RADIAL INFLOW TURBINES
Applications of radial inflow turbines
• The best known use of radial inflow turbines is in automobile turbochargers
Applications of radial inflow turbines
• Auxiliary power turbines
• Turboprop aircraft engines
• They are used in processing industries (including refineries), natural-gas
processing, air liquefaction, and geothermal energy production.
TURBINE ANALYSIS
TURBINE ANALYSIS
• The velocity diagrams at the inlet and exit are shown in
the figure.
• For best efficiency, the inflow angle 2 is negative.
• But the blades at the inlet are typically radial.
• Since the blades operate in a high-temperature
environment and material strength diminishes as
temperature increases, radial blades can withstand the
imposed loads better than curved blades.
• It is for this reason that the blade angle at the inlet is set
at 2 = 0.
• The rotor turns the flow toward the axis as it passes
through the flow channel, so that its radial velocity is
zero at the exit and the absolute velocity is axial.
TURBINE ANALYSIS
• The velocity diagrams in the figure are similar to those
for centrifugal compressors, and at the exit the absolute
velocity is axial, as it is at the inlet of a compressor.
Work delivered by the turbine, if written in terms of
kinetic energies, is given by
• Increasing the inlet velocity V2 increases the work.
This is achieved by orienting the stator blades such that the flow
enters the rotor at a large nozzle angle α2
A small value for W2 increases the work, and this is obtained by directing the
relative velocity radially inward at the inlet.
The same reasoning leads to a design in which the exit velocity
V3 is axial and therefore as small as possible and in which the relative velocity
W3 is large.
TURBINE ANALYSIS
• Finally, a large U2 and a small U3 increase the work
delivered
Vu3 should be small and Vu2 large
Similarly, U2 should be large and U3 small, which means that the
ratio r2/r3 thought to be reasonably large.
Work could be increased by making Vu3 negative, but this would also
increase the absolute value of 3, and the exit relative Mach number
might become so large as to cause the flow to choke.
TURBINE ANALYSIS
• If the exit swirl is eliminated, the expression for work
becomes
TURBINE ANALYSIS
• If the exit kinetic energy is wasted (as is often the case), it is appropriate to
use the total-to-static efficiency as the proper measure of efficiency. It is
defined as
TURBINE ANALYSIS
If the relative flow is radially inward and there is no exit swirl,
the Euler turbine equation shows that w = U2
At the exit, in addition to being uniform, the axial velocity V3
should be small, so that the exit kinetic energy is small. Whatever
exit kinetic energy is left in the exit stream may be recovered in an
exit diffuser.
Ideally the exit diffuser would reduce the velocity to zero as the
flow enters the atmosphere.
For isentropic flow the work delivered in this situation is
Spouting Velocity
V0 is called a spouting velocity
The kinetic energy associated with the spouting velocity is a convenient replacement for
the maximum work that this turbine can deliver.
This equation can also be interpreted as defining what velocity would be reached in
a frictionless nozzle as the flow expands from pressure p01 to the it static pressure p3
The equation for work can now be written as
Spouting Velocity
If the relative flow entering the turbine is radial and there is no exit swirl, then, the
definition of total-to-static efficiency can be written as
EFFICIENCY
The total-to-static efficiency of a turbine is
with the thermodynamic states as shown in the figure. This
can be written as
If the turbine is fitted with a diffuser and its exit pressure
is p4
then, if the flow exhausts to the atmosphere, the pressure p4
is the atmospheric pressure and the small amount of
residual kinetic energy is lost into the atmosphere.
EFFICIENCY
• In this situation the pressure p3 is below the atmospheric
value.
• If the flow through this diffuser were reversible, then the
pressure p4 would correspond to the stagnation pressure
po3.
• In this case the appropriate efficiency to use is the total-to-
total efficiency.
• On the other hand, if the flow is not diffused and the flow
is exhausted to the atmosphere directly, then the exit
pressure p3 is the atmospheric pressure and the residual
kinetic energy is lost.
• In this case the efficiency is the total-to-static efficiency.
EFFICIENCY
The numerator can be rewritten as
EFFICIENCY
EFFICIENCY
Rotor loss coefficient Stator loss coefficient
