Influence of Variable Geometry Transients on the Gas Turbine Performance

Author(s):  
Joa˜o Roberto Barbosa ◽  
Franco Jefferds dos Santos Silva ◽  
Jesuino Takachi Tomita ◽  
Cleverson Bringhenti

During the design of a gas turbine it is required the analysis of all possible operating points in the gas turbine operational envelope, for the sake of verification of whether or not the established performance might be achieved. In order to achieve the design requirements and to improve the engine off-design operation, a number of specific analyses must be carried out. This paper deals with the characterization of a small gas turbine under development with assistance from ITA (Technological Institute of Aeronautics), concerning the compressor variable geometry and its transient operation during accelerations and decelerations. The gas turbine is being prepared for the transient tests with the gas generator, whose results will be used for the final specification of the turboshaft power section. The gas turbine design has been carried out using indigenous software, developed specially to fulfill the requirements of the design of engines, as well as the support for validation of research work. The engine under construction is a small gas turbine in the range of 5 kN thrust / 1.2 MW shaft power, aiming at distributed power generation using combined cycle. The work reported in this paper deals with the variable inlet guide vane (VIGV) transients and the engine transients. A five stage 5:1 pressure ratio axial-flow compressor, delivering 8.1 kg/s air mass flow at design-point, is the basis for the study. The compressor was designed using computer programs developed at ITA for the preliminary design (meanline), for the axisymmetric analysis to calculate the full blade geometry (streamline curvature) and for the final compressor geometry definition (3-D RANS and turbulence models). The programs have been used interatively. After the final channel and blade geometry definition, the compressor map was generated and fed to the gas turbine performance simulation program. The transient study was carried out for a number of blade settings, using different VIGV geometry scheduling, giving indication that simulations needed to study the control strategy can be easily achieved. The results could not be validated yet, but are in agreement with the expected engine response when such configuration is used.

Author(s):  
João Roberto Barbosa ◽  
Cleverson Bringhenti ◽  
Jesuíno Takachi Tomita

A small 5-kN thrust gas turbine, designed and manufactured having in mind a thorough source of validation data, serves as basis for the study. The engine is an uncooled turbine, 5:1 pressure ratio axial flow compressor, delivering 8.1 kg/s air mass flow, whose control is made by a FADEC. Cold runs of the jet engine version have already been completed. The engine characteristics are being developed using the technology indicated in the paper. Accelerations and decelerations from idle to full power in a prescribed time interval and positive surge margin are the limitations imposed to the control system. In order to accomplish such requirements, a proportional, integral and derivative (PID) has been implemented to control the variable geometry transients, which proved to drive the engine to the required operating points. Compressor surge is avoided during accelerations or decelerations, imposing operation limits to the surge margin. In order to simulate a jet engine under transient operation, use was made of high-fidelity in-house developed software. The results presented in the paper are related to the compressor inlet guide vane (VIGV) transients. The engine transient calculations were predicted with the IGV settings varying with time, and the results are being used for the initial calibration of the transfer functions for the real time control.


Author(s):  
Cleverson Bringhenti ◽  
Jesuino Takachi Tomita ◽  
Joa˜o Roberto Barbosa

This work presents the performance study of a 1 MW gas turbine including the effects of blade cooling and compressor variable geometry. The axial flow compressor, with Variable Inlet Guide Vane (VIGV), was designed for this application and its performance maps synthesized using own high technological contents computer programs. The performance study was performed using a specially developed computer program, which is able to numerically simulate gas turbine engines performance with high confidence, in all possible operating conditions. The effects of turbine blades cooling were calculated for different turbine inlet temperatures (TIT) and the influence of the amount of compressor-bled cooling air was studied, aiming at efficiency maximization, for a specified blade life and cooling technology. Details of compressor maps generation, cycle analysis and blade cooling are discussed.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tao Wang ◽  
Yong-sheng Tian ◽  
Zhao Yin ◽  
Qing Gao ◽  
Chun-qing Tan

This paper proposes an inlet guide vane control law optimization technique for improving the off-design working condition thermal efficiency of triaxial gas turbine. Gas turbine dynamic and steady component-level simulation models are established in MATLAB/SIMULINK via Newton-Raphson algorithm based on component characteristic maps. After validating the models against experimental data and Gasturb software, they are applied to determine the effects of guide vane angle on gas turbine performance parameters. High Efficiency Mode (HEM) is utilized to adjust the power turbine inlet guide vanes to enhance the gas turbine efficiency and decrease the specific fuel consumption under off-design working conditions on account of the above gas turbine overall performance analysis results. The optimal angles of power turbine inlet guide vanes for various working conditions are acquired based on the steady gas turbine model as-established. HEM enhances the gas turbine’s thermal efficiency without exceeding its temperature or rotational speed constraints. The Radial Basis Function (RBF), a three-layer, feedforward neural network, is employed to fit the optimal guide vane angles and establish the corresponding relationship between the angles and various working conditions by system identification. The control strategy and gas turbine dynamic simulation model are tested in MATLAB/SIMULINK to verify their effects on gas turbine performance. The guide vane angle is found to significantly influence the gas turbine operating parameters, and HEM to effectively optimize gas turbine performance even within unpredictable atmospheric environment and working conditions.


Author(s):  
Sepehr Sanaye ◽  
Salahadin Hosseini

A novel procedure for finding the optimum values of design parameters of industrial twin-shaft gas turbines at various ambient temperatures is presented here. This paper focuses on being off design due to various ambient temperatures. The gas turbine modeling is performed by applying compressor and turbine characteristic maps and using thermodynamic matching method. The gas turbine power output is selected as an objective function in optimization procedure with genetic algorithm. Design parameters are compressor inlet guide vane angle, turbine exit temperature, and power turbine inlet nozzle guide vane angle. The novel constrains in optimization are compressor surge margin and turbine blade life cycle. A trained neural network is used for life cycle estimation of high pressure (gas generator) turbine blades. Results for optimum values for nozzle guide vane/inlet guide vane (23°/27°–27°/6°) in ambient temperature range of 25–45 ℃ provided higher net power output (3–4.3%) and more secured compressor surge margin in comparison with that for gas turbines control by turbine exit temperature. Gas turbines thermal efficiency also increased from 0.09 to 0.34% (while the gas generator turbine first rotor blade creep life cycle was kept almost constant about 40,000 h). Meanwhile, the averaged values for turbine exit temperature/turbine inlet temperature changed from 831.2/1475 to 823/1471°K, respectively, which shows about 1% decrease in turbine exit temperature and 0.3% decrease in turbine inlet temperature.


1982 ◽  
Vol 104 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
I. G. Rice

The reheat (RH) pressure can be appreciably increased by applying steam cooling to the gas-generator (GG) turbine blading which in turn allows a higher RH firing temperature for a fixed exhaust temperature. These factors increase gas turbine output and raise combined-cycle efficiency. The GG turbine blading will approach “uncooled expansion efficiency”. Eliminating cooling air increases the gas turbine RH pressure by 10.6 percent. When steam is used (injected) as the blade coolant, additional GG work is also developed which further increases the RH pressure by another 12.0 percent to yield a total increase of approximately 22.6 percent. The 38-cycle pressure ratio 2400° F (1316° C) TIT GG studied produces a respectable 6.5 power turbine expansion ratio. The higher pressure also noticeably reduces the physical size of the RH combustor. This paper presents an analysis of the RH pressure rise when applying steam to blade cooling.


Author(s):  
Thomas P. Schmitt ◽  
Herve Clement

Current trends in usage patterns of gas turbines in combined cycle applications indicate a substantial proportion of part load operation. Commensurate with the change in operating profile, there has been an increase in the propensity for part load performance guarantees. When a project is structured such that gas turbines are procured as equipment-only from the manufacturer, there is occasionally a gas turbine part load performance guarantee that coincides with the net plant combined cycle part load performance guarantee. There are several methods by which to accomplish part load gas turbine performance testing. One of the more common methods is to operate the gas turbine at the specified load value and construct correction curves at constant load. Another common method is to operate the gas turbine at a specified load percentage and construct correction curves at constant percent load. A third method is to operate the gas turbine at a selected load level that corresponds to a predetermined compressor inlet guide vane (IGV) angle. The IGV angle for this third method is the IGV angle that is needed to achieve the guaranteed load at the guaranteed boundary conditions. The third method requires correction curves constructed at constant IGV, just like base load correction curves. Each method of test and correction embodies a particular set of advantages and disadvantages. The results of an exploration into the advantages and disadvantages of the various performance testing and correction methods for part load performance testing of gas turbines are presented. Particular attention is given to estimates of the relative uncertainty for each method.


1992 ◽  
Vol 114 (2) ◽  
pp. 277-286 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Sehra ◽  
J. Bettner ◽  
A. Cohn

An aerodynamic design study to configure a high-efficiency industrial-size gas turbine compressor is presented. This study was conducted using an advanced aircraft engine compressor design system. Starting with an initial configuration based on conventional design practice, compressor design parameters were progressively optimized. To improve the efficiency potential of this design further, several advanced design concepts (such as stator ends bends and velocity controlled airfoils) were introduced. The projected poly tropic efficiency of the final advanced concept compressor design having 19 axial stages was estimated at 92.8 percent, which is 2 to 3 percent higher than the current high-efficiency aircraft turbine engine compressors. The influence of variable geometry on the flow and efficiency (at design speed) was also investigated. Operation at 77 percent design flow with inlet guide vanes and front five variable stators is predicted to increase the compressor efficiency by 6 points as compared to conventional designs having only the inlet guide vane as variable geometry.


Entropy ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (12) ◽  
pp. 1186 ◽  
Author(s):  
Muhammad Baqir Hashmi ◽  
Tamiru Alemu Lemma ◽  
Zainal Ambri Abdul Karim

Variable geometry gas turbines are susceptible to various malfunctions and performance deterioration phenomena, such as variable inlet guide vane (VIGV) drift, compressor fouling, and high inlet air temperatures. The present study investigates the combined effect of these performance deterioration phenomena on the health and overall performance of a three-shaft gas turbine engine (GE LM1600). For this purpose, a steady-state simulation model of the turbine was developed using a commercial software named GasTurb 12. In addition, the effect of an inlet air cooling (IAC) technique on the gas turbine performance was examined. The design point results were validated using literature results and data from the manufacturer’s catalog. The gas turbine exhibited significant deterioration in power output and thermal efficiency by 21.09% and 7.92%, respectively, due to the augmented high inlet air temperature and fouling. However, the integration of the inlet air cooling technique helped in improving the power output, thermal efficiency, and surge margin by 29.67%, 7.38%, 32.84%, respectively. Additionally, the specific fuel consumption (SFC) was reduced by 6.88%. The VIGV down-drift schedule has also resulted in improved power output, thermal efficiency, and the surge margin by 14.53%, 5.55%, and 32.08%, respectively, while the SFC decreased by 5.23%. The current model can assist in troubleshooting the root cause of performance degradation and surging in an engine faced with VIGV drift and fouling simultaneously. Moreover, the combined study also indicated the optimum schedule during VIGV drift and fouling for performance improvement via the IAC technique.


1983 ◽  
Vol 105 (4) ◽  
pp. 851-858 ◽  
Author(s):  
I. G. Rice

High-cycle pressure-ratio (38–42) gas turbines being developed for future aircraft and, in turn, industrial applications impose more critical disk and casing cooling and thermal-expansion problems. Additional attention, therefore, is being focused on cooling and the proper selection of materials. Associated blade-tip clearance control of the high-pressure compressor and high-temperature turbine is critical for high performance. This paper relates to the use of extracted steam from a steam turbine as a coolant in a combined cycle to enhance material selection and to control expansion in such a manner that the cooling process increases combined-cycle efficiency, gas turbine output and steam turbine output.


2005 ◽  
Vol 127 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-80 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paolo Chiesa ◽  
Giovanni Lozza ◽  
Luigi Mazzocchi

This paper addresses the possibility to burn hydrogen in a large size, heavy-duty gas turbine designed to run on natural gas as a possible short-term measure to reduce greenhouse emissions of the power industry. The process used to produce hydrogen is not discussed here: we mainly focus on the behavior of the gas turbine by analyzing the main operational aspects related to switching from natural gas to hydrogen. We will consider the effects of variations of volume flow rate and of thermophysical properties on the matching between turbine and compressor and on the blade cooling of the hot rows of the gas turbine. In the analysis we will take into account that those effects are largely emphasized by the abundant dilution of the fuel by inert gases (steam or nitrogen), necessary to control the NOx emissions. Three strategies will be considered to adapt the original machine, designed to run on natural gas, to operate properly with diluted hydrogen: variable guide vane (VGV) operations, increased pressure ratio, re-engineered machine. The performance analysis, carried out by a calculation method including a detailed model of the cooled gas turbine expansion, shows that moderate efficiency decays can be predicted with elevated dilution rates (nitrogen is preferable to steam under this point of view). The combined cycle power output substantially increases if not controlled by VGV operations. It represents an opportunity if some moderate re-design is accepted (turbine blade height modifications or high-pressure compressor stages addition).


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