Design and Selection – Driven Equipment

1) What is the function of turbine?

 A turbine is a rotary engine that extracts energy from a fluid flow. For
example, a steam turbine extracts the thermal energy in high
temperature and high pressure steam into mechanical energy.
Similarly, a gas turbine extracts the energy from the combustion
process (of gas/liquid fuel) into mechanical energy.

2) What are the different types of turbines?

 Steam turbines
 Gas turbines
 Turbo-expander – also known as expansion turbine

3) When is a steam turbine selected?

 Typical application: pump, compressor, generator drives
 Steam turbines are used when there is a distinct advantage compared
to other drivers:- normally because the availability of steam
o Typical reasons when steam may be advantageous:
 When the plant process is exothermic (releasing heat)
whereby the heat can be used to generate steam. E.g.
refinery, ethylene, ammonia, methanol plants.
 When waste heat recovered from gas turbine exhaust
can be used to generate steam (HRSG – heat recovery
steam generation)
 For plant steam balance: - some processes generate
steam and this steam is used at different pressure levels
in other parts of the plants/process. Instead of using the
pressure reducing valve to get these various pressures,
a steam turbine can be used to give you the various
pressure required. This is called balancing out the steam
flow at various pressures required.

4) What are the main components of a steam turbine?

Main Components

Steam chest – steam enters the inlet flange into the steam chest.
 2 key components in the steam chest
o Trip/stop valve – to protect the turbine from overspeeding
o Governor valve – controls the turbine speed

Steam end – from the steam chest, the steam enters the steam end which contains
the nozzles to accelerate the steam to high velocity, directing the steam to the
turbine blades mounted on the rotor. (Please note the figure above is single stage,
but there could be several stages of nozzle-blade arrangement)

5) How does a steam turbine work?

 The basic thermodynamic cycle is the Rankine cycle



State 3 – 4 : isentropic
compression
State 4 – 5 - 1 : isobaric heating
State 1 – 2 : isentropic expansion
State 2 – 3 : isothermal
condensation

T Simple Rankine Cycle

5 1

2
3

S
State 3 – State 4: Liquid is pumped from low pressure to high pressure by the boiler
feed water pump.

State 4 – State 1: High pressure liquid enters a boiler where it is heated at constant
pressure (isobaric heating) to become dry saturated vapor.

State 1 – State 2: The saturated vapor (at high pressure and high temperature)
expands through a turbine, generating mechanical energy.

State 2 – State 3: The wet vapor enters a condenser and is condensed at constant
pressure and temperature to become saturated liquid.

The process repeats itself.

NOTE: Other “tweaks” to this cycle: non-ideal Rankine cycle, reheat cycle,
regenerative cycle.

6) When is a gas turbine selected?

 Compared to a steam turbine or reciprocating engine of the same

horsepower, a significant weight reduction (~70%) can be gained using a gas
turbine, i.e. a GT has better power to weight ratio. For example, Caterpillar
3612 has 3.6 MW; size is 9.4x2.1x3.3 m and weighs 55.3 metric tonne. A
Centaur 40 has 3.5 MW; size is 8.8x2.4x2.1 m and weighs 23.7 metric tones.
 Advantageous to use GT when fuel is readily available, e.g. offshore where
natural gas easy to get.
 Less vibration
 Fewer propulsion auxiliaries – vs. if steam turbine, needs boiler for steam
generation.
 Quicker response time – faster acceleration/deceleration compared to steam
turbines

Gas turbines can be grouped into:

 7) What are the main components of a gas turbine?

 Air intake
 Compressor
 Combustor
 Turbine

8) How does a gas turbine work?

 Suck squeeze bang blow

9) What is the function of turbine rotor barring or turning gear?

Barring gear (or "turning gear") is the mechanism provided to rotate the turbine
shaft at a very low speed after unit stoppages. Once the unit is "tripped" (i.e., the
steam inlet valve is closed), the turbine coasts down towards standstill. When it
stops completely, there is a tendency for the turbine shaft to deflect or bend if
allowed to remain in one position too long. This is because the heat inside the
turbine casing tends to concentrate in the top half of the casing, making the top half
portion of the shaft hotter than the bottom half. The shaft therefore could warp or
bend by millionths of inches.

This small shaft deflection, only detectable by eccentricity meters, would be enough
to cause damaging vibrations to the entire steam turbine unit when it is restarted.
The shaft is therefore automatically turned at low speed (about one revolution per
minute) by the barring gear until it has cooled sufficiently to permit a complete stop.

10) Why do we perform rotor barring?

  To prevent shaft bow/warp because non-uniform exposure to heat in
the casing.

11) What is the function of expander?

 A turboexpander, also referred to as a turbo-expander or an expansion
turbine, is a centrifugal or axial flow turbine through which a high
pressure gas is expanded to produce work that is often used to drive a
compressor.
 A simple way to think of this is to consider the standalone power turbine
as an example of a turboexpander. If we can regard the gas at high
pressure and high temperature coming from the GG as external to the
power turbine, then the PT works to allow this gas to expand the high
pressure gas and to produce work, which in principle is what a
turboexpander does. The point to note here is that the turboexpander
takes a high pressure gas, which is present in some process, and use the
energy in this gas, to convert to useful work, for compressor drive for
example.


12)What are the main components of a turboexpander? – see diagram
above
13)How does an expander work? – see item 11.
 Another point to note is that the exhaust gas from the turboexpander
(gas out) is at a very low temperature, sometimes as low as -90 deg
Celsius or less. Therefore, turboexpanders are widely used as a source
for refrigeration, for example, in extraction of ethane and natural gas
liquids.