pressure staging

In engineering, "pressure staging" refers to a method used in turbines, particularly steam turbines, to efficiently convert thermal energy into mechanical energy. Because a single turbine stage can only extract a small portion of the available pressure drop, turbines use multiple stages. In pressure staging, steam expands through a series of impulse stages. Each stage consists of stationary nozzles that direct the steam onto moving blades, causing the rotor to turn. This process breaks down the overall pressure drop into smaller, manageable segments, allowing for efficient energy conversion and preventing prohibitively high steam velocities and blade stresses. This contrasts with velocity staging, where steam velocity is increased and then converted to mechanical energy over multiple blade sets within a single stage.12