Abbey Pumping Station - Brush Ljungstrom turbine

Image: © Chris Allen Taken: 4 Dec 2011

Preserved in the museum grounds is this important example of a class of turbine that has now been passed by. The vast majority of turbines pass the steam through sets of blades arranged along the long axis of the machine - axial flow. Very large turbines can be made this way - 1700MW or more. The Ljungstrom turbines passes the steam radially, perpendicular to the long axis, from centre to periphery through blades arranged in rings on two contra-rotating, interleaved rotors. Each rotor drives an alternator and these would be synchronised together to keep a constant speed. This is a small example of 1MW and the design was physically constrained to no more than about 50MW (with axial terminal stages). The Museum of Science & Industry in Manchester had one on display with the top cover off and the museum store in Swansea has a loose rotor assembly. Unfortunately the Manchester Museum closed its electricity gallery in 2016 - a sad loss. This one was built under license by Brush at Loughborough in 1914 and used in Loughborough power station.

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