Abstract
This paper describes an experimental analysis for improving the stability of blade failure due to the vibration resonance, which happens in the low-pressure steam turbine. Some cracks due to high cycle fatigue were found in the blades of a low-pressure turbine after long time operation. Impact test showed that such failure was mainly caused by the resonance. In other words, since one of the natural frequencies of the grouped blade is very close to the excitation frequency of the nozzle, the resonant vibration leads to a large amplitude of displacement and results in a large amount of stress that may cause fatigue failures in the blades. It is interesting that the blade failures occur only at blades neighboring with the nodal points of the natural vibration mode whose natural frequency is close to the nozzle passing frequency. The effective methods for increasing the reliability against the blade vibration are a heightening the fatigue limit of the blade using an advanced material and a removing the resonance away from the operating speed. It is well known that the removal of theresonance could be obtained by the installation of different types of shrouds, wires, and links between the blades as well as by the chance of the number of nozzles. In the present work, two kinds of modification for avoiding the resonance haute been considered; 1) slot-type finger, 2) long span cover. Full-scale mockup tests have been performed in order to confirm the verification for modification in the shop. Test results show that the use of long span cover is very useful to change the natural frequencies of the grouped blade and to avoid the resonance effectively.
