Crack growth prediction of the steam turbine generator shaft

Abstract

The power network in China is encountering great changes and large-scale network is increasingly implemented for long distance power transmission as well as various kinds of power electronic devices, which bring in the risk of the torsional vibration of the turbine generator shafts, may cause the fatigue damage and cracks in the product life cycle. The paper analyzed the failed coupling of some 600MW steam turbine generator and calculated the local stress of the assembly under torsional load caused by the network disturbance. Then the crack propagation was analyzed with the predicted crack initiation position and crack propagation routine. The assembled coupling contains shaft, coupling and keys with interferences between the parts. Therefore the contact analysis was included. Extended Finite Element Method (X-FEM) is used to calculate the crack propagation and that the mesh needs not to be regenerated with the crack propagation, which is beneficial for engineering applications. © 2011 Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd.