Aerodynamic Optimization of the Radial Inflow Turbine for a 100kW-Class Micro Gas Turbine Based on Metamodel-Semi-Assisted Method

Author(s):  
Shuai Shao ◽  
Qinghua Deng ◽  
Zhenping Feng

In this paper, an aerodynamic optimization of the radial inflow turbine for a 100kW-class micro gas turbine is conducted based on the metamodel-semi-assisted idea. The idea is applied by first using the metamodel as a rapid exploration tool and then switching to the accurate optimization without metamodel for further exploration of the design space [1]. The non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA-II) is used to drive the optimization process and the BP neural network is used to construct the metamodel. The optimization of this radial inflow turbine is divided into two parts, the stator optimization and the rotor optimization. The stator optimization is based on the accurate optimization strategy. The minimum total pressure loss of the stator and the maximum isentropic total-to-static efficiency of the stage are considered as the objective functions with constant mass flow rate as a constraint. The rotor optimization is conducted through the metamodel-semi-assisted idea. The maximum power output and isentropic total-to-static efficiency of the stage are considered as objective functions while keeping the mass flow rate to be constant. The accurate optimization system is demonstrated to be effective for the stator optimization, and the total pressure loss is reduced by 11.6% while the mass flow rate variation is less than 1%. The rotor optimization is conducted based on the metamodel-semi-assisted optimization and the results confirm the effectiveness of this new idea. The output power of the rotor increased by 1.5%, the isentropic total-to-static efficiency of the stage increased by 1.19% and the mass flow variation is less than 1%.

Author(s):  
C. Buratto ◽  
A. Carandina ◽  
M. Morini ◽  
C. Pavan ◽  
M. Pinelli ◽  
...  

In this paper, a test rig for experimentation on a micro gas turbine is presented. The test rig consists of a micro gas turbine Solar T-62T-32, which, coupled with a 50 kVA alternator, can supply electrical energy to a calibrated resistive load bank. Particular attention is paid to the design of the inlet duct for the mass flow rate measurement. The basic issue was to create the intake duct for a micro gas turbine (MGT) test rig, in order to provide precise data about the mass flow rate and the thermodynamic air characteristics in the MGT inlet section. The inlet duct is also designed in order to allow future tests on inlet cooling technologies. The MGT is incorporated in a chassis for noise reduction, the dimensions of which are 540 mm (height), 570 mm (width) and 940 mm (length). These small dimensions lead to problems with the insertion of the duct. Moreover, the intake of the compressor is not axial but radial, and this means that a volute must be foreseen to convey the flux into the MGT. Several shapes of volute are analyzed in this paper, considering the effects on the pressure loss and the induction of turbulence. The challenge was to develop a fluid-dynamically efficient duct with the hindrance of a very small available space between the compressor casing, the gearbox and the fuel pipes inside the narrow noise-reduction chassis. The mass flow rate will be computed by means of the differential static pressure between the upstream and the downstream section of a Venturi tube. The choice of a Venturi was due to the fact that it produces a pressure loss lower than any other device, such as orifice plates or other nozzle shapes. Furthermore, the expected mass flow rate would lead to high fluid speeds and, as a consequence, the diameter ratio between the duct and the throat of the Venturi was chosen to be as high as possible.


Author(s):  
Balbina Hampel ◽  
Stefan Bauer ◽  
Norbert Heublein ◽  
Christoph Hirsch ◽  
Thomas Sattelmayer

In recent years, renewable energy technologies have received increasing attention. However, the constant availability of renewable energies is not predictable, so that technologies for excess energy storage become increasingly important. One possibility for the technical implementation of such a storage technology is to bind hydrogen, produced using this excess energy, to liquid organic compounds, so-called Liquid Organic Hydrogen Carriers (LOHC), where hydrogen is bound to a H2-lean LOHC molecule in an exothermal hydrogenation reaction. The dehydrogenation process releases the stored hydrogen in an endothermal reaction. This technology offers advantages such as storage and transport safety, along with the high energy density. LOHC systems can assist in the realization of future distributed energy supply networks, as well. Micro gas turbines (MGT) play an important role in distributed energy supply, so that the coupling of a hydrogen fueled MGT with a reactor for the dehydrogenation process is a desirable achievement. In such a combined system, the excess exhaust enthalpy can be used to maintain the endothermal dehydrogenation reaction without affecting the overall efficiency of the gas turbine. This paper investigates the feasibility of a direct coupling between a hydrogen fueled recuperated micro gas turbine and the dehydrogenation process using the excess exhaust heat. For this purpose, a numerical simulation based on energy balances and thermodynamic equilibrium is implemented to model the process. Primary criteria for the evaluation of the process feasibility are the MGTs exhaust gas temperature, the exhaust gas mass flow rate, and the LOHC mass flow rate through the dehydrogenation unit. These three parameters specify the mass flow rate of LOHC, which can be dehydrogenated and thus, the mass flow rate of released hydrogen. Using the implemented numerical model, the suitability of two different LOHCs, N-Ethylcarbazole and an industrial heat transfer oil is investigated at two different pressure levels with respect to thermodynamic feasibility and process efficiency. The results show that the usable excess enthalpy in the exhaust gas of the investigated Turbec T100 MGT is sufficient to release enough hydrogen for re-use as fuel in the micro turbine process for three of the four investigated cases.


Author(s):  
Massimiliano Renzi ◽  
Carlo Caligiuri ◽  
Mosè Rossi

In this work, the performances of a 100 kW Micro Gas Turbine (MGT) fed by Natural Gas (NG) and three different biomass-derived Synthesis Gases (SGs) have been assessed using a MATLAB® simulation algorithm. The set of equations in the algorithm includes the thermodynamic transformations of the working fluid in each component, the performance maps that describe the turbomachines’ isentropic efficiencies and pressure ratios as a function of the reduced mass flow rate and the reduced rotational speed, the performance and the pressure losses in each component, as well as the consumption of the other auxiliary devices. The electric power output, achieved using SGs, turns out to be lower or higher with respect to the one produced with the NG, depending on the fuel Lower Heating Value (LHV) but also largely on the variation of the working fluid composition. In this work, the effect of the steam injection on the MGT performance characteristics has been also investigated. Steam injection allows to obtain higher power and efficiencies using both NG and SGs at the rated rotational speed, mainly thanks to the increase of the turbine enthalpy drop and the reduction of the compressor consumption. Attention must be paid to the risk of the compressor stall, especially when using SGs, as the mass flow rate processed by the compressor decreases significantly. Moreover, another advantage of adopting the steam injection technique lies in the increased flexibility of the system: according to the users’ needs, the discharged heat can be exploited to generate steam, thus to enhance the electric performances, or to supply thermal power.


Author(s):  
Brian M. T. Tang ◽  
Marko Bacic ◽  
Peter T. Ireland

This paper presents a computational investigation into the impact of cooling air injected through the stationary over-tip turbine casing on overall turbine efficiency. The high work axial flow turbine is representative of the high pressure turbine of a civil aviation turbofan engine. The effect of active modulation of the cooling air is assessed, as well as that of the injection locations. The influence of the through-casing coolant injection on the turbine blade over-tip leakage flow and the associated secondary flow features are examined. Transient (unsteady) sliding mesh simulations of a one turbine stage rotor-stator domain are performed using periodic boundary conditions. Cooling air configurations with a constant total pressure air supply, constant mass flow rate and actively controlled total pressure supply are assessed for a single geometric arrangement of cooling holes. The effects of both the mass flow rate of cooling air and the location of its injection relative to the turbine rotor blade are examined. The results show that all of the assessed cooling configurations provided a benefit to turbine row efficiency of between 0.2 and 0.4 percentage points. The passive and constant mass flow rate configurations reduced the over-tip leakage flow, but did so in an inefficient manner, with decreasing efficiency observed with increasing injection mass flow rate beyond 0.6% of the mainstream flow, despite the over-tip leakage mass flow rate continuing to reduce. By contrast, the active total pressure controlled injection provided a more efficient manner of controlling this leakage flow, as it permitted a redistribution of cooling air, allowing it to be applied in the regions close to the suction side of the blade tip which more directly reduced over-tip leakage flow rates and hence improved efficiency. Cooling air injected close to the pressure side of the rotor blade was less effective at controlling the leakage flow, and was associated with increased aerodynamic loss in the passage vortex.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raghuvaran D. ◽  
Satvik Shenoy ◽  
Srinivas G

Abstract Axial flow fans (AFF) are extensively used in various industrial sectors, usually with flows of low resistance and high mass flow rates. The blades, the hub and the shroud are the three major parts of an AFF. Various kinds of optimisation can be implemented to improve the performance of an AFF. The most common type is found to be geometric optimisation including variation in number of blades, modification in hub and shroud radius, change in angle of attack and blade twist, etc. After validation of simulation model and carrying out a grid independence test, parametric analysis was done on an 11-bladed AFF with a shroud of uniform radius using ANSYS Fluent. The rotational speed of the fan and the velocity at fan inlet were the primary variables of the study. The variation in outlet mass flow rate and total pressure was studied for both compressible and incompressible ambient flows. Relation of mass flow rate and total pressure with inlet velocity is observed to be linear and exponential respectively. On the other hand, mass flow rate and total pressure have nearly linear relationship with rotational speed. A comparison of several different axial flow tracks with the baseline case fills one of the research gaps.


Energies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
pp. 1105 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlo Carcasci ◽  
Lapo Cheli ◽  
Pietro Lubello ◽  
Lorenzo Winchler

This paper presents an off-design analysis of a gas turbine Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) combined cycle. Combustion turbine performances are significantly affected by fluctuations in ambient conditions, leading to relevant variations in the exhaust gases’ mass flow rate and temperature. The effects of the variation of ambient air temperature have been considered in the simulation of the topper cycle and of the condenser in the bottomer one. Analyses have been performed for different working fluids (toluene, benzene and cyclopentane) and control systems have been introduced on critical parameters, such as oil temperature and air mass flow rate at the condenser fan. Results have highlighted similar power outputs for cycles based on benzene and toluene, while differences as high as 34% have been found for cyclopentane. The power output trend with ambient temperature has been found to be influenced by slope discontinuities in gas turbine exhaust mass flow rate and temperature and by the upper limit imposed on the air mass flow rate at the condenser as well, suggesting the importance of a correct sizing of the component in the design phase. Overall, benzene-based cycle power output has been found to vary between 4518 kW and 3346 kW in the ambient air temperature range considered.


Author(s):  
Nikhil M. Rao ◽  
Cengiz Camci

An experimental study of a turbine tip desensitization method based on tip coolant injection was conducted in a large-scale rotating turbine rig. One of twenty-nine rotor blades was modified and instrumented to have a tip trench with discrete injection holes directed towards the pressure side. Time accurate absolute total pressure was measured 0.3 chord lengths downstream of the rotor exit plane using a fast response dynamic pressure sensor in a phase-locked manner. The test cases presented include results for tip gap heights of 1.40% and 0.72% of the blade height, and coolant injection rates of 0.41%, 0.52%, 0.63%, and 0.72% core mass flow rate. At a gap height of 1.40% the leakage vortex is large, occupying about 15% blade span. A reduction in gap height causes the leakage vortex to reduce in size and move towards the blade suction side. The minimum total pressure measured, for the reduced gap, in the leakage vortex is about 4% greater. Coolant injection from the tip trench is successful in filling in the total pressure defect originally resulting from the leakage vortex without injection. At the higher tip injection rates the leakage vortex is also seen to have moved towards the blade tip. The high momentum associated with the tip jets affects the total pressure distributions in the neighboring passages.


Author(s):  
Chihiro Myoren ◽  
Yasuo Takahashi ◽  
Manabu Yagi ◽  
Takanori Shibata ◽  
Tadaharu Kishibe

An axial compressor was developed for an industrial gas turbine equipped with a water atomization cooling (WAC) system, which is a kind of inlet fogging technique with overspray. The compressor performance was evaluated using a 40MW-class test facility for the advanced humid air turbine system. A prediction method to estimate the effect of WAC was developed for the design of the compressor. The method was based on a streamline curvature (SLC) method implementing a droplet evaporation model. Four test runs with WAC have been conducted since February 2012. The maximum water mass flow rate was 1.2% of the inlet mass flow rate at the 4th test run, while the design value was 2.0%. The results showed that the WAC decreased the inlet and outlet temperatures compared with the DRY (no fogging) case. These decreases changed the matching point of the gas turbine, and increased the mass flow rate and the pressure ratio by 1.8% and 1.1%, respectively. Since prediction results agreed with the results of the test run qualitatively, the compressor performance improvement by WAC was confirmed both experimentally and analytically. The test run with the design water mass flow rate is going to be conducted in the near future.


Author(s):  
B. Facchini ◽  
M. Surace ◽  
S. Zecchi

Significant improvements in gas turbine cooling technology are becoming harder as progress goes over and over. Several impingement cooling solutions have been extensively studied in past literature. An accurate and extensive numerical 1D simulation on a new concept of sequential impingement was performed, showing good results. Instead of having a single impingement plate, we used several perforated plates, connecting the inlet of each one with the outlet of the previous one. Main advantages are: absence of the negative interaction between transverse flow and last rows impinging jets (reduced deflection); better distribution of pressure losses and heat transfer coefficients among the different plates, especially when pressure drops are significant and available coolant mass flow rate is low (lean premixed combustion chamber and LP turbine stages). Practical applications can have a positive influence on both cooled nozzles and combustion chambers, in terms of increased cooling efficiency and coolant mass flow rate reduction. Calculated effects are used to analyze main influences of such a cooling system on global performances of power plants.


Author(s):  
Ryo Kubo ◽  
Fumio Otomo ◽  
Yoshitaka Fukuyama ◽  
Yuhji Nakata

A CFD investigation was conducted on the total pressure loss variation for a linear nozzle guide vane cascade of a gas turbine, due to the individual film injections from the leading edge shower head, the suction surface, the pressure surface and the trailing edge slot. The results were compared with those of low speed wind tunnel experiments. A 2-D Navier-Stokes procedure for a 2-D slot injection, which approximated a row of discrete film holes, was performed to clarify the applicable limitation in the pressure loss prediction during an aerodynamic design stage, instead of a costly 3-D procedure for the row of discrete holes. In mass flow rate ratios of injection to main flow from 0% to 1%, the losses computed by the 2-D procedure agreed well with the experimental losses except for the pressure side injection cases. However, as the mass flow rate ratio was increased to 2.5%, the agreement became insufficient. The same tendency was observed in additional 3-D computations more closely modeling the injection hole shapes. The summations of both experimental and computed loss increases due to individual row injections were compared with both experimental and computed loss increases due to all-row injection with the mass flow rate ratio ranging from 0% to 7%. Each summation agreed well with each all-row injection result. Agreement between experimental and calculated results was acceptable. Therefore, the loss due to all-row injections in the design stage can be obtained by the correlations of 2-D calculated losses from individual row injections. To improve more precisely the summation prediction for the losses due to the present all-row injections, extensive research on the prediction for the losses due to the pressure side injection should be carried out.


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