Abstract
The turbine efficiency is an important factor in power plant, and accurate evaluation of steam turbine performance is the key issue in turbo machinery industry. The difficulty of evaluating the steam turbine performance due to its high steam temperature and pressure environment makes the most steam turbine tests to be replaced by air similarity test. This paper presents how to decide the similarity conditions of the steam turbine test and describes its limitations and assumptions. The test facility was developed and arranged to conduct an air similarity turbine performance test with various inlet pressure, temperature and mass flow rate. The eddy-current type dynamometer measures the turbine-generated shaft power and controls the rotating speed. Pressure ratio of turbine can be controled by back pressure control valve. To verify its test results, uncertainty analysis was performed and relative uncertainty of turbine efficiency was obtained.
