A method of diagnosing labyrinth seals in fluid-flow machines

Steam turbines constitute fluid flow machines which are used for driving engines of power plants, merchant and naval ships. They are commonly applied in power industry to driving electric generators. One of the impotant elements which affect efficiency of steam turbines used in power industry and for ship propulsion is state of labyrinth sealings whose aim is to minimize losses associated with steam leakage within turbine casing. Until now to assess state of labyrinth sealings has been only possible after stopping the turbine and its dismantling in order to determine values of clearances in the sealings. This paper presents a method which makes it possible to assess state of labyrinth sealings without the necessity of stopping and dismantling the machine. This is the method which allows to assess on-line state of machine sealings during its operation.