| The stage performance improvement has been achieved by using advanced blading techniques including lean stator, airfoil curvature minimization, and exhaust hood geometry optimization. Stage CFD and exhaust hood CFD models have been accurately modeled in a two-phase environment and the equally important interactions existing among stator, rotor, and exhaust hood flow paths have been accounted. The effects of the flow properties at the stage exit plane was investigated through a exhaust hood CFD parametric study. The loss curves has been created by scaling the flow properties uniformly and calculating the hood loss associated with various values of flow rated averaged quantity at the hood inlet plane. |
