Analysis of the Oil & Gas market segment showed that potential MS5002E customers could benefit from firing the gas turbine with distillate oil as a back-up fuel, mainly to provide power when the fuel gas is not available (e.g. when the plant itself is being commissioned). To address this customer need, the design of a dual fuel system for such mission should target simplicity, reliability and minimize the additional cost with respect to the single gas version. To achieve these targets, the development of the dual fuel system for the MS5002E leveraged the efforts made by GE for the design of a liquid fuel system for Frame 9F-1 series with no need of atomization air. Moreover, the emission capability during liquid fuel operation was enhanced allowing the mixing of water and fuel before injection in the combustion chamber and using of improved injection technology, thus improving the efficiency of water injection with a significant reduction in the required water flow rates; the importance of this achievement is related to both the increasingly stringent regulation on this subject and the often poor availability of water in the Oil & Gas market segment. The system is capable of continuous operation without water injection for applications where emissions are not critical; in these cases a small amount of demineralized water is employed occasionally for fuel line cooling and flushing, thus helping to guarantee constant performances of the injectors, and to maintain liquid fuel start-up capability over time.
This paper presents the expected performance, in terms of ignition capability, emissions, operability and expected hardware durability on LF/water-fuel emulsion operation, based on a single can rig test campaign. The new liquid fuel cartridges were tested from ignition to base load at ISO and extreme simulated ambient conditions, both with and without water injection, showing promising performance in terms of combustor operability and emissions. All the combustor components were instrumented with thermocouples to assess variations in the hardware thermal levels with respect to the single gas conditions, and identify possible issues related to the transient and steady-state liquid fuel operation. Further development and testing will be carried out in the next phases of the development, and the performance will be confirmed by a dedicated engine test at the first commercial opportunity.