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.

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.

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.

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%.

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 Keeping it Cool

2001 ◽  
Vol 123 (08) ◽  
pp. 48-52
Author(s):  
Michael Valenti
Keyword(s):  
Mass Flow ◽  
Gas Turbines ◽  
Cooling System ◽  
Air Cooling ◽  
Laser Scattering ◽  
Cooling Systems ◽  
Air Inlet ◽  
Turbine Efficiency ◽  
Air Turbine ◽  
Evaporative Cooling System

This article provides details of various aspects of air cooling technologies that can give gas turbines a boost. Air inlet cooling raises gas turbine efficiency, which is proportional to the mass flow of air fed into the turbine. The higher the mass flow, the greater the amount of electricity produced from the gas burned. Researchers at Mee Industries conduct laser scattering studies of their company’s fogging nozzles to determine if the nozzles project properly sized droplets for cooling. The goal for turbine air cooling systems is to reduce the temperature of inlet air from the dry bulb temperature, the ambient temperature, to the wet bulb temperature. The Turbidek evaporative cooling system designed by Munters Corp. of Fort Myers, Florida, is often retrofit to turbines, typically installed in front of pre-filters that remove particulates from inlet air. Turbine Air Systems designs standard chillers to improve the performance of the General Electric LM6000 and F-class gas turbines during the hottest weather.

Effect of New Blade Cooling System With Minimized Gas Temperature Dilution on Gas Turbine Performance

1984 ◽  
Vol 106 (4) ◽  
pp. 756-764 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. Kawaike ◽  
N. Kobayashi ◽  
T. Ikeguchi
Keyword(s):  
Gas Turbine ◽  
Cooling System ◽  
High Reliability ◽  
Pressure Ratio ◽  
Growth Potential ◽  
Inlet Temperature ◽  
Air Cooling ◽  
Cooling Systems ◽  
Blade Cooling ◽  
Turbine Performance

Recent developments in high-performance and high-reliability gas turbine engines necessitate enforced cooling to maintain the blade temperature at reasonably low levels associated with increased turbine inlet temperature and compressor pressure ratio. However, the gas turbine performance is strongly penalized by the consumption of cooling flow, resulting in temperature dilution of hot mainstream, aerodynamic mixing loss, and pumping power loss. In this paper, a new practical blade cooling system using state-of-the-art engineering, which aims at minimizing the dilution effect, is presented. Trade-off studies between performance and reliability in terms of blade metal temperature are performed to evaluate cooling systems. Analytical comparison of different cooling systems demonstrates that the proposed cooling system provides significant improvements in performance gain and growth potential over conventional air cooling systems.

Inlet Air Cooling Applied to Combined Cycle Power Plants: Influence of Site Climate and Thermal Storage Systems

2008 ◽  
Vol 130 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicola Palestra ◽  
Giovanna Barigozzi ◽  
Antonio Perdichizzi
Keyword(s):  
Power Output ◽  
Parametric Analysis ◽  
Power Plants ◽  
Cooling System ◽  
Thermal Storage ◽  
Combined Cycle ◽  
Operating Conditions ◽  
Air Cooling ◽  
Ambient Conditions ◽  
Cooling Systems

The paper presents the results of an investigation on inlet air cooling systems based on cool thermal storage, applied to combined cycle power plants. Such systems provide a significant increase of electric energy production in the peak hours; the charge of the cool thermal storage is performed instead during the night time. The inlet air cooling system also allows the plant to reduce power output dependence on ambient conditions. A 127MW combined cycle power plant operating in the Italian scenario is the object of this investigation. Two different technologies for cool thermal storage have been considered: ice harvester and stratified chilled water. To evaluate the performance of the combined cycle under different operating conditions, inlet cooling systems have been simulated with an in-house developed computational code. An economical analysis has been then performed. Different plant location sites have been considered, with the purpose to weigh up the influence of climatic conditions. Finally, a parametric analysis has been carried out in order to investigate how a variation of the thermal storage size affects the combined cycle performances and the investment profitability. It was found that both cool thermal storage technologies considered perform similarly in terms of gross extra production of energy. Despite this, the ice harvester shows higher parasitic load due to chillers consumptions. Warmer climates of the plant site resulted in a greater increase in the amount of operational hours than power output augmentation; investment profitability is different as well. Results of parametric analysis showed how important the size of inlet cooling storage may be for economical results.

Assessments of High-Efficient Regenerative Evaporative Cooler Effects on Desiccant Air Cooling Systems

2020 ◽  
Vol 142 (7) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hakan Caliskan ◽  
Dae-Young Lee ◽  
Hiki Hong
Keyword(s):  
Cooling System ◽  
Dew Point ◽  
Air Cooling ◽  
Sensible Heat ◽  
Cooling Systems ◽  
High Efficient ◽  
Air Cooling System ◽  
Evaporative Cooler ◽  
Effectiveness And Efficiency ◽  
And Performance

Abstract In this paper, the effects of regenerative evaporative coolers on the dry desiccant air cooling system are assessed. Thermodynamic analysis is performed point by point on the unmodified (ɛ = 0.67) and modified (ɛ = 1) regenerative evaporative cooler supported systems. It is found that the effectiveness and efficiency of the system were significantly increased by modification. Effectiveness of the system increases from 0.95 to 2.16 for the wet bulb and from 0.63 to 1.43 for dew point effectivenesses, while the exergy efficiency increases from 18.40% to 41.93%. Exergy and energy performances of the system increase 1.28 times and 0.61 times, respectively. Finally, sustainability is increased by 40% with the modification of the regenerative evaporative cooler. Also, changing the regenerative evaporative cooler of the solid desiccant wheel with the effective one can increase the overall system efficiency and performance without changing the sensible heat and desiccant wheels.

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.

Analysis of Running Energy Consumption of Fresh Air Cooling Systems

Solar Energy ◽  
2005 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jianing Zhao ◽  
Jun Guo ◽  
Weimeng Sun
Keyword(s):  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Total Energy ◽  
Cooling System ◽  
Air Cooling ◽  
Total Energy Consumption ◽  
Cooling Systems ◽  
Variable Air Volume ◽  
Air Volume ◽  
Air System ◽  
Different Seasons

Utilization of renewable energy becomes more and more attractive and crucial for sustainable buildings. A cooling system, using outdoor fresh air and combining with the conventional all-air system or running along during different seasons, is discussed in this study. Running energy consumption of this system is analyzed by a mathematical model using the Genetic Algorithm (GA) combined with the traditional Lagrange method. To evaluate and apply this new system, energy consumption of the chiller unit, water and air sub-systems, as well as the total energy consumption of such a system is compared with that of the conventional all-air system. Consequently, the total energy consumption is selected as the criterion of energy efficiency. The results show that the cooling system bears considerably energy efficient, and that it reduces energy consumption at least 14% and 12%, compared with the constant air volume and variable air volume system, respectively.

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