air may consume up to
about 1.5-2 per cent of generated power, and can be
reduced in speed or sequentially switched off on cold
days or at partial-load.
The indirect system usually employs natural draught
cooling towers to provide the necessary air flow; freez-
ing can be a problem when air temperatures are very
low.

10 FEED PUMP DRIVES

Centrifugal boiler feed pumps were driven by turbines
as far back as 1904 or earlier, but electric motor drive
later became more popular. Increase in pump rating, to Fig. 27 160 MW plant at Utrillas, Spain, employing an air-
10 MW or more, eventually made motor procurement cooled condenser located on top of the turbine hall
and operation difficult; at the same time the thermo- WWU)
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210
There are many possible variations in drive of large
boiler feed pumps, but nowadays the choice is usually
one of three variants:
(a) Variable-speed back-pressure turbine (fossil-fired
units only) taking steam from cold reheat and
exhausting to L P inlet or to a feed heater.
(b) Variable-speed condensing turbine, taking steam
usually from the I P cylinder (for fossil-fired units) or
from hot reheat (nuclear units) and exhausting to its
own condenser (or sometimes into the main
condenser).
(c) Electric drive, usually by constant-speed induction
motor through an increasing gear, speed variation
of the pump being obtained, if required, by an inter-
posed fluid coupling.
Alternative (a) was originally used in USA, and has
been widely used in Britain for machines from 300 to
660 M W. It is thermodynamically efficient, particularly
if the complication of extracting steam for feed heating
is accepted, but the requirement to provide the necess-
ary alternative exhaust route to the condenser leads to
further complication. It is not widely favoured.
Alternative (b) is widely used worldwide, although it
has the highest initial cost of all. It occupies a good deal
of space, but is particularly beneficial thermodynami-
cally when the main turbine exhaust is highly loaded,
since, in effect, it adds its own turbine exhaust area to
that of the main turbine.
At partial load, the feed pump power does not
decrease as quickly as the main turbine power, and at
some point (typically below about 40 per cent main
turbine load) auxiliary steam from a higher pressure
source (frequently live steam) has to be supplied to keep
a turbine-driven pump in service. Alternatively, one of
the motor-driven standby units can be brought in at
these low loads.
Motor-driven pumps (c) are the cheapest solution,
but are a little less efficient than the turbine-driven
alternatives. The required reduction in pump speed at
partial load is readily achieved without loss for a
turbine drive, but an induction motor drives through an
increasing gear, and possibly a hydraulic coupling, with
power losses which are significant at full speed and even
more so at partial speeds. Motor drives are nevertheless
increasingly preferred, both for nuclear units (where
powers are smaller because of lower pump pressures)
and for fossil-fired units, because of their simplicity of
layout and operation. There is in prospect the intro-
duction of high-speed variable-speed motors, which will
eliminate both the increasing gear and the hydraulic
coupling, and render motor drive more attractive.
Where pumps are turbine-driven, they are usually of
100 per cent capacity for fossil-fired units; large nuclear
units usually have two such pumps of rating varying
from 50 to 70 per cent of full duty. Additional motor-
driven standby pumps are usually provided for fossil-
fired units, but some nuclear units do not have such
standby capacity. Motor-driven pumps when used alone
are normally 3 x 50 per cent (which includes one
standby) for both fossil-fired and nuclear units. Typical
pump speeds are in the range 5000-7000 r/min or more
for fossil-fired plant, and somewhat less (350&5000
r/min) for the lower heads required in nuclear plant.
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F R HARRIS
Typical pumping powers are 34 per cent of unit output
for 3500 lbf/in2 boilers, 2 i per cent for 2300 lbf/in2
boilers, and 13 per cent for nuclear units.
11 CONDENSING PLANT
Early condensers were of the jet type, where water was
sprayed into the exhaust steam to condense it. This con-
densate was of poor purity, so that where suitably pure
feedwater was strictly limited in quantity, the surface
type condenser was employed, although it was some
time before back-pressures as low as with the jet con-
denser could be reached. Surface condensers are now
almost universally used, although they have changed
little in principle since their introduction, apart from the
development of air-cooled condensers already men-
tioned; but there have been continuous improvements
in devices for removing air, from the coldest part of the
condenser (by steam ejectors or motor-driven air
pumps), and in reduction of the degree of under-cooling
(the amount by which the condensate at outlet is colder
than the steam saturation temperature), as well as sig-
nificant advances in tubenest design, using more efi-
cient tubeplate layouts.
An early improvement introduced by Parsons (in his
‘vacuum augmentor’) used a steam-jet ejector to extract
air and vapour from the condenser, and to pass the
compressed mixture through a small augmentor con-
denser to condense as much steam as possible, before
the air and the remaining vapour entered the air pump
which exhausted them to atmosphere. The improved air
removal so achieved enhanced the vacuum in the con-
denser to an extent which far more than compensated
for the extra steam consumption in the ejector.
Surface condensers are normally located beneath the
L P cylinders, although condensers mounted at one side
of the cylinder had been used by Parsons and others in
1900. Condensers mounted at each side of the turbine
became popular in USA, culminating in their applica-
tion to the 900 MW unit at Bull Run (GE, 1966) (112).
G E also introduced the concept in several large
machines having a single-flow half-speed L P cylinder, of
exhausting axially into a condenser at the end of the
unit, reducing pressure losses and basement depth (113)
In Britain during the 1960s and 1970s many 500 MW
and 660 MW units were built (AEI, EE, GEC, CAP)
with different arrangements of side-mounted condensers
with axial tubes (114), and some large USSR units also
have such condensers (115). The KTGZ proposals for
2000 M W nuclear turbines include one alternative with
side-mounted condensers consisting of several vertical
tubenests, thereby permitting modular nest construction
and saving lateral tube withdrawal space; this construc-
tion was also used by Westinghouse in the 1920s.
A small thermodynamic advantage can be gained
cheaply by connecting the water flow to the condensers
for individual LP cylinders in series, either by external
piping when the condensers have transverse tubes, or by
using one large condenser with axial tubes, partitioned
between cylinders. These are ‘multi-pressure’ condensers
where the different parts are at different pressures; the
average pressure is lower than if the condensers were
arranged in parallel (116). One example in USA (Big
Sandy, 738 MW, GE, 1969) has four-part twin side-
@ IMechE 1984
 A HUNDRED YEARS OF STEAM TURBINES
mounted axial condensers, one part for each of the four
exhaust flows (50).
Leakage of cooling water into the condensate can be
a very serious problem, both for fossil-fired and nuclear
plants, and the selection of tube material for high integ-
rity with specific water conditions is of major impor-
tance, For inland sites, stainless steel or one of the many
copper alloys are used. Double tubeplates, with a small
axial gap, are now common in order to prevent any
in-leakage at the tube fastening. The interspace is press-
urized by condensate so that any leakage (which can be
monitored) is outward. For sea-water cooling there is
an increasing trend towards titanium tubes, which are
very expensive but which are very secure against leaks
caused by corrosion. There is also a trend to weld such
tubes to the tubeplates.
Slime, marine growth, or corrosion products inside
the tubes can reduce heat transfer significantly, and
many condensers now clean their tubes while in service
by the continuous circulation of rubber balls through
the tubes. Such cleaning also protects the tubes from
corrosive attack which can occur beneath deposits. The
balls are captured at outlet and recirculated.
12 FEEDWATER HEATING
Regenerative feedwater heating, that is heating with
steam extracted after it has partially expanded in the
engine, was patented in 1876 by Weir and was used in
marine engines to improve efficiency; in 1894 it was
shown that a cycle using saturated steam, combined
with regenerative feed heating, could theoretically be
thermally as efficient as the Carnot cycle (117).
Feed heating in an economizer using boiler flue gas
was frequently employed, and it was thought that if
regenerative feed heating by steam were used, which
would reduce or eliminate the heating duty required
from the flue gas, the overall plant efficiency would not
be improved because of the increased stack temperature.
Baumann demonstrated that this was not so, and
patented such a scheme in 1915 (118). Ferranti had pre-
viously (1906) patented regenerative heating, using the
flue gas to heat boiler inlet air instead, thereby keeping
the stack temperature down, and some of his proposals
had been tested before 1914.
A type of feed heating was used in a 25 MW unit
(Chicago, CAP, 1912) (23) where the condensate passed
through tubes in the exhaust space. This was hardly
regenerative, and heating took place only because of
excessive under-cooling of the condensate.
The first steam turbine to employ regenerative feed
heating was at Blaydon Burn (3000 kW, CAP) in 1916,
using the Ferranti system with two stages of heating
(23). 11 MW units at Carville (CAP), first run in 1916-
18, were in 1918 altered to incorporate one stage of
regenerative feed heating. North Tees, with three stages
of feed heating, and boiler air heaters, as well as reheat,
(20 MW, MV) (24) followed in 1920, and nowadays all
large turbine plant employs regenerative feed heating, in
up to nine stages. Deaerators are normally provided;
they allow the removal of some absorbed gases from the
feedwater, and also incorporate a storage tank which is
desirable as a reserve of hot and purified water (equal to
up to ten minutes’ feed flow) in case of system dis-
turbance or unusual operating conditions.
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211
There are small but worthwhile improvements to unit
efficiency which can be made by adopting slight com-
plications in disposal of the water condensed in heaters,
for instance by pumping it back into the feedwater
system instead of draining it to the condenser.
The feed pump is interposed at some point in the feed
train; previous heaters are low pressure on the water
side, the subsequent heaters being subject to high water
pressure. Because H P heaters are much more expensive
than L P heaters, the position of the pump is as far
towards the H P end of the train as possible; limiting
features include the net positive suction head available
at pump inlet, which is influenced by the pump suction
temperature and the vertical height of the deaerator
above the pump.
The temperature of the feedwater leaving a heater
approximates to the saturation temperature of the
tapped steam, so that it is thermodynamically beneficial
for the tapped steam to have as little superheat as pos-
sible; this is an advantage of tapping steam, which has
not been reheated, from a back-pressure feed pump
turbine. The final heater is usually supplied by steam
tapped from the exhaust of the H P cylinder (in a fossil-
fired reheat machine); a gain in turbine heat rate can be
obtained by an additional tapping point part way along
the H P expansion, and the slight mechanical com-
plication of such an extraction is sometimes accepted.
Heaters normally consist of hairpin tubes, through
which the feedwater passes, expanded or welded to a
tubeplate (119), or of tubes welded to headers, but some
examples exist of low pressure heaters where the feed-
water is heated by direct contact with steam from the
turbine (120). In order to avoid condensate pumps
between individual heaters, they are mounted in vertical
assemblies, the manometric water leg between pairs of
heaters corresponding to the difference in steam press-
ure at the tapping points. Some condensate transfer
pumps are, however, needed. Such heaters are cheaper
and more efficient than tubed heaters, but since there is
no physical barrier between the condensate in the
heaters and the inside of the turbine, there always exists
the possibility, by way of some malfunction or mal-
operation, that a larger quantity of water could find its
way into the turbine than if tubed heaters had been
used, and where great damage could be caused by such
ingress. Such heaters were introduced in USA in the late
1920s and were in the 1960s employed on 500 MW and
660 MW British units; in the last fifteen years at least
three such ingress incidents have been experienced on
large units, with severe turbine damage, and direct-
contact heaters are no longer so popular, but they are
still used in USSR.
13 MATERIALS
The steam turbine would not have reached its present
position without materials development, in two prin-
cipal respects: firstly in the devefopment of alloys with
properties which give good creep resistance at high tem-
perature and of other alloys with good mechanical
properties and toughness for low temperature use; and
secondly, of the ability to produce components for use
both at high temperature and low temperature, which
have large physical size, and acceptably uniform proper-
ties which meet increasingly stringent requirements of
Proc Instn Mech Engrs Vol 198A N o 9
212
freedom from defects. The first development is essen-
tially metallurgical, while the second is one of steel-
making technique.
The first commercially successful steam engine was
built at Dudley in 1712 by Thomas Newcomen. His
cylinder was made from brass, the only suitable
material available, and the bore was rubbed circular
with abrasives, for lack of boring machines. However,
Abraham Darby had in 1709 achieved the smelting of
iron by using coke instead of charcoal; the iron produc-
ed was brittle and of uncertain quality, but could be
cast in any required shape. In 1784 Henry Cort devel-
oped a method of producing wrought iron from coke-
smelted pig; this produced a much more ductile
material, initially for horseshoes and chains, but ultima-
tely for steel plates for ships and boilers. Henry
Bessemer in 1856 and William Siemens in 1862 intro-
duced their steel-making processes which greatly cheap-
ened the product, which could be either forged or cast.
In 1884 therefore, cast iron, and cast and forged steel,
were available in Britain to engineers such as Parsons.
In the early days of steam turbines, the principal
materials used were cast iron for pedestals, L P cylin-
ders, and many diaphragms; cast carbon steel for reac-
tion rotors and ‘high-temperature’ casings and valves;
steel forgings, usually confined to rotor shafts for either
impulse or reaction turbines; and rolled steel boiler
plate, used for impulse turbine discs. It was soon found
that cast iron at high temperature suffered from internal
oxidation, leading to a growth in dimensions, and even-
tually it was not employed above about 450°F.Moving
blades were originally in carbon steel and suffered
greatly both from corrosion and from erosion by steam
which often was saturated at inlet; some de Lava1
blades were integral with the rotor discs and
occasionally eroded through, producing a violently
unbalanced rotor. Brass or Monel blades soon became
popular.
Present-day materials for major turbine components
can be classified into several categories:
1. Stainless steels, for high temperature and low tem-
perature blading.
2. Creep-resisting low alloy steels, for high temperature
rotors, casings, valve chests, pipes, etc.
3. High-strength low-alloy steels for low-temperature
rotors.
4. Low-temperature materials with no great strength
requirements, for such components as pedestals, LP
casings, etc.
Moving blades remained for some years in brass,
Delta metal, copper, or Monel since corrosion and
erosion resistance were important, but nickel steel, with
higher strength, and sometimes chromium plated for
corrosion and erosion resistance, was introduced for
4
temperatures up to 700°F; per cent molybdenum steel
was used at higher temperatures. Stainless steel, dis-
covered by Brearley in 1913, initially achieved a bad
reputation as a blading material, suffering from crack-
ing and fatigue failures; it was originally a cutlery steel,
with high carbon content. It was the tendency of these
blades to develop cracks that led to the introduction of
magnetic particle crack detection (MV, 1923). Reintro-
duced with a much lower carbon content under the
name of stainless iron, it rapidly became popular, and
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F R HARRIS
today most moving and fixed blades contain 11-13 per
cent chromium (Cr), with additional molybdenum (Mo)
and vanadium (V) for creep resistance in the high-
temperature blades, and with various additional ele-
ments to enhance strength and ductility particularly in
the last-stage L P blades, where centrifugal stresses may
be 50 per cent or more of the material proof stress of 60
ton/in2 or so. Interest is currently being shown in tita-
nium as a blade material, for last-stage L P blades, and
also, because of its admirable resistance to stress-
corrosion, for penultimate LP blades.
The gas turbine industry has pioneered the intro-
duction of several blading alloys, obtainable in sizes
suitable for high-temperature steam turbine blades,
which have creep properties high enough to satisfy most
foreseen requirements, and some of these alloys have
been employed in the high-temperature turbines pre-
viously mentioned. Many are nickel-based or cobalt-
based, as opposed to the more common iron-based
materials.
The use of carbon steel, for stationary (cast) and
rotating (forged) components, became widespread. The
problem of creep had been pointed out in 1922 by Dick-
enson (121), and suitably creep-resistant alloys had then
to be developed for high-temperature applications. The
first was 3 per cent Mo steel, widely used and succeeded
later by 9 per cent M o d per cent V, and currently by
several variants of Mo-V steels with additions of Cr to
stabilize the carbides; typically 1 C r d M o a V for rotors,
i C r 4 M o d V for casings and pipes up to 1050°F where
weldability is important. 2dCr-lM0, with almost as
good creep strength but better weldability, is frequently
used at 1000°F. For some years rotor forgings were
plagued with hair-line cracks, sometimes appearing
after several months of incubation, and work in
Germany eventually showed that these were caused by
hydrogen in solution; the problem was overcome by
vacuum degassing.
Low-pressure rotors are key elements in turbine con-
struction and economics. The higher their strength and
the bigger their diameter, the larger the last-stage blades
that they can carry, the larger the exhaust areas avail-
able, and thereby either the better the efficiency or the
fewer the number of L P cylinders necessary. Early reac-
tion turbines used cast steel barrels, shrunk-on or bolted
to forged ends, but these soon became inadequate and
reaction turbines adopted the then traditional impulse
practice of rotors with a central shaft with individual
shrunk-on discs. The discs, being smaller forgings, could
be procured with higher properties and more reliably
established soundness than monobloc forgings, illustrat-
ing a principle followed in welded rotors by BBC. The
current position, however, is that nearly all full-speed
LP rotors, at 3000 or 3600 r/min, are either monobloc
or welded, and that monobloc L P rotors for 1800 r/min
machines are now being obtained; the bigger and
heavier 1500 r/min monobloc L P rotors are not yet
available. The rotor material must have high tensile
properties and ductility, through-hardening capability
which ensures internal properties almost as high as
those at the surface, and high toughness to safeguard
against brittle fracture. In order to achieve these proper-
ties, the steel is exceptionally pure and free from
unwanted elements, and great care is required during
the steel-making process to achieve this. Common com-
@ IMechE 1984
 A HUNDRED YEARS OF STEAM TURBINES
positions for current LP rotor forgings are 33 per cent
NiCrMoV for monobloc rotors, or 2 per cent CrNiMo
for welded discs.
Components such as LP inner and outer casings were
for many years made from cast iron, but in the 1920s
welded steel fabrications started to take over and,
although a few large LP outer casings have been made
in cast mild steel, fabricated mild steel is now the usual
material. L P inner casings also are now usually mild
steel fabrications. In some non-reheat nuclear units
where exhaust wetness was high, corrosion resistance
for LP casings was enhanced by the addition of alloying
elements such as copper.
Pedestals, which house the bearings and frequently
carry the weight of the cylinders, are now usually cast in
spheroidal graphite iron or steel, or fabricated in steel,
replacing earlier grey iron castings. There are several
instances of breakages of parts of cast grey iron ped-
estals, usually due to extreme thermal distortion forces,
which accelerated the movement away from this
material.
Most turbine components require to be of very high
internal quality. Castings until the 1940s or so could
only be examined by magnetic particle detection, and
even that required special surface preparation by grind-
ing. Rotor forgings were examined visually and by mag-
netic crack detection over the external surface, and
along the central bore, which had been introduced for
inspection purposes after several bursts of defective
rotors. The purpose of the bore was to permit internal
inspection, but it did of course remove some of the
central part of the forging which was where defects or
segregation in the original ingot might be located. Some
evidence as to the sometimes very variable quality of
the forgings was also obtained by ‘sulphur-prints’ taken
from the exposed ends of the forging body, which indi-
cated the location and intensity of chemical segregation
and non-metallic inclusions.
The application of X-ray techniques, in the 1940s, to
the detection of internal defects proved difficult and of
limited value in the case of forgings because of their
thickness, but has played a useful part in the inspection
of castings and thinner sections such as welded pipe
joints. For thick-walled parts, the more important
inspection tool was the ultrasonic probe. This was
introduced at about the same time, principally for
examination of welds, and is now the most common
method of inspection of internal quality for both forg-
ings and castings. Many years were spent in developing
operating techniques, and fault interpretation, so as to
make it a dependable process. The sensitivity and accu-
racy of this method make it arguable whether a central
rotor bore is still needed for inspection purposes; even
the centre of the forging is now relatively good in
properties and freedom from inclusions, and ultrasonics
can replace the former visual bore inspection. In theory,
the centrifugal stress in the centre of an unbored rotor is
about half that of one with a bore; if it is assumed that
the centre quality may not be so good because it cannot
be examined visually, statistical analysis may have to be
applied to estimate whether in fact a bored rotor any
longer offers advantages over an unbored rotor. Most
builders now do not require the boring of H P rotors,
and unbored I P and LP rotors are becoming increas-
ingly common.
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213
All these improvements in material quality, uni-
formity and soundness have resulted from immense
efforts on the part of the steel-makers, and turbine
designers owe them a debt of gratitude.
Fabrication of alloy steel components by welding is
now an integral and essential part of steam turbine con-
struction. Most steam pipe joints are welded, and
occasionally small castings are welded together to form
large casings or steam chest assemblies; impulse dia-
phragms are often of welded construction. The assess-
ment of the soundness of the completed welds is entirely
dependent on the techniques of non-destructive testing
such as ultrasonic inspection.
Materials mentioned so far are typical of those used
in turbines for steam temperatures up to 1050°F or so.
If higher temperatures are used, components such as
steam chests, pipes, inner casings, blades, and rotors
require either to be cooled by the supply of cooler steam
to their surfaces (commonly applied to rotors) or to be
made from superior materials. Materials suitable for
higher temperature service include 12Cr martensitic
steels (already used by GE and others for large high-
temperature rotors), or one or other variety of austenitic
steels. Austenitic steels, with their high coefficient of
expansion, poor conductivity, and low proof stress, may
develop permanent strain when subjected in service to
large temperature gradients, and their large grain size
also makes ultrasonic detection of defects almost impos-
sible; designs incorporating these alloys must take these
characteristics into account. Several of these materials
have already been used in high-temperature machines,
usually in components of relatively small physical size,
and widespread adoption of high temperatures will
require their production in larger dimensions without
any reduction in properties or quality.
Nuclear machines do not operate at high tem-
peratures, but in the HP cylinders the steam is wet
everywhere. Erosion attack from the water droplets can
be very damaging, particularly at joint contact faces.
The usual practice is to make stationary components
from 2iCr-lMo steel, which has good corrosion-
erosion resistance, and to protect joint faces by weld
deposits of resistant material such as austenitic stainless
steel or Inconel, but some manufacturers have used
stainless steel for HP cylinder castings and diaphragms.
Components upstream of the H P cylinder, such as
steam chests and pipes, are exposed to steam which is
very nearly dry, and carbon steel has proved adequate
for these components.
14 EFFICIENCY
The efficiency of steam turbine plant is obviously
extremely important and has increased steadily over the
years. Some of the contributory reasons are:
(a) increase in blading efficiency;
(b) increase in steam conditions;
(c) increase in rating of individual units;
(d) adoption of single or, later, double-reheat cycles;
(e) more extensive systems of feedwater heating.
The importance is illustrated by the evaluations that
prospective purchasers quote in their specifications for
turbine plant; a one per cent deficiency in heat con-
Proc Instn Mech Engrs Vol 198A No 9
214
sumption may penalize the steam turbine by 10 per cent
or more or its own price. Equally, a one per cent
improvement may be worth 10 per cent of the price, to
the purchaser,
So far as the turbine itself is concerned the principal
factors affecting its own performance are the blading
efficiencies of the different cylinders, the various press-
ure losses (through valves, pipes, etc.) and the leaving
loss at exit from the last stage in each cylinder, but
especially that from the LP cylinder. The performance
of the complete plant is crucially dependent on the
steam cycle and the steam conditions selected ; however,
for many years the expected advantages of high steam
pressures were not achieved because the pressure was
too high for the rating, leading to inefficiently short
blades for the early H P stages. The steam conditions
affect the cost of the turbine, but to a much lesser
degree than they affect the cost of the boiler and its
associated steam piping.
Cylinder efficiencies have now reached levels of 90
per cent or so for H P cylinders with comparatively
short wide blades, and up to 93-94 per cent for I P and
(equivalent dry) L P cylinders with their longer blades,
so that the scope for future improvement is very limited.
Most of the factors, other than cylinder efficiency and
steam conditions, which affect the overall efficiency of
the steam turbine plant, present simple economic
choices to the purchaser. Better efficiency can be
achieved by the adoption of:
(a) reduced condenser pressure, by larger condensers;
(b) increased turbine exhaust area (provided that the
appropriate lower condenser pressure can be eco-
nomically achieved) : by longer last-stage blades or
more L P cylinders;
(c) reduced pressure drops in valves, pipes, and inlets
and outlets of cylinders;
(d) reduced pressure drop in the reheater and associated
pipework ;
(e) increase in number of feedwater heating stages;
(f) increase in temperature of feedwater out of the last
heater, by adoption of a higher tapping pressure ;
(g) increase in feedwater temperature leaving each
heater, for the same tapped steam conditions, by
larger or more efficient heaters, and reduction in
steam side pressure drop;
(h) steam turbine drive (condensing or back-pressure)
for large variable-speed auxiliaries such as boiler
fans (122).
Every one of these items is achievable without diffi-
culty, and most are frequently optimized for individual
plants; but every one costs money, and a balance must
be struck to determine the most economic plant. It is
very important to realize that the most efficient plant is
rarely the most economic; also, since the economic par-
ameters (cost of money, fuel cost, cooling water tem-
perature, etc.) differ from one plant to another, each
plant will quite properly require different solutions, for
example different condenser sizes or different exhaust
areas. Rapid calculation methods allow approximate
heat consumption to be readily determined (123). In the
first half-century of the steam turbine, there was great
rivalry among all turbine manufacturers in publishing
the heat consumptions of their plant, but under present
diverse circumstances such comparisons between indi-
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F R HARRIS
vidual plants are frequently profitless. Nevertheless, to
record two outstanding examples, the corrected test
heat consumption of the Philo turbine (32) (125 MW,
4500/1 150°/10500/10000,GE, 1957) was 7168 Btu/kWh
(124); that of the Eddystone turbine (31) (325 MW,
5000/1200"/1050"/1050", W, 1960) is quoted as 6769
Btu/kWh with a corresponding station efficiency of
41.6 per cent (125). The general rule remains, however;
the most efficient plant is, in economic terms, rarely
worth building.
An interesting figure is that of overall station effi-
ciency over the year, fuel to kilowatt-hours, including
the boiler and auxiliaries, as well as the effects of starts,
operation at partial load, at off-design conditions, etc.
(126). In the UK the overall efficiency of the best station
has increased from 17.8 per cent in 1923 to 30.4 per cent
in 1953 and to 37.7 per cent in 1982-83 (Rugeley 'B')
(127).
The overall efficiency of the best US station in 1981
(Duke Power Co., Marshall) was 38.4 per cent (128),
although the same station in previous years had (at
higher load factor) shown a higher figure. These figures
refer to fossil-fired plant; nuclear plants using water-
cooled reactors show much lower efficiencies, but
British AGR plant with steam conditions of 2300/1000"/
1000" showed, for example, 37.3 per cent in 1982-83
(Hinkley Point 'B) (127). It should be noted that the
UK figures are quoted on the basis of the lower calorific
value of the fuel: the US figures use the higher calorific
value, so that the UK figures are artificially high in
comparison, by a factor of about 1.05 (for coal-firing).
15 THE TECHNOLOGY OF TURBINE DESIGN
Turbine design embraces three main areas : mechanical
calculations of stress or vibration, thermodynamic cal-
culations of pressures, temperatures, heat drops etc., and
aerodynamic calculations of flow past blades and
through other passages. The pioneers of turbine design
already had available the basis of such important
mechanical calculations as critical speeds (Rayleigh,
Foppl, Dunkerley) and stresses in cylinders and rotating
discs. The codification of many such types of calculation
into forms applicable to turbine design was carried out
by Stodola, whose book, originally based on lectures
delivered in 1902, was for neary half a century the stan-
dard work on steam turbines (1).
Thermodynamic calculations were already estab-
lished in 1884 because of the prior development of the
steam engine, and the great interest being shown in the
gas engine, held at that time to be the power plant of
the future. The temperature-entropy diagram was the
standard means of analysis of steam cycles, the more
convenient enthalpy-entropy diagram, or Mollier chart,
not appearing until 1904. That thermodynamic knowl-
edge was imperfect in the early years of this century is
illustrated by the various figures quoted for the critical
pressure ratio across a convergent nozzle, at which
sonic speed was achieved at the throat. However,
Stodola was able to say, to this Institution, in 1911,
that:
'The period of the experimental stage had passed, and that
the thermo-dynamical and mechanical foundations of the
steam turbine were firmly established. Steam turbine
builders were now able to turn out a steam turbine on the
@ IMechE 1984
 A HUNDRED YEARS OF STEAM TURBINES
basis of sound calculation, with the assurance that not only
the power and the guaranteed heat-consumption would be
obtained, but, also, which was of equal importance, that the
machine would possess the required reliability in practical
use.’
By the 1920s, with reheat and regenerative feed heating
increasingly employed, thermodynamic calculations
were well understood, and began to be more refined,
enabling assessments of improvements in efficiency to
be made due to increases in steam pressure and tem-
perature and to more extensive feed heating. Most
builders concentrated on the marginal improvements
available by such means, neglecting for many years the
equally fruitful improvements in efficiency which could
be achieved by the adoption of higher ratings, with cor-
respondingly longer and more efficient blades. Accuracy
of calculation also requires accurate knowledge of the
thermodynamic properties of steam : these have for
many years been reviewed and published by an interna-
tional body (129).
Concepts of thermodynamic calculations have not
changed much over the last thirty years, although the
cycle itself has become more complicated and more effi-
cient. The effect of steam wetness on efficiency is of
increasing interest, particularly for nuclear turbines, and
it is surprising that no widely accepted replacement for
Baumann’s 1912 proposal (81), that ‘the efficiency will
change 1 per cent for each 1 per cent variation in
wetness’, has emerged. In cylinders where the steam is
wet, such as all L P cylinders and nuclear H P cylinders,
effective performance analysis requires knowledge of
wetness at exhaust and at tapping points. For nuclear
H P cylinders, special measuring techniques, using radio-
active tracers in the steam, have been developed to
measure wetness, including that at inlet (130).
Most of the principles of current mechanical calcu-
lations had been established by 1960; some previous
pioneering landmarks include Campbell (GE) on blade
and disc vibration (1924) (131), Smith (MV) on the
dynamic characteristics of bearings and bearing sup-
ports (1933) (132), and on vibration of blades in packets
(1948) (133), Prohl (GE) on calculation of multi-span
critical speeds including flexible supports (1951) (134),
and of blade vibrations (1958) (135), and Hagg and
Sankey (W) on dynamic characteristics of bearings
(1958) (136). However, the scope of such calculations
has expanded enormously by the advent of the com-
puter, which permits rapid calculations of a complexity
totally impossible in former years. Vibration responses
of multi-span rotors supported on flexible and damped
supports; finite element calculations of frequencies of
blades singly or in groups, or of local stresses at pene-
trations of pressure vessels; temperature distributions
and thermal stresses; and many other turbine calcu-
lations, can be made, many times over at slightly differ-
ent conditions if required, at a very rapid rate, using
principles previously enunciated. This refinement of cal-
culation has provided better understanding, for
instance, of stresses in components and has permitted
gradual advances without fear of failure. Two areas of
more recent development include the application of
fracture-mechanics principles to rotor design, and the
calculation of the probability of a catastrophic rotor
burst, together with the energies contained in any pieces
which may penetrate the casings.
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215
A development over the last twenty years or so
relates to stress calculations in both stationary and
rotating components due not to steady rotation or
pressure, which have been calculable tolerably accu-
rately for many years, but due to temperature; in parti-
cular due to steady or transient temperature differences
between different parts of the component. Such thermal
stresses occur during start-up, shut-down, and load
changing, and these operations can, if repeated often
enough, lead to cracking by thermal fatigue unless rates
of increase of speed, load, or steam or metal tem-
perature are controlled so as to restrict the thermal
stress.
The aerodynamics of steam turbine blading were
refined more slowly. Initially, moving blades of a
crudely circular-arc form were used for impulse turb-
ines, to be succeeded by Rateau’s very simple parallel
passage blade, which was used for about forty years.
Parsons once again demonstrated his genius by pre-
scribing in 1896, apparently arbitrarily, a shape for his
reaction blades which defied much improvement for
four decades (7); he had before 1895 conducted flow
experiments, using coloured water streams, through
blade passages with glass sides. Impulse moving blades
with their small degree of flow acceleration, were always
a more difficult problem than reaction blading, but until
the late 1930s very little attention was paid to improve-
ment of efficiency of impulse blade profiles. The rapid
advance eventually came with the advent of the gas
turbine, with its great dependence on high blading effi-
ciencies in compressor and turbine; twisted blades
based on vortex-flow considerations were not common
at that time in steam turbines, but were soon universal
in gas turbine designs. From 1950 or so equal effort has
been paid to the aerodynamics of steam turbine blades,
with heat drops and velocities similar to those in most
gas turbine blades apart from last-stage LP blades,
where such conditions are far beyond those in the gas
turbine. Aerodynamic development was for many years
based on little more than intuition, followed by cascade
testing, then by tests in laboratory turbines. Subsequent
work led to correlation of various parameters affecting
performance (137, 138), and recently it has become pos-
sible to calculate steady state velocities and flow around
a blade profile, so that those candidate profiles unlikely
to perform well are not even tested. Calculation of the
unsteady flow through moving blades caused by their
passage through wakes in the flow from the fixed
blades, and of the variable blade stresses so caused, has
proved more intractable (139, 140), and the ambition to
calculate the vibratory stresses in moving blades excited
by these wakes has not yet proved practicable.
It can be seen that during the span of steam turbine
history, designs based on intuition have been largely
replaced by designs where nearly every facet can be
explored either by calculation or by testing, before
actual embodiment in a steam turbine. In hindsight, the
degree of intuition of the pioneers was very great, and,
in spite of their occasional failures, credit is due to these
engineers for their many successes.
16 PROBLEMS ENCOUNTERED IN SERVICE
Although the large steam turbine is an extremely reli-
able machine, there are many problems which have
Proc Instn Mech Engrs Vol 19RA NO 9
216
occurred over the years, some of which even now have
not been totally overcome. Some would have been rec-
ognized by Sir Charles Parsons and his contemporaries
(141), but others are of more recent origin. Some of
these latter will be briefly described.
16.1 Failures of moving blades
Blade failures due to any cause other than water ingress
or fatigue by resonant vibration are uncommon (142).
For such fatigue failures, excitation is usually at nozzle
passing frequency or at a low-integral multiple of
running speed. Excitation at non-integral multiples of
running speed, or ‘buffeting’ (as occurs in gas turbine
compressor blades subject to rotating stall) has some-
times been suspected, particularly in long blades at off-
design conditions, but has only in rare instances been
confirmed (143), in steam turbine blades. Failures due to
steady centrifugal stresses or to creep are almost non-
existent, but ingress of large quantities of water from the
boiler or the feed system can cause serious damage
(144), by virtue of the relatively dense water causing
excessive stresses or deflections of the bladed assembly.
Stress-corrosion cracking and corrosion fatigue also
occasionally cause trouble, usually in the wet region
(145).
Blade resonant frequencies should be relatively easy
to establish experimentally but in practice effects such
as root fixity can be significant, and if the type of root
fastening used is one where slight variations in manu-
facturing accuracy can lead to variation in position of
the effective point of support, the expected frequencies
may not be achieved. With all the precautions nowa-
days taken by builders, fatigue failures do not occur
very often. Freedom from resonance cannot, however,
be maintained over a wide speed range; many purcha-
sers require unrestricted operation down to as much as
5 per cent below design speed, and most manufacturers
specify stringent time-related limitations to operation at
such low frequencies (146).
16.2 Casing distortion
Components such as turbine casings and steam chests
not only operate at high temperature but are also
subject to temperature gradients, sometimes in more
than one direction. These conditions can lead to distor-
tion, which can be either transient or permanent; this is
particularly important in casings (147). It is common,
sometimes even in L P casings, to discover on overhaul,
permanent distortion, usually shown as out-of-flatness
at the horizontal joint, accompanied by out-of-
roundness, and occasionally including changes in axial
dimensions, not always the same in both casing halves.
Impulse turbines are usually arranged so that the glands
and seals are not constrained by the shape of the casing
and will remain circular and concentric, but in reaction
turbines where the seals may be carried from the casing,
distortion can be more troublesome. The designs of HP
cylinders of reaction turbines to avoid distortion have
already been referred to. With these reservations, casing
distortion need not normally be a major problem, but
great care must be taken during reassembly to ensure
that the small internal radial clearances are truly con-
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F R HARRIS
centric when the distorted casing is eventually fully
bolted up.
Repeated application of severe temperature gradients
can lead to thermal cracking in casings and valve chests.
This is nowadays a much reduced problem. Better
designs are used, with greater symmetry, less variation
in wall thickness, and absence of internal partitions in
valve chests, all resulting in reduced local strain concen-
tration. Control of steam temperature is also greatly
improved, frequently due to the employment of turbine
bypass systems.
Most casing or chest cracks can be repaired by in-situ
welding, followed by stress-relief, but there is always the
problem of the possible distortion caused by this
process.
16.3 Rotor instability
Although the dangers of critical speeds being too near
running speed were appreciated very early, other prob-
lems of instability were encountered. They included
those due to oil whirl (if the critical speed were 4&50
per cent of running speed) and to lightly-loaded bear-
ings; this latter was virtually confined to small high-
speed machines. Such problems were substantially
overcome by the 1940s by better disposition of critical
speed, and by the use of specially developed bearings
(148).
A more difficult problem arose, initially in 1941 (149),
where an H P impulse rotor experienced vibration at
high loads, which disappeared when the load was
reduced. It was soon appreciated that this was a result
of a light rotor operating in dense steam, where circum-
ferential variations in the relative radial position of the
fixed blade annulus and the moving blade annulus
could give rise to unbalanced steam forces large enough
to cause rotor vibration. The condition was eventually
contained at that time by the use of special bearings.
The problem has persisted until recently, and it is now
recognized that adventitious circumferential variation in
radial interstage or blade tip seal clearances can cause
pressure variations which can produce vibratory forces,
leading to a load-dependent vibration known as steam-
excited whirl, under conditions where the rotor is too
flexible for the torque it has to carry (150); so far the
problem has been confined to H P rotors. The vibration
frequency typically coincides with one of the resonant
frequencies of the H P (or the adjoining IP) rotor. The
use of stiffer rotors, with on some occasions a change to
tilting pad or other multi-arc bearings with high stabil-
ity, usually provides an acceptable solution.
16.4 Rotor integrity
Rotor bursts were not uncommon in the early decades
of this century, but are now extremely rare. Most early
bursts (including those in cast steel rotors) were due to
gross material defects such as cracks or inclusions.
Improvement of steel-making techniques and of inspec-
tion processes led to the virtual disappearance of such
failures. It was nevertheless realized, as a result of inves-
tigation into several rotor bursts in USA in the 1950s
that repeated starting and stopping applied and then
removed the stresses in the rotor, and that if a defect
were initially present this repeated application of stress
@ IMechE 1984
 A HUNDRED YEARS OF STEAM TURBINES
could cause it to grow to the stage where it was so big
that on the next application of stress the rotor would
burst. This led to changes in the ways in which rotors
were designed.
Current designs require that, assuming that the
largest undetectable defect is present initially in the
rotor in the most unfavourable location, the total
required service life including many starts and stops,
and occasional overspeeds, can be completed without
the defect enlarging to a dangerous size (151). This
fracture-mechanics approach has led to the develop-
ment of steels with high fracture toughness, which is not
related to material strength alone.
Cracks can also occur due to stress-corrosion. Fol-
lowing the bursting of some discs of a built-up LP rotor
in Britain in 1969 (152), many hundreds of LP discs
were examined in Britain, Europe, USA and elsewhere,
and many stress-corrosion cracks were found, both in
fossil and nuclear turbines, made by several builders
(77). Most but not all of the cracks were at the bore,
mainly in the keyway area. The adoption of tougher
steels, and the abandonment of keyed connections
between discs and shaft with their stress concentrations,
are expected greatly to reduce this cracking problem,
but most builders now conclude that the only certain
method for its elimination is to avoid high stresses in
areas subject to corrosion (that is, in pinch fits) by the
use of monobloc or welded rotors.
16.5 Rotor bending
A rub between a rotor and a stationary seal generates
heat, and unsymmetrical heat generation in a rotor can
cause a transverse bend. Continuous unsymmetrical
rubbing, which bends the rotor even further, can cause
so much heating that the heated area of the rotor,
expanding and constrained by the surrounding
unheated material, yields in compression. As a result,
when the heated area is allowed to cool, it applies local
tension leading to a permanent bend with the rubbed
area on the inside of the bend.
Such rubs, leading to bends, are usually caused by
distortion of seal positions from their normal concentric
location. This may be because of rapid increases or,
more dangerously, decreases, in steam temperature, or
to water ingress; external forces due to steam pipes, or
sticking pedestal sliding surfaces, can also contribute. A
most important safeguard is that the build of the
machine is correct, with all the seals in their proper
relationship to the rotor. Most bends occur during
starting, when steam conditions are changing and are
not always well controlled, and where sometimes critical
speeds, with their attendant rotor vibrations, have to be
run through. A bent rotor will not run satisfactorily and
has to be straightened, a time-consuming process poss-
ibly involving pressing the bend out while the rotor is
heated. The golden rule to avoid bends is to build the
turbine correctly and to operate it correctly.
Impulse turbines frequently have heat-relief grooves
machined in the interstage gland areas, and both
impulse and reaction turbines may have such grooves in
the rotor-end glands, so that there is scope for local
axial extension of a rubbed part without producing a
bend. Such grooves require very careful design to ensure
that they do not adversely affect the thermal stresses in
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217
the rotor in more normal operation. Most builders now
use spring-backed gland segments which can limit the
damage caused by rubbing, but which do not give com-
plete freedom from shaft bends.
16.6 Assessment of remaining life
Many large turbines, at high steam conditions, are now
approaching the end of the life for which they were
originally designed, as defined by some creep criterion,
without any major sign of distress. In present economic
conditions, the operator may properly ask the builder
whether it is safe to continue operation for another five
years, or ten years, or more; this is an extraordinarily
difficult question for him to answer.
It is the high-temperature components that normally
have limited lives, and although fretting, abrasion, or
erosion can limit the life of low-temperature com-
ponents such effects are rarely serious. Failure of high-
temperature components after long life is usually due
either to creep or to thermal fatigue. Creep takes place
during steady operation, whereas thermal fatigue is the
result of repeated thermal stresses caused by starting or
load changing. Both types of failure will first show
themselves as cracks at regions of high stress, usually at
a stress concentration; if a machine should, on detailed
inspection, exhibit such cracks, the alternatives are
either to replace the component or, on the basis of
current knowledge of crack growth rates under different
conditions, to advise the length of safe further service
before a new component must be introduced, or a repair
effected. The difficult situation arises when no apparent
defect is found on detailed inspection. It is not economic
to inspect at frequent intervals, and the time to next
inspection could be five years or more. Will the com-
ponents last another five years?
One action that can sometimes be taken on com-
ponents where the vulnerable areas are readily recog-
nizable (for example, rotor gland areas subject to
thermal stress) is to remove metal, probably structurally
damaged and life-reduced, but not necessarily near the
point of failure, by machining to a relatively small
depth, but this method cannot be applied to all com-
ponents (153).
The component materials of these turbines will be
twenty or more years old, probably of a lower quality
than those obtained nowadays, and with individual
long-term creep or thermal fatigue properties which are
not known with any accuracy. If enough material speci-
mens could be obtained, tests of some sort could be
made to determine the residual creep and thermal
fatigue lives, but to be meaningful, the specimens should
be from the areas most liable to imminent failure. From
these areas, even if they could be pinpointed, it is obvi-
ously not possible to remove material for testing
without further weakening, leading to accelerated
failure. For some materials examination of the metallur-
gical structure may provide a useful contribution to
assessment of the remanent life in that particular loca-
tion.
It may be possible for the operator to state the past
service history (logs of temperature variation during
every start, for example) and to specify his intentions
regarding future operation; and for the builder then to
make some estimate of the likelihood of the total past
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218
service, plus such a future service pattern, leading to
failure. Such a procedure is very time consuming and
very uncertain : unfortunately, no prediction of this
nature is likely to be accurate (154).
Because of this lack of precision in calculation, the
best advice that the builder can proffer for old plant will
usually be to proceed cautiously, to inspect for cracking
in vulnerable areas at suitable intervals, and to treat the
turbine gently: this implies avoiding high thermal
stresses by increasing times for starting and loading,
careful supervision of steam conditions, and avoiding
unnecessary overspeeds.
17 FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS
The 1950s and 1960s saw only a modest general rate of
increase in steam conditions, but a very rapid rate of
increase in rating; in Britain, 500 MW units were
ordered in 1961 when 200 MW units were just coming
into service. Many experienced engineers were con-
fidently forecasting, for example (in 1968), 2000 MW
cross-compound turbines at 60 Hz in service by 1980,
and 3000 MW by 1985 (155,156).
Various factors have slowed down this rate of
increase in rating: fuel price increases, starting in 1973;
the resulting worldwide fall in demand for power; and
the poor reliability reputation, for many years, of the
largest new units, boilers plus turbines, in service. The
reaction to this last problem has been one of consoli-
dation, and improvement of reliability, for instance by
replication of standard components, and to a large
extent this goal has been achieved. For some time pur-
chasers have, quite properly, been more interested in
reliability than in the last ounce of efficiency, and there
is no doubt that no proposal for improvement in effi-
ciency will succeed if there is a prospect of significantly
poorer reliability.
In addition to the early plants at very high steam
conditions mentioned previously, there are several
instances of less dramatic increases in conditions, now
in service for many years. Examples in USA include
Linden (250 MW, TC, 2350/1100"/1010", GE, 1957)
(157), Avon (215 MW, TC, 3500/1100"/1050", W, 1958)
(158) and Breed (450 MW, CC, 3500/1050"/1050"/1050",
GE, 1960) (159). However, in the climate of twenty years
ago, when fossil fuels were cheap, and there was every
expectation of a rapid increase of nuclear installations,
there seemed to be little incentive to the pursuit of
extreme efficiency through advanced steam conditions.
The result was that the materials development necessary
for significant increases in steam temperatures was not
carried out.
In the short-term it is possible that more coal-fired
plants in future will employ the currently allowable
temperature of 1050"F, with increasing emphasis on
supercritical pressure and double reheat, but the contin-
uing increase in fuel costs has led, particularly in USA
and Japan, to interest in still more efficient plant,
achieved by yet higher steam conditions. The dramatic
effect of such increases is shown in Table 1 : reasonable
assumptions have been made for the number of heaters
and the final feedwater temperature.
Experience, principally in USA and Japan, of double-
reheat boiler-turbine units is that, after teething
troubles, they are now of as good reliability as single-
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F R HARRIS
Table 1 Approximate changes in heat rate
with advances in steam conditions
Base cycle 2300/1000"/1000" Heat r a t e d a t u m
2300/1050"/1050" - 1.6%
35W/1OOOo/ 1OW" - 2.0%
3500/l 05W/l050" -3.8%
35W/1050°/10500/1050" - 5.8%
35W/ 1 100"/11OO~jl100" -1.2%)
4500/1100"/1100"/1100" - 8.50/;,
5000/1200"/1100"/1100" - 10Y"
reheat units (33). In addition, there has been sufficient
experience in various countries with the occasional
venture into high steam conditions not to discourage at
least the consideration of commercially viable turbine
plant, double-reheat, at inlet steam conditions signifi-
cantly higher than those common today.
Proposals already made for advanced-condition plant
in USA (160) envisage conditions of 4500/1050"/1075"/
1100" (GE) or 4500/1100°/10500/10500 (W); in both
instances a few years are required for design and
material development. The former proposal envisages
an H P cylinder little different from existing 1050°F or
1100°F designs, and chooses to have the highest tem-
perature at the second reheat inlet, where pressures are
low and rotor cooling is easily arranged; the latter pro-
posal involves near-existing first and second I P cylinder
designs and chooses the highest temperature for H P
inlet, where the components (valve chests, rotor) are
smallest. In Japan, Mitsubishi have claimed that condi-
tions of 4500/1050°/10500/10500 are presently possible,
that development would be complete in 1983 for a
turbine at 4500/1 10O0/l100°/l loo", including develop-
ment of materials and components, and in 1984 for a
turbine at 5000/1200"/1 100°/1100"; such turbines, in the
70&1000 MW range, could be in service in 1986 and
1987 respectively (161). Most of these turbines require
that certain of the critical components, in particular
rotors, are cooled in ways analogous to those employed
in gas turbines: rotor cooling in I P and in some L P
cylinders has been used since the 1960s. These turbines
are likely to require materials different from those now
in common use, for the high-temperature rotors, steam
chests, pipes, etc. '(46); at 1100°F it is possible that the
12Cr class of materials will be adequate, but at 1200°F
some turbine components would be in austenitic steel,
already widely used in 1050°F boilers. The question of
whether these materials can be obtained in the necess-
ary sizes and qualities required for the relevant turbine
components is being investigated by the experimental
production of such parts. Parallel developments in
boilers and pipework are considered to be achievable,
both in USA and Japan; other components such as feed
pumps and H P heaters, suitable for the increased press-
ures, also require development.
While all of these improvements can undoubtedly be
regarded as technically feasible to some time-scale,
every advance in conditions has its financial implica-
tions, most particularly in the boiler area, and very
careful costing, as well as reliable forecasts of future fuel
costs and assurances of reliability, are necessary before
such a plant can be recommended for purchase. One US
utility reported in 1962, after service experience of nine
successive units, from 150 MW (1953) to 324 MW
@ IMechE 1984
 A H U N D R E D YEARS OF STEAM TURBINES
(1962), all with initial steam temperatures of 1100"F,
that they were reverting to 1000°Ffor the next unit. The
engineering problems had been solved, and the
reversion was solely due to the economics of the situ-
ation, and the high capital cost of the plant (162). It will
therefore be interesting to see whether any hard-headed
operator will actually purchase a plant of such very
advanced ('ultra-supercritical') conditions. A modest
start has been made; Toshiba are building two 700
MW, 3600 r/min units, at 4580/1050°/10500/1050".
The rating for advanced-condition plants may pru-
dently be limited initially to maybe 800 MW, at 3600
r/min, by the achievable size of critical components, and
by the desire to ensure that any question-mark over
reliability emanates only from the increase in steam
conditions and not from an increase of rating. For turb-
ines using current steam conditions (up to 3500 Ibf/in2,
1000°F or 1050°F) there appears to be no difficulty in
achieving ratings of up to 1500 MW or more at 3000
r/min (note that any one of the several 850 MW 3600
r/min TC units in USA is the exact equivalent, so far as
aerodynamics and material stresses are concerned, of a
3000 r/min unit of rating 850 x 1.22 = 1224 MW; one
of the 1300 MW 3600/3600 r/min CC BBC units is
similarly equivalent to a 3000/3000 r/min CC unit of
1870 MW). Such units require that the boiler and gener-
ator designs can maintain the pace, and that the trans-
mission system can accept such a large block of power.
Such large single units, although possibly no more effi-
cient than smaller units, will be cheaper per kilowatt,
and the saving in site area, floor space, and operating
staff, per kilowatt, is a further bonus.
If any questions of technology of boilers, feed pumps,
generators, or other associated plant are set aside, the
principal engineering barriers to future progress in
fossil-fired plant are likely to be twofold. Firstly, in the
materials field, there are always the problems that
higher steam conditions require higher material proper-
ties, and larger rating means larger forgings or castings.
Secondly, there is the very proper reluctance to embark
on any major design change (either rating or steam
conditions) without the preliminary work, followed
possibly by controlled introduction of new features,
necessary to convince a purchaser that reliability has
not been impaired.
In the nuclear field, the extraordinary economies of
scale of reactors are likely to favour progression to
larger reactor ratings. Larger machines than the cur-
rently common 120@1300 MW units will be at 1800
r/min for 60 Hz generation, but at 50 Hz may well be at
3000 r/min, depending on the rapidity of introduction of
new last-stage blades of increased annulus area.
Outputs of up to 2000 MW or over would seem pos-
sible without major development. Such increases must,
however, be in abeyance until nuclear power regains
some of its former momentum. The possible advent of
different kinds of reactor is unlikely to lead to signifi-
cant variation from either the relatively low initial
steam conditions of water-cooled reactors or the high
initial steam conditions of fossil-fired plant, so that the
turbines will not involve any strikingly new features.
The acute shortage, at many inland locations in some
countries of the large quantities of cooling water nor-
mally demanded by steam stations is likely to lead to
further application of dry-cooling.
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219
Turbines for district heating will certainly increase in
rating, and possibly in complexity of the steamlwater
cycle to ensure that the maximum possible useful energy
is extracted from increasingly valuable fuel. When
public opinion allows nuclear plants to be located near
centres of population, more such plants may also
provide district heating.
So much for the steam turbine by itself as a power
producer. The gas turbine by itself, currently limited to
about 120 MW rating at 3000 r/min, does not seem
likely to be a serious threat to the large base-load steam
turbine, but the combined steam turbine/gas turbine
plant in one form or another can offer efficiencies of 47
per cent or more, much better than even advanced
steam plants, by the use of maximum gas temperatures
of 1800°F or higher. To reap the benefit of this per-
formance, it is necessary to have the right fuel; there is
no doubt that natural gas suits the gas turbine best, but
such a fuel is not universally and cheaply available.
Strenuous efforts have been made for over thirty years
to develop viable coal-fired gas turbines; if they should
succeed, such combined cycle plant could well challenge
the steam-only plant.
A development which can in some circumstances
reduce the requirement for quick-starting or two-
shifting of steam turbines is that of hydraulic pumped-
storage schemes, where large outputs can be achieved,
within a few seconds of demand, from units already
spinning at no-load. The British plant at Dinorwig
(163), with 6 x 313 MW pump/turbine units, 1983, can
make a formidable contribution to meeting peak loads,
but such plants require the right topography. A similar
development, again dependent on favourable topog-
raphy, is to compress air and store it in a suitable
underground cavern during slack periods, meeting peak
loads quickly by burning fuel in the air before expand-
ing it back to atmosphere through a gas turbine
(Huntorf, Germany, 290 MC, BBC, 1978) (164).
The major effort in future is likely to lie not so much
in dramatic advances of rating or steam conditions, but
in persistent small improvements to reliability. Cost
penalties to the operator of up to three-quarters of a
million pounds for a single day's outage for a 1000 MW
plant have been claimed, a figure that encourages very
great caution in adopting unproved design changes.
An assessment of the future of the steam turbine
would not be complete without a glance at potential
rival sources of power. Hydro power is of course well
established, but its costs inevitably rise as the increas-
ingly rare or remote unused resources are tapped. In the
field of thermal power, the use in thermodynamic cycles
of alternative fluids whose thermal properties are differ-
ent from those of water has been analysed (165), and the
conclusion is that either for straightforward operation
or for supplementary use as topping or bottoming plant
to a conventional steam cycle, there is little chance of
operation with any alternative fluid being economically
preferable to steam.
Methods of converting heat into electrical power
by such methods as thermoelectric conversion
(thermocouples), thermionic conversion (diodes), fuel
cells, and several others, have been examined (166) and
it was concluded that all are technically feasible, at least
for very small outputs, but none is commercially suit-
able for large ratings. Solar power can be considered,
Proc lnstn Mech Engrs Vol 198A N o 9
220
for suitable locations, but is obviously intermittent,
poses environmental problems, and is very costly and
unsuitable for large ratings; the generating plant for
such an installation would probably include a steam
turbine, and such a unit has in 1982 generated 12 MW
in California (1450/950") (167). Geothermal energy (168),
first harnessed at Larderello in Northern Italy (in a
steam engine in 1905, followed in 1912 by a 250 kW
turbine (4 lbf/in2) and later by many more units, total-
ling over 300 MW) already uses steam turbines, usually
similar to nuclear wet-steam non-reheat units; Toshiba
have many such units, up to 124 MW (Geysers, Califor-
nia, 99/337", 3600 r/min, 1982) in service (169).
Magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) plants, where very
hot gases pass through a magnetic field which induces
in the gas current, which can be drawn off, is already a
technical possibility, but in any case the heat in the
gases leaving the MHD generator would probably best
be used in a steam turbine plant of some sort (170). In
the USSR a pilot plant has generated electricity, and a
550 MW unit (250 MW MHD generation plus 300 MW
steam turbine generation) is being built at Ryazan for
service in 1985. The forecast efficiency is 48.5 per cent.
Renewable energy sources (wind, waves) which are
feasible in small outputs, are uneconomic at present,
and for large ratings would produce severe
environmental problems. In addition, they are inter-
mittent in action and so are undependable power
sources.
It appears therefore that for large ratings, the steam
turbine, by itself or in combination with a gas turbine,
has no visible challenger in the field of thermal power.
18 CONCLUSION
It is not an exaggeration to claim that our life today
might be very different if the steam turbine, with its
capacity for generating enormous power efficiently and
in a compact installation, had not been invented, and
developed in the way described.
The late Lord Hinton, a respected figure in the
British power industry, proposed two definitions:
Fig. 28 Two 1300 MW cross compound 3600/3600 r/min turbines (as shown
in Fig. 18), in the Gavin station of the American Electric Power
Service Corporation,the largest fossil-fired units in the world (BBC)
Proc Instn Mech Engrs Vol 198A No 9
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€ R HARRIS
1. Engineering is the science of knowing what you can
get away with.
2. Progress is getting out of the trouble that you would
not have been in had it not been for progress.
Nowhere are these definitions more apt than in the
history of the steam turbine, and of Sir Charles Parsons
in particular. The modern turbine designer, who tends
to be extremely cautious, cannot fail to be amazed at
the way in which this engineering genius arrived at so
many usually sound solutions to each fresh engineering
problem, with little basis for his decisions except intu-
ition.
The problems faced by the early giants of the
industry-Parsons, Rateau, de Laval, and many
others-have now largely been overcome, only to be
continuously overtaken by new and apparently equally
intractable problems, each of which in turn has suc-
cumbed to the inventive talents of their successors. After
a hundred years, the steam turbine is still completely
recognizable from the first claims made in Parsons'
patent; a very fitting tribute to an outstanding British
engineer.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
In the preparation of this lecture, the author gratefully
acknowledges the assistance not only of colleagues, past
and present, in GEC Turbine-Generators Limited, but
also of many friends in the turbine industry throughout
the world. In particular, thanks are due to Alsthom-
Atlantique, Brown Boveri, General Electric (USA),
Kraftwerk Union, MAN, NEI-Parsons, and West-
inghouse, for their assistance and for their permission to
reproduce illustrations.
APPENDIX
Abbreviations
Steam conditions are referred to by pressure in pounds
per square inch and temperature in degrees Fahrenheit,
e.g. 1500/1000"/1000" means 1500 lbf/in2 gauge, 1000°F
0 IMechE 1984
 A HUNDRED YEARS OF STEAM TURBINES 221

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@ IMechE 1984