Possible Causes of LP Turbine Rotor and Diaphragm pitting and

erosion:
During the strip down of LP turbine in Unit 2 outage 2017, pitting on stage 17 and 18 are
detected on rotor and diaphragms along with the damages of blades due to erosion
possibly due to the moisture in those stages.
It is important to note that stage 19 and later stages were not damaged as were the
stage 17 and 18.

Process Flow of LP turbine:

The process flow of LP turbine is such that this turbine receives the steam from IP
turbine exhaust. IP exhaust also goes to deaerator through two NRVs to avoid back flow
when turbine is at vacuum. While the steam coming into LP turbine goes through 17 to 21
stages into the condenser where expansion takes place. Bleed streams are extracted
from 17th stage for LP heater 4, 18th for LP heater 3, 19th for LP heater 2 and 20th and 21st
are for LP heater 1.
When flowing into LP heater 4 and 3 the steam pass through NRVs and steam traps.
There is also a drain MOV before NRVs to drain any liquid left in the line to avoid any
condensed steam to remain in turbine.

Possible Causes:
1. Back flow from LP heaters due to passing NRVs can be expected during the
shutdown or during the over flow of the heaters which is prevented by NRV so
that turbine rotors are not be damaged by the condensed steam.

Bled steam from stage 18 to Bled steam from stage 17 to

LP3 heater NRV LP3
LP4 heater

NRV LP4

Drain to condenser MOV

Steam Trap Drain MOV
Steam Trap
 During the strip down of NRV 3 and NRV 4 following checks are performed and
found satisfactory.

NRV Stripdown Checks Result

Spindle assembly dimension check Satisfactory
Disc dimension check Satisfactory
Joint Gap Measurement Satisfactory
Joint Crush Measurement Satisfactory
Seat contact area Satisfactory
NDT record sheet Satisfactory
Valve spindle TFT Satisfactory
Arm to shaft positioning Satisfactory
Disc runout check Satisfactory

Di penetrant test was performed by Qualtech NDE inspectors on disc to find any
possible cracks and no serious cracks was found on either disc or seat surface.

2. Malfunctioning moisture separators or reheater. Such a malfunction can be

caused by mechanical damage to the chevron plates in a moisture separator
drains level control problems. No matter what the actual cause of the malfunction
is it results in an increased wetness of the steam in the whole LP turbine.
3. Significant reduction in extraction steam flow. Since extraction steam
contributes to moisture removal from the turbine this results in somewhat
increased wetness of turbine steam.
4. Clogged turbine drains. This results in increased moisture content of steam in the
downstream stages clogged turbine drains can result in accumulation of water at
the casing bottom. Since the accumulated water impedes heat flow from steam
to the casing, the latter gets somewhat cooler, and therefore shrinks accordingly.
The resultant humping deformation of the whole casing can be large enough to
cause rubbing and increased turbine vibration.
5. Back flow from the Deaerator along with air ingress after passing through NRVs
can also be the cause of the pitting.
6. Abnormally high moisture content of steam at the HP turbine inlet. Poor
operation of the main steam pipelines between the boiler and the HP turbine can
be another reason. It can be caused by malfunctioning steam traps and/or drain
valves, or excessive steam condensation in the pipelines