An optical technique for characterizing the liquid phase of steam at the exhaust of an LP turbine

Technical Report · Tue Jun 01 00:00:00 EDT 1993

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/10165558· OSTI ID:10165558

Kercel, S W; Simpson, M L ^[1]; Azar, M ^[2]; Young, M ^[3]

---

1. Oak Ridge National Lab., TN (US)
2. Tennessee Technological Univ., Cookeville, TN (US)
3. Alabama Power, Parrish, AL (US)

Optical observation of velocity and size of water droplets in powerplant steam has several applications. These include the determination of steam wetness fraction, mass flow rate, and predicting erosion of turbine blades and pipe elbows. The major advantages of optical techniques are that they do not interfere with the flow or perturb the observation. This paper describes the measurement of the size and velocity of particles based on the observation and analysis of visibility patterns created by backscattered circularly polarized light. The size of latex particles in a dry nitrogen stream was measured in the laboratory. Visibility patterns of water droplets were observed in the low pressure turbine of Unit 6 of Alabama Power`s Gorgas Steam Plant.

• Research Organization: Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
• DOE Contract Number: AC05-84OR21400
• OSTI ID: 10165558
• Report Number(s): CONF-930401-18; ON: DE93015326; TRN: 93:015421
• Resource Relation: Conference: Meeting on nuclear plant instrumentation, control and man-machine interface technologies,Oak Ridge, TN (United States),18-21 Apr 1993; Other Information: PBD: [1993]
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

20 FOSSIL-FUELED POWER PLANTS
22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS
STEAM TURBINES
MONITORING
STEAM
PHASE STUDIES
OPTICAL EQUIPMENT
PERFORMANCE
WATER
DROPLETS
BENCH-SCALE EXPERIMENTS
FLOW RATE
PARTICLE SIZE
LATEX
MULTIPHASE FLOW
BACKSCATTERING
VISIBLE RADIATION
POLARIZATION
ALABAMA
STEAM GENERATION PLANTS
NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS
FOSSIL-FUEL POWER PLANTS
EXPERIMENTAL DATA
200104
220200
COMPONENTS
COMPONENTS AND ACCESSORIES