Calculated Design Data for the Multiple-Disk Turbine Using Incompressible Fluid

Abstract

Earlier analyses of the laminar radially inward throughflow of Newtonian incompressible fluid between parallel corotating disks have been used to calculate the performance of multiple-disk turbines using such flow passages as the rotor. Such turbines are characterized by certain dimensionless parameters and a large number of computerized calculations has enabled preparation of turbine performance maps for turbines idealized as having no losses external to the rotor (except for assumed zero pressure recovery in the turbine exhaust). These maps show the quantitative dependence of turbine efficiency, total pressure and delivered power on the turbine geometry and speed, the turbine nozzle direction and pressure drop, and on the fluid properties; full admission around the periphery of the rotor is assumed. Conventional loss information for the nozzles, and conventional bearing, seal and “disk friction” loss information, must be applied in the design process to provide prediction of actual turbine performance and comparison with conventional turbines.