Experimental Study of Water Flow in Full-Size Test Rig for Water-Cooled Turbo-Generator Rotor

Abstract

The demand for electric power has doubled in the last decade. The most economical way to meet this demand is by building large-output generating units. The study of the major factors which determine the output of such generators shows that the only effective way to increase the output is by improving the cooling of their windings. For that reason design has progressed from air-cooling to indirect hydrogen-cooling, then to direct hydrogen-cooling. Now the trend is towards direct water-cooling where the water is in direct contact with the copper windings. The introduction of water into the stator winding was established in 1956 (1)† and was in fact directly responsible for the present increase in unit rating.

The introduction of water to a rotating winding presents difficult problems in both design and manufacture. The test rig dealt with in this paper was built to study some of these problems and to carry out experimental investigations on a full size model of the special hydraulic features for a water-cooled turbo-generator rotor. The investigations were concentrated around the following five different problems which are dealt with in detail: (1) increase in pressure drop due to rotation; (2) free-rotating seal (inlet seal) (2); (3) vacuum-breaking device (water outlet) (3); (4) loss-distribution in the rotor; (5) measurement of the rotor vibrations in various operating conditions.