Thermal Analysis and Creep Lifetime Prediction Based on the Effectiveness of Thermal Barrier Coating on a Gas Turbine Combustor Liner Using Coupled CFD and FEM Simulation

Thermal barrier coating (TBC) plays a vital role in the gas turbine combustor liner (CL) to mitigate the internal heat transfer from combustion gas to the CL and enhance the parent material lifetime of the CL. This present study examined the thermal analysis and creep lifetime prediction based on three different TBC thicknesses, 400, 800, and 1200 μm, coated on the inner CL using the coupled computational fluid dynamics/finite element method. The simulation method was divided into three models to minimize the amount of computational work involved. The Eddy Dissipation Model was used in the first model to simulate premixed methane-air combustion, and the wall temperature of the inner CL was obtained. The conjugate heat transfer simulation on the external cooling flows from the rib turbulator, impingement jet, and cross flow, and the wall temperature of the outer CL was obtained in the second model. The thermal analysis was carried out in the third model using three different TBC thicknesses and incorporating the wall data from the first and second model. The effect of increasing TBC thickness shows that the TBC surface temperature was increased. Thereby, the inner CL metal temperature was decreased due to the TBC thickness as well as the material properties of Yttria Stabilized Zirconia, which has low thermal conductivity and a high thermal expansion coefficient. With the increase in TBC thickness, the average temperature difference between the TBC surface and the inner metal surface increased. In contrast, the average temperature difference between the inner and outer metal surfaces remained nearly constant. The von Mises equivalent stress, based on the material property and thermal expansion coefficient, was determined and used to find the creep lifetime of the CL using the Larson–Miller rupture curve for all TBC thickness cases in order to analyze the thermo-structure. Except in the C-channel, the increasing TBC thickness was found to effectively increase the CL lifespan. Furthermore, the case without TBC was compared with the damaged CL with cracks due to thermal stress, which was prevented by increasing TBC thickness shown in this present study.

Influence of Opposing Dilution Jets on Effusion Cooling

The gas turbine combustion process reaches gas temperatures that exceed the melting temperature of the combustor liner materials. Cooling the liner is critical to combustor durability and is often accomplished with double-walled liners that contain both impingement and effusion holes. The liner cooling is complicated with the interruption of the effusion cooling by large dilution jets that facilitate the combustion process. Given the presence of the dilution jets, it is important to understand the effect that the dilution jet has on the opposing wall in respect to the effusion film. This research includes measurements of the local static pressure distribution for a range of dilution jet momentum flux ratios to investigate the impact that the opposing dilution jet has on the effusion film. The interactions with the effusion cooling were also evaluated by measuring the overall cooling effectiveness across the panel. Measurements show that the opposing dilution jets did impact the liner at dilution jet momentum flux ratios that were greater than 20. The impacts at high momentum flux ratios were indicated through increased local static pressures measured on the surface of the combustor liner. Furthermore, the dilution touchdown decreased the overall cooling effectiveness of the effusion cooling. Results also indicated that the opposing dilution jets changed position on the liner as the dilution jet momentum flux ratio changes.

Effect of Accelerating Convergence in Adjoining 1D Domains Having Large Difference in Thermal Time Scales

Combustor liners are subjected to high operating temperatures and high temperature gradients, which have an adverse effect on the durability of liners. Accurate prediction of liner wall temperature distribution can provide better insight into the design of effective cooling systems that have the potential to improve liner structure life. When compared to RANS (Reynolds averaged Navier Stokes), LES (Large eddy simulation) framework provides better accuracy in resolving the large range of temporal and spatial scales of turbulent flow inside combustors. In simulations in which an unsteady LES fluid solver is interacting with an unsteady solid thermal solver, it would be impractical to advance and synchronize fluid and solid domains in physical time, due to a large difference between small fluid time scales set by turbulence and large solid time scales set by the thermal inertia of the solid. By advancing the fluid and solid solvers with different time step sizes, or by loosely coupling fluid and solid solvers such that they communicate at a defined frequency, convergence can be artificially accelerated. The convergence of the predicted temperature field solution is dependent on the implementation methodology of the acceleration techniques. A combustor liner is subjected to hot turbulent gases on one side of its boundary and relatively colder air on the other side. This scenario is analyzed to understand the effect of accelerating convergence on the temperature field in a simplified 1D linear framework. A representative polychromatic temperature wave that a combustor liner is subjected to, is used in defining the boundary condition of a 1D implicit unsteady heat conduction solver.

Effect of Spanwise Hole to Hole Spacing on Overall Cooling Effectiveness of Effusion Cooled Combustor Liners for a Swirl Stabilized Can Combustor

One of the most effective ways to cool the combustor liner is through effusion cooling. Effusion cooling (also known as full coverage effusion cooling) involves uniformly spaced holes distributed throughout the combustor liner wall. Effusion cooling configurations are preferred for their high effectiveness, low-pressure penalty, and ease of manufacturing. In this paper, experimental results are presented for effusion cooling configurations for a realistic swirl driven can combustor under reacting (flame) conditions. The can-combustor was equipped with an industrial engine swirler and gaseous fuel (methane), subjecting the liner walls to engine representative flow and combustion conditions. In this study, three different effusion cooling liners with spanwise spacings of r/d = 6, 8, and 10 and streamwise spacing of z/d = 10 were tested for four coolant-to-main airflow ratios. The experiments were carried out at a constant main flow Reynolds number (based on combustor diameter) of 12,500 at a total equivalence ratio of 0.65. Infrared Thermography (IRT) was used to measure the liner outer surface temperature, and detailed overall effectiveness values were determined under steady-state conditions. The results indicate that decreasing the spanwise hole-to-hole spacing (r/d) from 10 to 8 increased the overall cooling effectiveness by 2–5%. It was found that reducing the spanwise hole-to-hole spacing further to r/d = 6 does not affect the cooling effectiveness implying the existence of an optimum spanwise hole-to-hole spacing. Also, the minimum liner cooling effectiveness on the liner wall was found to be downstream of the impingement location, which is not observed in existing literature for experiments done under non-reacting conditions.

Design of 1 MW Direct-Fired Combustor for an sCO2 Power Cycle

Direct-fired super-critical carbon dioxide (sCO2) power cycles, are a potential method for efficiently capturing nearly all of the CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels. Direct-fired sCO2 cycles require a very high degree of recuperation, which in turn means that the inlet temperature to the combustor is significantly higher than would typically be seen in a similar gas turbine combustors. Previous efforts have shown that combustor inlet temperatures of around 700 °C are to be expected for a cycle with around 1200 °C combustor exit temperatures [1]. This high inlet temperature means that bypass gasses are extremely hot, which poses some difficulties for the design of the combustion system, especially thermal management of the combustor liner and injectors in the 200 bar sCO2 environment. The project team led by Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) is in the process of building a 1 MW scale direct-fired combustor. This paper will detail some of the design challenges and obstacles associated with designing a direct-fired sCO2 combustor. These obstacles include thermal management of fuel and oxygen streams, oxygen safety, and combustor cooling. This paper will focus on many of the design questions necessary for the design of a direct-fired sCO2 combustor. This work presents computational modeling details of the actual 1 MW geometry currently being built.

Overall Cooling Effectiveness of Effusion Cooled Can Combustor Liner under Reacting and Non-Reacting Conditions

Emphasis on lean premixed combustion in modern low NOX combustion chambers limits the air available for cooling the combustion liner. Hence the development of optimized liner cooling designs is imperative for effective usage of available coolant. An effective way to cool a gas turbine combustor liner is through effusion cooling. Effusion cooling (also known as full-coverage film cooling) involves uniformly spaced holes distributed throughout the liner's curved surface area. This paper presents findings from an experimental study on the characterization of the overall cooling effectiveness of an effusion-cooled liner wall, which was representative of a can combustor under heated flow (non-reacting) and lean-combustion (reacting) conditions. The model can-combustor was equipped with an industrial swirler, which subjected the liner walls to engine representative flow and combustion conditions. In this study, two different effusion cooling liners with an inline and staggered arrangement of effusion holes have been studied. These configurations were tested for five different blowing ratios ranging from 0.7 to 4.0 under both reacting and non-reacting conditions. Infrared Thermography (IRT) was used to measure the liner outer surface temperature, and detailed overall effectiveness values were determined under steady-state conditions. From this study, it is clear that the coolant-flame interaction for the reacting experiments significantly impacted the liner cooling effectiveness and led to different overall cooling effectiveness distribution on the liner as compared to the non-reacting experiments.