Design and Operational Behavior of End Blades in Long Steam Turbines.

There are four major limiting factors in the design of steam turbine last row blades: Aerodynamics, tensile strength, inherent frequencies and erosion. An optimum compromise, subject to the close interaction of this set of problems, must be sought with the aid of computer programs. Experiments corroborate the results obtained. However, the chosen concept cannot be finally confirmed until a year's uninterrupted operation has taken place.