Analysis of unsteady flow forces acting on the thermowell in a steam turbine control stage

Abstract

In the present paper the phenomenon of unsteady flow forces acting on the thermowell for measuring steam temperature in a steam turbine control stage has been presented. The non-stationarity of fluid acting on the thermowell such as: Strouhal frequency, pressure amplitude, pressure peaks, pressure field, velocity field etc. have been studied analytically and numerically. There have been examined two cases of flow with changing mass flow rate, pressure and temperature in the control stage chamber of a turbine high-pressure cylinder. The problem of entry into resonance by thermowell has been described in the ASME standard PTC19.3 TW-2010 with providing detailed guidelines for thermowell designs.