Congratulations to Pascal Schröder on successfully defending his thesis

On September 21, 2026, Pascal Schröder successfully defended his thesis on the topic “Numerical Flow Analysis (CFD) of Steam Flow Behind Steam Control Valves Up to the Condensation Zone of a Heating Condenser Tube-Bundle Heat Exchanger”. The thesis was supervised by Dipl.-Ing. Valentin Scheffel (TU Dresden) and Dipl.-Ing. Lothar Schütze (SachsenEnergie). The responsible faculty advisor was Prof. Dr.-Ing. Michael Beckmann (TU Dresden).

As part of his thesis, Mr. Schröder investigated the flow and temperature conditions of live steam in a gas turbine power plant. The focus was on the path of the steam from the steam-regulating valves to its entry into the condensation zone of a newly designed startup preheater.

Using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and two numerical simulations in Ansys Fluent, the flow velocities and temperature distributions within the piping and the heating condenser—designed as a U-tube bundle heat exchanger—were analyzed. Particular attention was paid to the so-called steam shearing phenomenon and its influence on the temperature distribution and the thermal load on the heat exchanger.

Another focus was the investigation of flow velocities at the heat exchanger inlet. Excessively high local velocities can lead to vibrations—particularly in the area of the baffle—and thus to mechanical stress on the heat exchanger tubes. By varying different operating conditions and performing supplementary analytical calculations, Mr. Schröder was able to determine limit values for different operating modes and estimate potential capacity reserves of the start-up preheater for heat extraction.

The results provide significant insights for evaluating different operating modes and for the future design and further development of heat exchangers for heat extraction.

We warmly congratulate Pascal Schröder on this outstanding achievement and wish him all the best in his future endeavors.