Erosion Process of 66 MW Steam Turbine Rotor Blades

Apart from erosion of leading edges, erosion of the rotor blades trailing edges often occurs in condensing steam turbines, due to the impact of wet steam water droplets. Considerable erosion of the rotor blades trailing edges may be more dangerous for a reliable turbine operation than the leading edges erosion. During several years of research many results concerning erosion damage to the trailing edges of 66 MW condensing reduction steam turbine final stage rotor blades at the Thermoelectric power plant - heating plant (TE-TO) Zagreb have been gathered and are presented in this paper. Correlation between the erosion process behavior of the last stage turbine rotor blades trailing edges and the number of operating hours has been established.