Gas Turbine Electrical Power and Steam Generation at Allison Division of General Motors

Author(s):  
G. W. Bixler ◽  
H. J. Clifford

At the 1962 and 1964 ASME meetings, Allison submitted papers describing the possibilities of industrializing the T56 aircraft engine and the applications of the 501 gas turbine to industrial operations. Since 1964, Allison has been evaluating a prototype electrical power and steam generation set which has operated for approximately 20,000 hr. This paper describes the test program and the results obtained. Operating data from various engine configurations using natural gas and diesel fuel, four lubricating oils, two types of air-inlet filters, and a Harrison special high heat transfer rate exhaust gas steam boiler are also presented.

Author(s):  
Neal R. Herring ◽  
Stephen D. Heister

This study provides a review of the current state-of-the-art in compact heat exchangers and their application to gas turbine thermal management. Specifically, the challenges and potential solutions for a cooled cooling air system using the aircraft fuel as a heat sink were analyzed. As the sensible heat absorbed by the fuel in future engines is increased, the fuel will be exposed to increasingly hotter temperatures. This poses a number of design challenges for fuel-air heat exchangers. The most well known challenge is fuel deposition or coking. Another problem encountered at high fuel temperatures is thermo-acoustic oscillations. Thermo-acoustic oscillations have been shown to occur in many fluids when heated near the critical point, yet the mechanism of these oscillations is poorly understood. In some cases these instabilities have been strong enough cause failure in the thin walled tubes used in heat exchangers. For the specific application of a fuel-air heat exchanger, the advantages of a laminar flow device are discussed. These devices make use of the thermal entry region to achieve high heat transfer coefficients. To increase performance further, heat transfer enhancement techniques were reviewed and the feasibility for aerospace heat exchangers was analyzed. Two of the most basic techniques for laminar flow enhancement include tube inserts and swirl flow devices. Additionally, the effects of these devices on both coking and instabilities have been assessed.


2014 ◽  
Vol 472 ◽  
pp. 286-290
Author(s):  
Jing Long Du ◽  
Xiang Huang ◽  
Da Wei Tang

The direct steam generation (DSG) with parabolic collector is an attractive option regarding the economic improvement of parabolic technology for solar thermal electricity generation system. On the basis of theory analysis of flow and heat transfer mechanism in the DSG system, this paper presents the numerical simulation results of one 650 meters loop under different direct normal irradiation values, performance parameters such as water temperature, heat transfer coefficient and dryness of the fluid in the absorber pipe are obtained in the simulation results. This paper shows that fluids parameters are susceptible to the solar direct normal values , high heat transfer efficiency and sensitive control system are the key to ensure DSG systems stable operation.


Author(s):  
Gunnar Lagerstro¨m ◽  
Max Xie

Rekuperator Svenska AB owned by VOLVO Technology Transfer Corporation and Avesta Polarit, has successfully developed a completely laser welded recuperator for micro-gas turbine applications. Tests have shown that the thermal performance is very competitive. The recuperator was installed in a 100 kW(e) micro-gas turbine power plant for combined electricity and heat generation by a customer. The recuperator is a primary surface counter flow heat exchanger with cross corrugated duct configuration. The primary heat transfer surface plate patterns are stamped and a pair of the plates are laser welded to form an air cell. The air cells are then stacked and laser welded together to form the recuperator core which is tied between two end beams. Manifolds for air inlet and outlet as well as piping system are welded to the core. Through varying the number of air cells the recuperator core can easily be adapted for micro-gas turbine applications with different output rates of electrical power. The key manufacturing technologies are stamping of the air cell plates and laser welding of the air cells. These processes can be fully automated for mass production at low costs.


Author(s):  
Jian Liu ◽  
Safeer Hussain ◽  
Lei Wang ◽  
Gongnan Xie ◽  
Bengt Sundén ◽  
...  

A pocket cavity is generated at the connection of two parts, such as the transition part between the low pressure turbine (LPT) and outlet guide vane (OGV) in a gas turbine engine. A bluff body, working as a heat transfer enhancement part or supporting strength part, has tremendous engineering applications in turbomachinery. In the present work, the effect of the pocket on the heat transfer of endwall with a bluff body in the rear part of gas turbine is investigated. A simplified triangular pocket cavity is built in a rectangular channel and two bluff bodies, a cylinder or a cuboid is attached downstream on the endwall. The heat transfer and fluid flow on the endwall are investigated experimentally and numerically. Liquid Crystal Thermography (LCT) is employed to measure the heat transfer over the pocket surface with Reynolds number ranging from 87,597, to 218,994. The turbulent flow details are provided by numerically calculations based on the commercial software Fluent 17.0. Based on the results, high heat transfer areas are usually found at the boundary of the pocket cavity and vortex street shedding regions around the bluff body. When a pocket cavity is placed in the upstream of a bluff body, the endwall heat transfer around the bluff body is obviously decreased due to the disturbance by the pocket. There are no recirculating flows in front of the tested cylinder while this is not applicable for the cuboid case. The recirculating flow behind the bluff bodies forms a three-dimensional flow structure rotating in two directions.


Author(s):  
Arun Muley ◽  
Bengt Sunde´n

For high-speed micro gas turbine plants for electrical power and heat generation, a recuperator is needed to obtain a high thermal efficiency. The recuperator receives heat from the exhaust gas and preheats the compressor discharge air before it enters the combustion chamber. Such plants contribute to an ecological and environmentally friendly energy production. This paper considers recent advances in recuperator technology. Recent investigations have shown that with prime surfaces like corrugated wavy channels ones, it would be possible to attain high heat exchanger effectiveness without added weight penalty. However, with efficient heat transfer surfaces, the inlet/outlet manifolds design also become more important for the overall performance of the recuperator. Usually customers require recuperator with high effectiveness and low total pressure drop (within certain design requirements). Also, a request on compactness is commonly at hand. All these matters make recuperator an interesting and challenging device for thermal science investigation. A brief introduction and literature review is presented followed by discussion of recuperator thermal-hydraulic performance modeling and testing. Also surface selection procedure to achieve good balance between heat transfer and pressure drop is described. Other important topics such as material aspect and fabrication methods are also delineated.


Author(s):  
Cila Herman

The high heat transfer rates associated with phase-change processes, such as boiling, make them an attractive solution in a range of industrial operations. In terrestrial conditions, the buoyancy force is responsible for bubble removal from the surface, which is essential for heat removal from the surface. Since in space the gravity level is orders of magnitude smaller than on earth, bubbles formed during boiling remain attached at the surface and they also show a tendency to coalesce. As a result, the amount of heat removed from the heated surface is different from terrestrial conditions and it can decrease considerably.


Author(s):  
Weijie Wang ◽  
Shaopeng Lu ◽  
Hongmei Jiang ◽  
Qiusheng Deng ◽  
Jinfang Teng ◽  
...  

Numerical simulations are conducted to present the aerothermal performance of a turbine blade tip with cutback squealer rim. Two different tip clearance heights (0.5%, 1.0% of the blade span) and three different cavity depths (2.0%, 3.0%, and 6.0% of the blade span) are investigated. The results show that a high heat transfer coefficient (HTC) strip on the cavity floor appears near the suction side. It extends with the increase of tip clearance height and moves towards the suction side with the increase of cavity depth. The cutback region near the trailing edge has a high HTC value due to the flush of over-tip leakage flow. High HTC region shrinks to the trailing edge with the increase of cavity depth since there is more accumulated flow in the cavity for larger cavity depth. For small tip clearance cases, high HTC distribution appears on the pressure side rim. However, high HTC distribution is observed on suction side rim for large tip clearance height. This is mainly caused by the flow separation and reattachment on the squealer rims.


2011 ◽  
Vol 133 (05) ◽  
pp. 30-33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lee S. Langston

This article explores the increasing use of natural gas in different turbine industries and in turn creating an efficient electrical system. All indications are that the aviation market will be good for gas turbine production as airlines and the military replace old equipment and expanding economies such as China and India increase their air travel. Gas turbines now account for some 22% of the electricity produced in the United States and 46% of the electricity generated in the United Kingdom. In spite of this market share, electrical power gas turbines have kept a much lower profile than competing technologies, such as coal-fired thermal plants and nuclear power. Gas turbines are also the primary device behind the modern combined power plant, about the most fuel-efficient technology we have. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is developing a new J series gas turbine for the combined cycle power plant market that could achieve thermal efficiencies of 61%. The researchers believe that if wind turbines and gas turbines team up, they can create a cleaner, more efficient electrical power system.


Author(s):  
Jeffery P. Bindon

The pressure distribution in the tip clearance region of a 2D turbine cascade was examined with reference to unknown factors which cause high heat transfer rates and burnout along the edge of the pressure surface of unshrouded cooled axial turbines. Using a special micro-tapping technique, the pressure along a very narrow strip of the blade edge was found to be 2.8 times lower than the cascade outlet pressure. This low pressure, coupled with a thin boundary layer due to the intense acceleration at gap entry, are believed to cause blade burnout. The flow phenomena causing the low pressure are of very small scale and do not appear to have been previously reported. The ultra low pressure is primarily caused by the sharp flow curvature demanded of the leakage flow at gap entry. The curvature is made more severe by the apparent attachement of the flow around the corner instead of immediately separating to increase the radius demanded of the flow. The low pressures are intensified by a depression in the suction corner and by the formation of a separation bubble in the clearance gap. The bubble creates a venturi action. The suction corner depression is due to the mainstream flow moving round the leakage and secondary vortices.


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