A Model for Liquid Films in Steam Turbines and Preliminary Validations

Liquid films in steam turbines, present in usual operating conditions, play a large but poorly understood part in the wetness-born troubles (power losses and erosion). More knowledge is needed to estimate their impacts and lessen their effects. The aim of this paper is to propose and verify a model to predict these liquid films. This model is based on modified Shallow Water equations (integral formulation). It takes into account inertia, mass transfer, gravity, gas and wall frictions, pressure, surface tension, droplet impacts, rotational effects and is unsteady. A 2D code has been developed to implement this model. A part of the model has been verified with analytical solutions (Riemann problems and inclined lake at rest), has been confronted with the linear stability of falling liquid film and has been validated with the experiment of Hammitt et al. [1] which involves a sheared film under low-pressure steam turbine conditions.