Recently, Prof. Yimin Li’s team from School of Low Carbon Energy and Power Engineering published a paper titled “The effect of the inlet steam superheat degree on the non-equilibrium condensation in steam turbine cascade” (DOI: 10.1063/5.0204924) in the prestigious international journal of fluid dynamics Physics of Fluids, which is sponsored by American Institute of Physics (AIP). Postdoctoral fellow of School of Low-Carbon Energy and Power Engineering, Liang Di, was the first author of the paper, and Associate Prof. Zhou Zhongning was the corresponding author.  The work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China as the General Program and by the Special Funds for the Fundamental Scientific Research Operating Costs of the Central Universities of CUMT.

Wet steam flow in the final stage blade of steam turbine is a very complex two-phase flow problem, and the study of non-equilibrium condensation in steam turbine has an important role in promoting the application of steam turbine dehumidification and water corrosion prevention, which has become a cutting-edge field of international fluid mechanics research in recent years. Prof. Li Yimin’s team has realized the non-equilibrium condensation calculation of wet steam in commercial software by embedding the non-equilibrium condensation mechanism of wet steam into the numerical calculation process of wet steam through the compilation of the C language, which achieved a better calculation accuracy. The paper investigated the effect of inlet steam superheat degree on nonequilibrium condensation by correcting the wet steam nonequilibrium condensation equation, including condensation location, condensation nucleation rate, droplet diameter and outlet humidity, and finally evaluated the lobe grid efficiency. The research results are of great significance for recognizing the non-equilibrium condensation phenomenon, and provide theoretical basis and technical support for dehumidification and water erosion prevention in steam turbines.

The research results were noticed by Alan Jeffrey Giacomin, editor-in-chief of the journal Physics of Fluids, president of the Canadian Society of Rheology, and professor at Queen’s University, Canada. The editorial team considered the paper noteworthy and listed this paper as an Editor’s Pick, and published it on the journal’s homepage.

It is reported that Prof. Li Yimin’s team has long been committed to the theory of internal flow theory and numerical simulation of impeller mechinery, which mainly involves the internal flow dynamics characteristics of impeller machinery, internal flow separation flow surface of impeller machinery and three-dimensional separation of the topological structure characteristics of the flow state and flow separation control and other fields.