Labyrinth Packing

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Main Equipment
Swapan Basu, Ajay Kumar Debnath, in Power Plant Instrumentation and Control
Handbook, 2015

3.6.2.1 Gland Packing

Labyrinth gland packing is used for the gland part of the turbine and for the inner
surface of the nozzle diaphragm. It consists of several circular segments fitted into
the grooves of their mating parts and the equipped labyrinth packing should be
in contact with each other; local heating of the rotor due to such contact can be
reduced. The labyrinth packing for high-temperature parts consists of an alloy steel
labyrinth body inserted with Cr-Mo steel strips, which for low-temperature parts
consists of a labyrinth body and strips integrally formed of nickel silver or phosphor
bronze stock.

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Turbo Generator Control System

Swapan Basu, Ajay Kumar Debnath, in Power Plant Instrumentation and Control
Handbook, 2015

8.1 Seal Steam Pressure Control: Background

The turbine shaft has to exit its casings to couple up or connect with the unit
that the turbines drive (generator, reduction gears, pumps, etc.). The seal steam
system enables the turbine to be sealed where the shaft exits the casing—in effect
keeping “air out and steam in.” Sets of labyrinth packing are used along the turbine
rotor where the rotor exits the turbine casing to maintain this pressure differential
between inside and outside. The labyrinths create many little chambers causing
pressure drops along the shaft. The number of labyrinth sets depends greatly on
the possible steam pressure in that area. Labyrinth packing alone will not stop the
flow of steam from the turbine high-pressure part or prevent air into the turbine
connected to the vacuum.

The gland sealing steam system provides low-pressure steam to the turbine gland
in the final sets of labyrinth packing. This assists the labyrinth packing in sealing the
turbine to prevent the entrance of air from reducing or destroying the vacuum in
the associated condenser. Excess pressure (excess gland seal) also has to be removed
and put into the gland steam condenser. The large, turbine gland sealing systems
are basically self-sealing, in the sense at a load >40% HP steam coming out from
the HPT side could be enough to seal the same on the LPT side. Up to nearly 40%
load low-pressure auxiliary steam is supplied to the sealing header to seal HPT,
IPT, and LPT glands. During this period the flow line to the condenser is closed
with the help of a control valve. Above this load point the steam coming out of the
HPT will be more than enough to seal the LPT gland and more, and the excess is
sent to the condenser. At around this load point the auxiliary steam supply control
valve is closed and the HPT and IPT glands (as applicable) leakage steam is routed
through the leak control valve to other glands so that seal steam pressure can be
maintained and excess steam will be sent to the gland steam cooler/condenser.
During start-up, vacuum building is the first step. It is necessary that some steam
is supplied to the turbine glands from auxiliary steam via the seal steam supply
control valve. With load building up inside the turbine, HPT and IPT leakage from
there will go to the gland steam supply header to increase the pressure, which will
compel the supply valve to close. Normally the auxiliary steam header is maintained
at a fixed pressure and temperature (at 10 kg/cm2 or 16 kg/cm2 and 210°C).
However, because this seal steam is required during start-up and low load the seal
steam pressure and temperature requirement may be much lower than the auxiliary
steam header pressure and temperature. Therefore it is necessary that there will be
requirement of the PRDS, which must be considered (not shown).

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Plant P&ID Discussions

Swapan Basu, Ajay Kumar Debnath, in Power Plant Instrumentation and Control
Handbook, 2015
11.1.2.4 Turbine Seal Steam System
1. The majority of steam turbine use at both ends of the shaft is with rings to
prevent any leakage causing reduction of turbine efficiency. As per API, gland
sealing is required for all new turbines.
2. This system enables the turbine to be sealed where the shaft comes out of
the casing. Sets of labyrinth packing are employed along the rotor where the
shaft exists (see Figure III/11.1.2-5b–d. These labyrinths create many chambers
causing pressure drop. The DP between atmosphere and inside the turbine
causes air leakage in to the turbine on the LP side, whereas the HP side steam
escapes (in both cases due labryrith quantity leakages will be much less).FIG-
URE III/11.1.2-4. Turbine seal steam systemFIGURE III/11.1.2-5. Turbine seal
steam system miscellaneous details.
3. During start-up, shut down, and low-load operation, turbine auxiliary steam,
assists labyrinth packing in sealing the turbine shaft and air leakage is pre-
vented. During normal running conditions, the steam leakage from the HPT
and IPT sides would be used to seal the LP side leakage and excess leakage
steam, if any, is dumped. In some designs, the seal steam line for LPT sealing
is passed through an attemperator to match the process parameter (see Note
b in Figure III/11.1.2-4). In other designs, steam from the HPT is drained to
the condenser and the LPT is sealed from leakage steam from the IPT to avoid
the need for an attemperator (e.g., Siemens KWU design).
4. As shown in Figures III/11.1.2.-4 and III/11.1.2-5c and d, gland steam at the
furthest end of each gland has a mixture of steam and air. This gland steam is
taken to the GSC where air is removed by the gland steam extractor fan. The
steam chamber and RH stop valve leakages are also taken to the GSC whose
pressure is monitored by a pressure switch.
5. Auxiliary steam is supplied to the seal steam header after reducing the pressure
and temperature as shown in Figure III/11.1.2-5a.
6. Normally seal steam header pressure is controlled by a dedicated control sys-
tem, which may be a part of the turbine integral control. There are redundant
pressure transmitters (typical range: −100 to + 900 mm wcl) and two sets of
valves (e.g., supply steam control valve for seal steam header and leak off steam
control valve from seal steam Header) as detailed in Figure IX/8-1.

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Steam Turbines and Steam Traps

Heinz P. Bloch, in Petrochemical Machinery Insights, 2017
Methods of Water Washing
Turbine washing at full speed (onstream cleaning) can be and has been success-
fully accomplished on many mechanical drive steam turbines. Considerable hazard
attends any method of water washing, and full-speed washing is more hazardous
than washing at reduced speed. But this can be accomplished provided great care
and judgment are exercised. While we know of no steam turbine manufacturer who
would guarantee the safety of turbines for any washing cycle, capable manufacturers
recognize that deposits do occur. They will, therefore, help operators as much as
possible in dealing with the problems until effective prevention is established.

Saturated steam washing by water injection is the conventional and well-tried

method of removing water-soluble deposits from turbines. The amount and rate
of superheat to be removed and the amount of steam flow required for operation
determine the water injection rate. It is the injection of large quantities of liquid
(such as may be required on process drivers) that creates potential problems.

The nature of a typical impulse turbine lends itself to full-speed water washing. Axial
clearances between first-stage buckets and nozzles and between moving buckets and
diaphragms will range from 0.050 to 0.090 in. The typical Ni-resist labyrinth packing
radial clearance when the unit is cold will be approximately 0.007 in. The labyrinth
will seal on the shaft only; the moving blades will not require seals. With impulse
turbines, these liberal clearances help minimize the hazards associated with water
washing. Nevertheless, numerous reaction turbines have also been successfully
water-washed.

Water injection is accomplished by a piping arrangement for the atomization and

injection of water into the steam supply to ensure a gradual and uniform reduction
in the temperature of the turbine inlet steam until it reaches 10–15 °F superheat. It
is probably a safe rule that the temperature should not be reduced faster than 25 °F
in 15 min or 100 °F/h. Figs. 39.4.1 and 39.4.2 show suggested piping arrangements
for the admission of water and steam, and a simple assembly of fabricated pipes
to form a desuperheater is found in the text referenced below. Failure of water
injection pumps presents a great hazard, especially at maximum injection rates. To
guard against pump failure, untreated boiler feedwater is used since these pumps
are usually the most reliable in a plant.
Fig. 39.4.1. Schematic of low-speed water wash system.

Fig. 39.4.2. Full-speed water wash arrangement.

If plant operating conditions allow, the vacuum on a condensing turbine should be

reduced to 5–10 mmHg; for noncondensing turbines, the exhaust pressure should
be reduced to atmospheric pressure. Note that on any noncondensing unit requiring
full-speed washing, the manufacturer should be consulted about minimum allow-
able exhaust pressures. Extraction turbines should be run with the extraction line
shut off.

A steam gauge and thermometer should be installed between the trip-throttle

valve and the governor-controlled valves. The thermometer should preferably be
a recording type and should be very responsive to small changes in temperature.
Low-speed wash, as illustrated in Fig. 39.4.1, represents a well-understood method
of deposit removal.

To start the washing procedure, it is normally recommended to operate the turbine

on trip-throttle valve control at one-fifth to one-fourth normal speed with no load.
The live-steam valve to the mixer would now be opened and the boiler stop valve
closed, after which the trip-throttle valve and the governor valves may be opened
wide and the speed controlled by the small live-steam valve to the mixer. Water is
then supplied to the mixing chamber in quantities sufficient to reduce the steam
temperature at the recommended rate until 10–15 °F (6–9 °C) superheat at turbine
inlet is reached. During the washing cycle, the exhaust steam should be discharged
to the sewer.

Full-speed water washing (Fig. 39.4.2) uses a water atomizer instead of the wa-
ter-steam mixer arrangement. Both Figs. 39.4.1 and 39.4.2 illustrate operating
principles and the required minimum instrumentation. Advanced controls usually
go beyond the instruments shown here, but will adhere to the principles described
here.

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Gas Turbine Configurations

and Heat Cycles
Claire Soares, in Gas Turbines (Second Edition), 2015

Steam Turbine Basic Components and Main Systems

In a steam turbine, high-pressure, high-temperature steam expands to increase the
steam’s kinetic energy at the expense of its original pressure energy. That kinetic
energy is used to turn the rotor and produce mechanical energy as torque and rotor
speed increase.

There are two main kinds of steam turbine: impulse and reaction. The bulk of
steam turbines today are reaction turbines. In impulse turbines, the flow momentum
changes as a steam jet pushes the rotor blades forward. In reaction turbines, a
reaction force is felt by the moving blades as steam flow accelerates through a
decreasing cross-sectional area.

Figures 3A–7 and 3A–8 illustrates a turbine with impulse blading. It has one veloc-
ity-compounded stage where the velocity is reduced in two steps through two rows
of moving blades, as the pressure stays constant.
FIGURE 3A–7. Schematic of basic cogeneration plant with extraction-condensing
turbine [3-3].
FIGURE 3A–8. Turbine with impulse blading. Velocity compounding is accomplished
in the first two stages by two rows of moving blades between which is placed a
row of stationary blades that reverses the direction of steam flow as it passes from
the first to the second row of moving blades. Other ways of accomplishing velocity
compounding involve redirecting the steam jets so that they strike the same row of
blades several times with progressively decreasing velocity [3-3].

Figure 3A–9 illustrates a reaction turbine with one velocity compounded impulse
stage, where a large pressure drop occurs.
FIGURE 3A–9. Reaction turbine with one velocity-compounded impulse stage. The
first stage of this turbine is similar to the first velocity-compounded stage of Fig-
ure 3–14. However, in the reaction blading of this turbine, both pressure and velocity
decrease as the steam flows through the blades. The graph at the bottom shows the
changes in pressure and velocity through the various stages [3-3].
Steam Turbine Components
The block diagram Figure 3A–10 illustrates the main mechanical components in a
basic steam turbine. Steam turbines that deliver between 40 and 60 MW usually
are single-cylinder machines (see Figure 3A–11). For larger steam turbines, more
cylinders are used to extract the steam’s energy.

FIGURE 3A–10. Simple power plant cycle. This diagram shows that the working fluid,
steam and water, travels a closed loop in the typical power plant cycle [3-3].
FIGURE 3A–11. Typical single-cylinder turbine types. As shown, condensing tur-
bines, as compared to back-pressure turbines, must increase more in size toward
the exhaust end to handle the larger volume of low-pressure steam [3-3].

Single-Cylinder Turbines
The two main subdivisions here are condensing and back-pressure (noncondensing)
turbines. Automatic extraction turbines allow part of the steam to be drawn off at
intermediate stage(s), while the rest of the steam is exhausted to a condenser. These
turbines use controls and valves to get constant pressure of extraction steam during
conditions of varying load and extraction demand. Uncontrolled extraction (pressure
varies at extraction points with load) steam is used to add heat in feedwater heaters.

Some plants add high-pressure noncondensing turbines to increase capacity. The

added turbines are called topping or superposed units.

Nozzles
Nozzles, together with blades, play an important role in achieving the high efficiency-
of a turbine. Nozzles are designed to attain the highest thermal efficiency. They
are made of 12% or 18% chrome and 8% nickel stainless steel and have excellent
mechanical strength and erosion resistance. The diaphragm in which the nozzle is
built is split at the horizontal centerline and the spring-backed labyrinth packing
is fitted to minimize steam leakage. Four types of construction are standard, as
shown in Figure 3A–12, each of which has its own application range based on specific
operating conditions.

FIGURE 3A–12. Standard nozzles [3-4].

Blades
Blades are designed based on accumulated aerodynamic data from various tests and
research. The blades are subjected to a large centrifugal force and an exciting force.
The blades are made of 12% or 17% chrome and 4% nickel stainless steel and have
excellent mechanical strength and damping properties. If necessary, erosion shields
made of Stellite are used in the last stages of the condensing turbines to protect the
leading edges of the blades from moisture erosion.
Compound Turbines
Compound turbines have more than one cylinder: one high pressure and one low
pressure. The low-pressure cylinder generally is of the double-flow type to handle
a large volume of low-pressure steam. The turbine blades are limited in length by
design and the double-flow design adds potential for steam flow. Large plants have
more than two cylinders: an intermediate-pressure cylinder and four low-pressure
cylinders are not uncommon.

If the cylinders are on one shaft, the arrangement is termed a tandem compound.
If they are on more than one shaft, the arrangement is termed a cross compound
(see Figure 3A–13).
FIGURE 3A–13. Some arrangements of compound turbines. While many arrange-
ments are used, these diagrams illustrate some of the more common ones [3-3].

Condensing Turbines
Straight-condensing turbines (Figure 3A–14) are advantageous, especially when
large quantities of a reliable power source are required or an inexpensive fuel, such
as a process by-product gas, is readily available. To improve plant thermal efficiency,
steam usually is extracted from the intermediate stage of the turbine for feedwater
heating.
FIGURE 3A–14. Condensing turbines [3-4].
Extraction-Condensing Turbines
Extraction-condensing turbines (Figure 3A–15) generate both process steam and
stable electric power. Process steam, at one or more fixed pressures, can be auto-
matically extracted as needed. This type of turbine has the flexibility to satisfy wide
variations of process steam at a constant pressure and meet electric power demands.
FIGURE 3A–15. Extraction-condensing turbines [3-4].

Back-Pressure Turbines
Back-pressure turbines (Figure 3A–16) can be used when a large quantity of process
steam is required. The turbine exhaust steam is supplied to the process, and the
electric output depends on the demand for the process steam. These turbines also
can be used as top turbines to supply exhaust steam to existing units; this improves
the entire plant’s thermal efficiency.
FIGURE 3A–16. Back-pressure turbines [3-4].

Extraction Back-Pressure Turbines

Extraction back-pressure turbines (Figure 3A–17) can be used when two or more
kinds of process steam are required. High-pressure steam is supplied through the
extraction openings, and low-pressure steam is supplied as the turbine exhaust.
Electric output depends on the demand for process steam.
FIGURE 3A–17. Extraction back-pressure turbines [3-4].

Mixed-Pressure Turbines
Mixed-pressure turbines (Figure 3A–18) are driven by two or more kinds of steam,
admitted independently to the turbine. In applying dual heat sources, the optimum
steam condition for each source can be selected. This type of turbine also can be
used to combine an existing boiler and a new boiler, which makes it an effective
means of improving plant thermal efficiency.

FIGURE 3A–18. Mixed-pressure turbines [3-4].

Geared Turbines
Geared turbines (Figure 3A–19) can be applied to smaller power generation units of
up to around 40 MW. Compared with direct-coupled turbines, geared turbines have
many advantages:

FIGURE 3A–19. Geared turbines [3-4].

 • Higher efficiency

• Easier operation and maintenance

• Smaller initial investment

• Smaller space requirement

• Shorter delivery time

The maximum capacity of geared turbines is increasing every year.

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