WOLDIA UNIVERSITY

INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
school of Mechanical & Chemical Engineering
Department of Mechanical Engineering

Chapter One: Basic Principles Of Turbo machines

By Mr. Gashaw Minaye (MSc.)

Pre-requisite
Fluid Mechanics and Thermodynamics
References
Dixon (Fourth and Fifth Edition)
Grant Ingram
White (Fluid Mechanics)
Evaluation Scheme
oAssignments (10 %)
oSeminar Projects (20%)
oQuiz (5%)
oMid Exam (25 %)
oFinal Exam (40 %)
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Contents:
• Comparison between positive displacement machines with
turbomachines.
• Energy equation
• Euler’s equation of energy transfer
• Work and efficiencies in turbines and compressors.

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 What is Turbomachine?
• Any devices that extracts energy from or imparts energy to a continuously
moving stream of fluid (liquid or gas) can be termed as a turbomachine.
• The energy transfer being carried out by the dynamic action of one or
more rotating blades rows
• Examples of turbomachine:
• pump, compressor, hydraulic turbine, gas turbines, steam turbine, windmills,
waterwheels, ship propeller etc.
• The dynamic action of rotating blades sets up forces between the blades
and fluid while the components of these forces in the direction of blade
motion give rise to the energy transfer between the blades and the fluid.

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Comparison between positive
displacement machines with
turbomachines
• Positive displacement machines are those in which fluid is moved as a
result of displacement of the boundary (e.g.:- Piston).
• A Turbomachine is a device that exchanges energy with a fluid using
continuously flowing fluid and rotating blades.

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 Applications
• More than 90% of the World Energy is generated by Turbo machines.
• Electricity generation (Hydro Turbines, Steam and Gas Turbines, Wind
Turbines)
• Jet engine (Multi-stage Turbines and Multi-stage Compressors coupled)
• Industrial and miscellaneous service (Air Compressors in Pneumatic systems,
pumps in hydraulic and cooling systems and also in steam generating cycle)
• HVAC (Pumps(>3bar), blowers (>0.7and<3bar) bar, fans(<0.7 bar))
• Refrigerators (centrifugal compressor)
• Agriculture (pumps)
• Automobiles (Radiator i.e air fan, Turbocharger i.e energy recovery unit)
• Propellers in ships
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 Components of A simple
turbomachine
• Rotor: It is the main component and consists of the circumferentially
arrayed blades or buckets around a circular disc, a hub or a shaft.
• Stator: It is also called guide vane which directs the flow into the stator
blades for maximum utilization of the fluid energy.
• Casing: It is the component of many turbo machines which distributes the
flow through each rotor blades. It allows flow to enter and leave the
turbomachine after extracting energy and also prevents losses as a result
of splash out flow and leakage.
• Shaft: It transmit energy between the turbomachine and another coupled
system like a motor or generator.

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 Classification of Turbomachines
• Based on the direction of energy flow
 Machines that extract energy from the fluid are generally termed as Turbines.
Machines that delivers energy to the fluid are pump, compressor, fan and blower.
• Based on the nature of fluids used (either liquid or gas)
 Liquid operated turbomachines: Water turbines and pumps.
Gas operated turbomachines: Compressors, Steam turbines, Gas turbines, Wind
turbine Blower and fan.
• Based on the flow direction
 Axial flow turbomachines: In this case the fluid flow is much like parallel to or along
the axis of rotation or shaft alignment. e.g. Single stage compressor or pump , Kaplan
turbine
Radial flow turbomachines: In this case the fluid flow is much of radially outward from
or inward to the center of the rotor. e.g. centrifugal compressor or pump

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 Cont…
• Mixed flow turbomachines: In this case the flow is characterized by
both axial and radial effects.
e.g. a mixed flow pump and a mixed flow hydraulic turbine (Francis turbine)
• Based on whether pressure changes are absent or present, All turbo
machines can be classified as either.
Impulse machines: when the pressure change takes place in one or more
nozzles. e.g. Pelton wheel
Reaction machines: the pressure change takes place in all nozzles of the
machines. e.g. Francis Turbine (Radial flow) and Kaplan Turbine (Axial flow)

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 Energy extracting
devices

E
Energy delivering
devices

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Energy Equation
• The Reynolds transport theorem for energy equation is given by

• Assumption
- Steady flow across the turbomachine blade control volume.
- elevation change is neglected
- Rate of heat flow and viscous work are fairly negligible
compared to the shaft work
• Equation reduces to

• The specific shaft work is

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Stagnation Enthalpy
• Stagnation enthalpy is the enthalpy attained by the working fluid in
turbomachine when it is brought to rest adiabatically or isentropically.

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 Turbine Compressor

/2
/2

h h h0
h0
h
h

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Energy equation from the torque (Euler’s
Equation)
• The angular momentum equation of the Reynolds transport theorem for a non
deformable CV is given by

• The cross product implies the radius is multiplied by the component of the velocity
perpendicular to the radius, which is the tangential velocity.

This is the torque applied on or by the shaft.

• The resulting power is simply the product of the torque and the angular velocity of the
turbomachine.

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 Differential volume element
𝑑 𝑚= 𝜌 𝑑 Ω 𝑑 Ω=( 𝑉 . 𝑛 ) 𝑑𝐴 crossing a surface boundary

Surface
𝑑𝑚 Boundary

𝑉𝜃
𝑑𝐴 𝑉 .𝑛 𝑑𝑆

𝑟𝑉 𝑟 𝑉 𝑉

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Work and Isentropic efficiency
• Thermodynamically interpretation of efficiency

• Literally efficiency is defined as the ratio of output work to input

work.

• Loss in thermodynamic sense is irreversibility that gives rise to change

in entropy. Therefore, isentropic efficiency compares the irreversible
process to the reversible one.

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For liquids like water the enthalpy is directly referred from thermodynamic table with the
knowledge of the state temperature and pressure as
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• In case of gas compression in compressors and gas expansion in gas
turbines, polytropic state relation is defined as:
, where is termed as polytropic index and is dependent on the
process.
• For isothermal process
• For adiabatic process , where
• Ideal gas approximation can be fairly applied to compressors and gas
turbines which involves either high temperature or pressure or both.

• Substituting from the ideal gas equation into the polytropic state
relation

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• For adiabatic process

• Employing ideal gas approximation

or

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Infinitesimal Stages efficiency
Infinitesimal stage efficiency
Ideal gas Consideration
• The polytropic efficiency for an infinitesimal compressor stage is
0
Ideal gas
• For isentropic process
• Substituting,

• Rearranging,

• Integrating both sides,

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• Again substituting,

• Between two points

• Derive the polytropic efficiency for infinitesimal turbine stages

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 2 1
2𝑠 𝐴
C𝑠 𝐴𝑠
𝐶
𝐵
B
h 𝐵 h 𝐵𝑠 𝐶
𝐴𝑠 𝐶𝑠
𝐴
2
1 2𝑠
𝑆 𝑆
h 2 𝑠 −h1 < ( h𝐶 𝑠 − h1 ) + ( h 𝐵 𝑠 − h 𝐴 ) + ( h 𝐶 𝑠 − h 𝐵 ) + … h 1 − h2 𝑠 < ( h1 −h 𝐴𝑠 ) + ( h 𝐴 −h 𝐵𝑠 ) + ( h𝐵 − h𝐶𝑠 ) +…
0 0

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Reheat factor
• It applies for steam turbines since vapor do not obey the ideal gas
relations.

When the difference between inlet and exit velocities are negligible

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Conservation of mass
• For steady flow through a control volume of a system inlet mass flow
rate is equal to exit mass flow rate .

• Area for axial flow : or

• Area for radial flow : and

Radial Axial

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Velocity Triangles for Stages
• A stage is a combination of a stator and rotor blades either in
compressor or turbine. It can be a single stage or multi stages.
• Since most turbomachines are assumed to be steady flow systems, the
parameters of interest are the ones on the surface boundaries (inlet and
exit boundaries) of the CV. So we are going to deal with velocity triangles
at the inlet and exit of the rotor and stator blades of a stage.

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Example

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Example

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Example

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Example

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Solution

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Losses in Nozzles and Diffusers
• Nozzles and diffusers are important parts of a turbomachine. Nozzles
usually comes at the entrance of the turbomachine where diffuser is
placed at the exit side.
• Stator blades or guide vanes also form a nozzle flow.
• During the adiabatic expansion and compression, the stagnation
enthalpies are the same at inlet and exit.
• For irreversible process where losses are accounted, dimensionless
loss coefficients are defined for nozzles and diffusers.
1 2
𝑐2 Nozzle loss (h2 −h 2 𝑠 )/ 1 2
2 h01 − h 2
𝜂𝑁= = coefficient 𝜁 𝑁= 𝑐2𝑠
1 2 h01 − h2 𝑠 2
𝑐2 𝑠 Enthalpy loss
2 coefficient
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 Algebraic manipulation of the above loss coefficient equations yields
1 2 Velocity /
𝜂𝑁= =𝐾 𝑁 coefficient
1+ 𝜁 𝑁

Adiabatic expansion in nozzles

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Adiabatic compression in diffusers38
• Diffuser efficiency

• Fluid flows in most turbomachines are subsonic (have a Mach number

value below 1), so that compressibility effect can be neglected.

• To define the diffuser loss coefficient entirely by pressure terms

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• Other alternative diffuser performance parameters are:
- Pressure rise coefficient

- Total pressure recovery factor

Optimum diffuser divergence angle is 7 deg.

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