Exceeding 2000 K at Turbine Inlet: Relative Cooling With Liquid for Gas Turbines — Integrated Systems

2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandu Constantin ◽  
Dan Brasoveanu
Keyword(s):  
Gas Turbine ◽  
Relative Motion ◽  
Thermal Efficiency ◽  
Gas Turbines ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
Cooling System ◽  
Ambient Air ◽  
Air Cooling ◽  
Cooling Systems ◽  
Turbine Inlet

Thermal efficiency of gas turbines is critically dependent on temperature of burnt gases at turbine inlet, the higher this temperature the higher the efficiency. Stochiometric combustion would provide maximum efficiency, but in the absence of an internal cooling system, turbine blades cannot tolerate gas temperatures exceeding 1300 K. This temperature yields a low thermal efficiency, about 15% below the level provide by stoicthiometric combustion. Conventional engines rely on air for blade and disk cooling and limit temperature at turbine inlet to about 1500 K. These engines gain about 3% compared to non-cooled designs. Gas turbines with state of the art air-cooling systems reach up to 1700–1750 K, boosting thermal efficiency by another 2–3%. These temperatures are near the limit allowed by air-cooling systems. Cooling systems with air are easier to design, but air has a low heat transfer capacity, and compressor air bleeding lowers the overall efficiency of engines (less air remains available for combustion). In addition, these systems waste most of the heat extracted from turbine for cooling. In principle, gas turbines could be cooled with liquid. Half a century ago, designers tried to place the pump for coolant recirculation on the engine stator. Liquid was allowed to boil inside the turbine. Seals for parts in relative motion cannot prevent loss of superheated vapors, therefore these experiments failed. To circumvent this problem, another design relied on thermal gradients to promote recirculation from blade tip to root. Liquid flow and cooling capacity were minute. Therefore it was assumed that liquid couldn’t be used for gas turbine cooling. This is an unwarranted assumption. The relative motion between engine stator and rotor provides abundant power for pumps placed on the rotor. The heat exchanger needed for cooling the liquid with ambient air could also be embedded in the rotor. In fact, the entire cooling system can be encapsulated within the rotor. In this manner, the sealing problem is circumvented. Compared to state of the art air-cooling methods, such a cooling system would increase thermal efficiency of any gas turbine by 6%–8%, because stoichimoetric fuel-air mixtures would be used (maybe even with hydrogen fuel). In addition, these systems would recuperate most of the heat extracted from turbine for cooling, are expected to be highly reliable and to increase specific power of gas turbines by 400% to 500%.

Relative Cooling With Liquid for Gas Turbines: Part I — A Solution for Exceeding 2000 K at Turbine Inlet

2001 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandu Constantin ◽  
Dan Brasoveanu
Keyword(s):  
Thermal Efficiency ◽  
Gas Turbines ◽  
Cooling System ◽  
Turbine Blades ◽  
Air Cooling ◽  
Liquid Cooling ◽  
Cooling Systems ◽  
Turbine Inlet ◽  
Cooling Methods ◽  
Current Operating

Abstract The thermal efficiency of gas turbines is critically dependent on the temperature of burnt gases at turbine inlet, the higher this temperature the higher the efficiency. Stochiometric combustion would provide maximum efficiency, but in the absence of an internal cooling system, turbine blades cannot tolerate gas temperatures that exceed 1300 K. Therefore, for this temperature, the thermal efficiency of turbine engine is 40% less than theoretical maximum. Conventional air-cooling techniques of turbine blades allow inlet temperatures of about 1500 K on current operating engines yielding thermal efficiency gains of about 6%. New designs, that incorporate advanced air-cooling methods allows inlet temperatures of 1750–1800 K, with a thermal efficiency gain of about 6% relative to current operating engines. This temperature is near the limit allowed by air-cooling systems. Turbine blades can be cooled with air taken from the compressor or with liquid. Cooling systems with air are easier to design but have a relatively low heat transfer capacity and reduce the efficiency of the engine. Some cooling systems with liquid rely on thermal gradients to promote re-circulation from the tip to the root of turbine blades. In this case, the flow and cooling of liquid are restricted. For best results, cooling systems with liquid should use a pump to re-circulate the coolant. In the past, designers tried to place this pump on the engine stator and therefore were unable to avoid high coolant losses because it is impossible to reliably seal the stator-rotor interface. Therefore it was assumed that cooling systems with liquid could not incorporate pumps. This is an unwarranted assumption as shown studying the system in a moving frame of reference that is linked to the rotor. Here is the crucial fact overlooked by previous designers. The relative motion of engine stator with respect to the rotor is sufficient to motivate a cooling pump. Both the pump and heat exchange system that is required to provide rapid cooling of liquid with cold ambient air, could be located within the rotor. Therefore, the entire cooling system can be encapsulated within the rotor and the sealing problem is circumvented. Compared to recent designs that use advanced air-cooling methods, such a liquid cooling system would increase the thermal efficiency by 8%–11% because the temperatures at turbine inlet can reach stoichiometric levels and most of the heat extracted from turbine during cooling is recuperated. The appreciated high reliability of the system will permit a large applicability in aerospace propulsion.

scholarly journals Cooling and Sealing Air System in Industrial Gas Turbine Engines

1996 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. W. Reichert ◽  
M. Janssen
Keyword(s):  
Gas Turbine ◽  
Film Cooling ◽  
Gas Turbines ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
Cooling System ◽  
Inlet Temperature ◽  
Turbine Inlet ◽  
Air System ◽  
Calculation System ◽  
Cooling Air

Siemens heavy duty Gas Turbines have been well known for their high power output combined with high efficiency and reliability for more than 3 decades. Offering state of the art technology at all times, the requirements concerning the cooling and sealing air system have increased with technological development over the years. In particular the increase of the turbine inlet temperature and reduced NOx requirements demand a highly efficient cooling and sealing air system. The new Vx4.3A family of Siemens gas turbines with ISO turbine inlet temperatures of 1190°C in the power range of 70 to 240 MW uses an effective film cooling technique for the turbine stages 1 and 2 to ensure the minimum cooling air requirement possible. In addition, the application of film cooling enables the cooling system to be simplified. For example, in the new gas turbine family no intercooler and no cooling air booster for the first turbine vane are needed. This paper deals with the internal air system of Siemens gas turbines which supplies cooling and sealing air. A general overview is given and some problems and their technical solutions are discussed. Furthermore a state of the art calculation system for the prediction of the thermodynamic states of the cooling and sealing air is introduced. The calculation system is based on the flow calculation package Flowmaster (Flowmaster International Ltd.), which has been modified for the requirements of the internal air system. The comparison of computational results with measurements give a good impression of the high accuracy of the calculation method used.

Relative Cooling: Part II — Design Considerations and Efficiency

2001 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandu Constantin ◽  
Dan Brasoveanu
Keyword(s):  
Gas Turbine ◽  
Thermal Efficiency ◽  
Cooling System ◽  
High Reliability ◽  
Difficult Problem ◽  
Turbine Engines ◽  
Air Cooling ◽  
Gas Turbine Engines ◽  
Coolant Pump ◽  
Cooling Systems

Abstract Cooling systems with liquid for gas turbine engines that use the relative motion of the engine stator with respect to the rotor for actuating the coolant pump can be encapsulated within the engine rotor. In this manner, the difficult problem of sealing stator/rotor interfaces at high temperature, pressure and relative velocity is circumvented. A first generation of such cooling systems could be manufactured using existing technologies and would boost the thermal efficiency of gas turbine engines by more than 2% compared to recent designs that use advanced air-cooling methods. Later, relative cooling systems could increase the thermal efficiency of gas turbine engines by 8%–11% by boosting the temperatures at turbine inlet to stoichiometric levels and recovering most of the heat extracted from turbine during cooling. The appreciated high reliability of this cooling system will allow widespread use for aerospace propulsion.

Recognising the Viability of Cooling Gas Turbine Inlet Air in Colder Regions by Using Low Pressure Fogging Techniques

2002 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Confurius
Keyword(s):  
Ambient Temperature ◽  
Gas Turbine ◽  
Gas Turbines ◽  
Cooling System ◽  
Low Pressure ◽  
Air Cooling ◽  
Turbine Inlet ◽  
The World

The profits that can be gained by use of inlet air cooling on gas turbines has been recognised for quite some time now and the systems installed throughout the world have shown the users in the gas turbine field that cooling indeed can be used to boost power at times when the ambient temperature reaches or exceeds the ISO rating temperature of the gas turbine. Drawback however being that the initial investment asked of the gas turbine user is rather large thus only justifying a cooling system in regions where the outdoor temperatures exceed the ISO rating time and again due to the climate in that region. Lately gas turbine users in colder climates have become interested in power augmentation during their short summer, however there is no justification for an investment like necessary when installing one of the presently available systems on the market. As the question reached us from more and more of our clients it stimulated us to go out and search for a low-investment solution to this problem. This resulted in the world’s first low pressure gas turbine inlet cooling system.

scholarly journals Innovative Turbine Intake Air Cooling Systems and Their Rational Designing

Energies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (23) ◽  
pp. 6201
Author(s):  
Andrii Radchenko ◽  
Eugeniy Trushliakov ◽  
Krzysztof Kosowski ◽  
Dariusz Mikielewicz ◽  
Mykola Radchenko
Keyword(s):  
Gas Turbines ◽  
Maximum Rate ◽  
Cooling System ◽  
Ambient Air ◽  
Cooling Capacity ◽  
Climatic Conditions ◽  
Air Cooling ◽  
Thermal Loads ◽  
Cooling Systems ◽  
Air Cooling System

The efficiency of cooling ambient air at the inlet of gas turbines in temperate climatic conditions was analyzed and reserves for its enhancing through deep cooling were revealed. A method of logical analysis of the actual operation efficiency of turbine intake air cooling systems in real varying environment, supplemented by the simplest numerical simulation was used to synthesize new solutions. As a result, a novel trend in engine intake air cooling to 7 or 10 °C in temperate climatic conditions by two-stage cooling in chillers of combined type, providing an annual fuel saving of practically 50%, surpasses its value gained due to traditional air cooling to about 15 °C in absorption lithium-bromide chiller of a simple cycle, and is proposed. On analyzing the actual efficiency of turbine intake air cooling system, the current changes in thermal loads on the system in response to varying ambient air parameters were taken into account and annual fuel reduction was considered to be a primary criterion, as an example. The improved methodology of the engine intake air cooling system designing based on the annual effect due to cooling was developed. It involves determining the optimal value of cooling capacity, providing the minimum system sizes at maximum rate of annual effect increment, and its rational value, providing a close to maximum annual effect without system oversizing at the second maximum rate of annual effect increment within the range beyond the first maximum rate. The rational value of design cooling capacity provides practically the maximum annual fuel saving but with the sizes of cooling systems reduced by 15 to 20% due to the correspondingly reduced design cooling capacity of the systems as compared with their values defined by traditional designing focused to cover current peaked short-term thermal loads. The optimal value of cooling capacity providing the minimum sizes of cooling system is very reasonable for applying the energy saving technologies, for instance, based on the thermal storage with accumulating excessive (not consumed) cooling capacities at lowered current thermal loads to cover the peak loads. The application of developed methodology enables revealing the thermal potential for enhancing the efficiency of any combustion engine (gas turbines and engines, internal combustion engines, etc.).

scholarly journals Performance Improvements of a Natural Gas Injection Station Using Gas Turbine Inlet Air Cooling

1997 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maurizio De Lucia ◽  
Ennio Carnevale ◽  
Massimo Falchetti ◽  
Alberto Tesei
Keyword(s):  
Gas Turbine ◽  
Performance Enhancement ◽  
Cooling System ◽  
Lithium Bromide ◽  
Capital Outlay ◽  
Air Cooling ◽  
Cooling Systems ◽  
Performance Improvements ◽  
Turbine Inlet ◽  
Air Cooling System

Gas Turbine (GT) performance seriously deteriorates at increased ambient temperature. This study analyses the possibility of improving GT power output and efficiency by installing a gas turbine inlet air cooling system. Different cooling systems were analyzed and preliminary cost evaluations for each system were carried out. The following three cooling systems were considered in detail: a) Traditional compression cooling system; b) Absorption single-acting cooling system using a solution of lithium bromide; c) Absorption double-acting cooling system using a solution of lithium bromide. Results clearly indicate that there is a great potential for GT performance enhancement by application of an Inlet Air Cooling (IAC). Technical and economical analyses lead to selection of a particular type of IAC for significant savings in capital outlay, operational and maintenance costs and other additional advantages.

Applications of Gas Turbine Plants With Cooled Compressor Intake Air

2001 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. Kakaras ◽  
A. Doukelis ◽  
J. Scharfe
Keyword(s):  
Gas Turbine ◽  
Gas Turbines ◽  
Cooling System ◽  
Ambient Air ◽  
Climatic Conditions ◽  
Air Cooling ◽  
Iso Standard ◽  
Air Temperatures ◽  
Air Cooling System ◽  
Alternative Scenarios

The operation of gas turbines at ambient air temperatures higher than the ISO standard conditions (15°C) causes performance penalties both in the generated power and the efficiency of the engine. At high inlet-air temperatures, there can be a power loss of more than 20% combined with a significant increase in specific fuel consumption, compared to the ISO standard conditions. Thus, over a long period of time, gas turbines have a lower power output and efficiency than the equipment could actually perform. It is the purpose of this work to present the possibilities and advantages from the integration of an innovative air-cooling system for reducing the gas turbine intake-air temperature. The advantages of this system are demonstrated by examining alternative scenarios of usage, representative of different countries and different climatic conditions.

Relative Cooling System: Design and Efficiency

2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandu Constantin ◽  
Dan Brasoveanu
Keyword(s):  
Thermal Efficiency ◽  
Gas Turbines ◽  
First Generation ◽  
Cooling System ◽  
High Reliability ◽  
Weight Ratio ◽  
Difficult Problem ◽  
Air Cooling ◽  
Cooling Systems ◽  
Aerospace Applications

Cooling systems with liquid for gas turbines that use the relative motion of engine stator with respect to rotor have been called relative cooling systems. This motion actuates the pump for liquid recirculation and the system is encapsulated within the engine rotor. In this manner, the difficult problem of sealing stator/rotor interfaces at high temperature, pressure and relative velocity is circumvented. A first generation of such systems could be manufactured using existing technologies and would boost thermal efficiency of gas turbines by more than 3% compared to the most advanced air-cooling engines. In the end, relative systems would boost temperatures at turbine inlet to stoichiometric levels and therefore increase thermal efficiency of gas turbines by about 8%. Such systems would recover most heat extracted from turbine for cooling and increase the power to size and power to weight ratio of all gas turbines. The appreciated high reliability of this cooling relies on encapsulation within the rotor and will allow widespread use in both ground and aerospace applications.

scholarly journals Gas Turbine Inlet Air Cooling System With Liquid Air

1998 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. Tanaka ◽  
A. Ishikawa ◽  
K. Aoyama ◽  
K. Kishimoto ◽  
Y. Yoshida ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Gas Turbine ◽  
Performance Test ◽  
Cooling System ◽  
Ambient Air ◽  
Air Cooling ◽  
Test Results ◽  
Turbine Inlet ◽  
Compressor Inlet ◽  
Air Cooling System ◽  
Turbine Capacity

Gas turbine performance, especially power output and efficiency, is strongly dependent on ambient air temperature. Gas Turbine Inlet Air Cooling (GTIAC) has the effect of enhancing gas turbine capacity during peak hours in summer season. This paper presents an unique GTIAC system with liquid air, which will produce and store liquid air during off peak periods and spray it directly into the compressor inlet during peak hours. In the summer of 1996, an experimental study using a 150MW base load gas turbine was successfully performed on Chita Power Station to prove this new GTIAC performance. Test results show that the new GTIAC has a big advantage of increasing gas turbine capacity flexibly and economically for peak demands or emergencies.

Inlet Fogging of Gas Turbine Engines: Part A — Theory, Psychrometrics and Fog Generation

2000 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cyrus B. Meher-Homji ◽  
Thomas R. Mee
Keyword(s):  
Gas Turbine ◽  
Air Temperature ◽  
Gas Turbines ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
Ambient Air ◽  
Process Industry ◽  
Turbine Engines ◽  
Gas Turbine Engines ◽  
Strong Function ◽  
Turbine Output

Gas Turbine output is a strong function of the ambient air temperature with power output dropping by 0.3–0.5 % for every 1°F rise in ambient temperature. This loss in output presents a significant problem to utilities, cogenerators and IPPs when electric demands are high during the hot months. In the petrochemical and process industry, the reduction in output of mechanical drive gas turbines curtails plant output. One way to counter this drop in output is to cool the inlet air. The paper contrasts the traditional evaporative cooling technique with direct inlet fogging. The state of the art relating to fog generation and psychrometrics of inlet fogging are described.

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