Effects of Using Hydrogen-Rich Syngas in Industrial Gas Turbines While Maintaining Fuel Flexibility on Compressor Design

Author(s):  
Pascal Nucara ◽  
Abdulnaser Sayma

Most of the current industrial gas turbine systems are designed to operate with conventional fossil fuels. Recently, the use of Low Calorific Value (LCV) fuels gained interest, particularly, Hydrogen rich Syngas resulting from coal and solid waste gasification. When LCV fuels are used the performance and behavior of the engines could significantly change and modifications may be needed. For instance, due to the relatively low heating value the fuel mass flow rate will be much higher than natural gas, increasing substantially the mass flow through the turbine. This leads to a decrease of demand for air from the compressor, which results in increased back pressure, reduction of stall margin and possible compressor instability. This paper presents a preliminary study to pave the way to the design of a 300 MW industrial gas turbine’s compressor with the objective of operating efficiently with Hydrogen rich syngas, while maintaining the flexibility for a quick switch to natural gas in the event of gasifier failure or breakdown of feedstock supply. NASA Rotor 37 is used as the test vehicle to provide design concepts because of its simplicity in being a single stage compressor and the availability of experimental data for the CFD model validation. Geometric modifications were performed on the rotor to shift the working line towards an estimated lower air mass flow rate working line. Further modifications were investigated in order to maintain the design point compressor efficiency primarily based on sweep and lean of the blade. Once the new working line geometry was obtained, inlet variable guide vane (IGV) effects were explored to allow the compressor to shift to the original working line without further changes to the blade shape.

Author(s):  
Pascal Nucara ◽  
Abdulnaser Sayma

Current gas turbine technology for power generation is generally optimised for natural gas. Recently the use of Low Calorific Value (LCV) fuels gained interest, particularly, Hydrogen rich syngas resulting from coal and solid waste gasification. When LCV fuels are used the performance and behaviour of the engines could significantly change and modifications may be needed. For instance, due to the relatively low heating value of the syngas, higher fuel mass flow rate is required compared to the natural gas combustion case. This leads to a decrease of demand for air from the compressor, which results in increased back pressure, reduction of stall margin and possible compressor instability. In a previous work an exploration of some compressor geometry modifications to allow for high fuel flexibility was conducted on a single axial compressor rotor. The investigation provided insights into the effect of blade shape modifications, such as stagger, lean and sweep on rotor performance. With the same purpose of identifying trends rather than producing optimum design, in this study the analysis is extended to a multistage axial compressor. Two different investigations have been performed, both having, as objective, the shifting of the original mass flow rate towards a lower value while maintaining high performance. In the first study the effect of IGV and stator vanes stagger variations only was considered while in a second approach the re-design of the original machine included modifies to rotor’s stagger angles. In order to understand the change in each single blade performance when modifying the original geometry, the variation of critical parameters such as blade loading and diffusion factor has been here considered in first analysis.


2020 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-66
Author(s):  
Abderrahmane Chachoua ◽  
Mohamed Kamal Hamidou ◽  
Mohammed Hamel

The design for better performance of the spiral housing volute used commonly in radial and mixed inflow gas turbines is of prime importance as it affects the machine stage at both design and off design conditions. The tongue of the scroll divides the flow into two streams, and represents a severe source of disturbances, in terms of thermodynamic parameter uniformity, maximum kinetic energy, the right angle of attack to the rotor and minimum losses. Besides, the volute suffers an undesirable effect due to the recirculating mass flow rate in near bottom vicinity of the tongue. The present project is an attempt to design a tongue fitted with cylindrical holes traversing normal to the stream wise direction, where on account of the large pressure difference between the top and the bottom sides of the tongue will force the recirculating flow to go through the rotor inlet. This possibility with its limitations has not yet been explored. A numerical simulation is performed which might provide our suitable objectives. To achieve this goal the ANSYS code is used to build the geometry, generate the mesh, and to simulate the flow by solving numerically the averaged Navier Stokes equations. Apparently, the numerical results show evidence of favorable impact in using porous tongue. The realization of a contact between the main and recirculation flow by drilled holes on the tongue surface leads to a flow field uniformity, a reduction in the magnitude of the loss coefficient, and a 20 % reduction in the recirculating mass flow rate.


Author(s):  
K. V. L. Narayana Rao ◽  
N. Ravi Kumar ◽  
G. Ramesha ◽  
M. Devathathan

Can type combustors are robust, with ease of design, manufacturing and testing. They are extensively used in industrial gas turbines and aero engines. This paper is mainly based on the work carried out in designing and testing a can type combustion chamber which is operated using JET-A1 fuel. Based on the design requirements, the combustor is designed, fabricated and tested. The experimental results are analysed and compared with the design requirements. The basic dimensions of the combustor, like casing diameter, liner diameter, liner length and liner hole distribution are estimated through a proprietary developed code. An axial flow air swirler with 8 vanes and vane angle of 45 degree is designed to create a re-circulation zone for stabilizing the flame. The Monarch 4.0 GPH fuel nozzle with a cone angle of 80 degree is used. The igniter used is a high energy igniter with ignition energy of 2J and 60 sparks per minute. The combustor is modelled, meshed and analysed using the commercially available ansys-cfx code. The geometry of the combustor is modified iteratively based on the CFD results to meet the design requirements such as pressure loss and pattern factor. The combustor is fabricated using Ni-75 sheet of 1 mm thickness. A small combustor test facility is established. The combustor rig is tested for 50 Hours. The experimental results showed a blow-out phenomenon while the mass flow rate through the combustor is increased beyond a limit. Further through CFD analysis one of the cause for early blow out is identified to be a high mass flow rate through the swirler. The swirler area is partially blocked and many configurations are analysed. The optimum configuration is selected based on the flame position in the primary zone. The change in swirler area is implemented in the test model and further testing is carried out. The experimental results showed that the blow-out limit of the combustor is increased to a good extent. Hence the effect of swirler flow rate on recirculation zone length and flame blow out is also studied and presented. The experimental results showed that the pressure loss and pattern factor are in agreement with the design requirements.


Author(s):  
Mohsen Ghazikhani ◽  
Nima Manshoori ◽  
Davood Tafazoli

An industrial gas turbine has the characteristic that turbine output decreases on hot summer days when electricity demand peaks. For GE-F5 gas turbines of Mashad Power Plant when ambient temperature increases 1° C, compressor outlet temperature increases 1.13° C and turbine exhaust temperature increases 2.5° C. Also air mass flow rate decreases about 0.6 kg/sec when ambient temperature increases 1° C, so it is revealed that variations are more due to decreasing in the efficiency of compressor and less due to reduction in mass flow rate of air as ambient temperature increases in constant power output. The cycle efficiency of these GE-F5 gas turbines reduces 3 percent with increasing 50° C of ambient temperature, also the fuel consumption increases as ambient temperature increases for constant turbine work. These are also because of reducing in the compressor efficiency in high temperature ambient. Steam injection in gas turbines is a way to prevent a loss in performance of gas turbines caused by high ambient temperature and has been used for many years. VODOLEY system is a steam injection system, which is known as a self-sufficient one in steam production. The amount of water vapor in combustion products will become regenerated in a contact condenser and after passing through a heat recovery boiler is injected in the transition piece after combustion chamber. In this paper the influence of steam injection in Mashad Power Plant GE-F5 gas turbine parameters, applying VODOLEY system, is being observed. Results show that in this turbine, the turbine inlet temperature (T3) decreases in a range of 5 percent to 11 percent depending on ambient temperature, so the operating parameters in a gas turbine cycle equipped with VODOLEY system in 40° C of ambient temperature is the same as simple gas turbine cycle in 10° C of ambient temperature. Results show that the thermal efficiency increases up to 10 percent, but Back-Work ratio increases in a range of 15 percent to 30 percent. Also results show that although VODOLEY system has water treatment cost but by using this system the running cost will reduce up to 27 percent.


Author(s):  
Elcio Cruz de Oliveira

In Brazil, the National Oil Agency — ANP and the National Metrology Institute elaborated Regulation No 1, on June 19th 2000. This government decree approves the Regulation of the Measurement Technique of Oil and Natural Gas, which establishes the minimum conditions and requirements for the oil and natural gas measurement systems, in order to guarantee accurate and complete results. The natural gas measurement fiscal systems must be projected, calibrated and operated so that the measurement uncertainty does not exceed 1.5%. Based on the norms AGA and ISO, the mathematical model for the calculation of the mass flow rate, depends on quantities that have well known uncertainty such as: orifice plate diameter, pipeline internal diameter, compressibility factor, discharge coefficient, differential pressure, static pressure and flow temperature. However, for the molar mass standard uncertainty fixed values are utilized in Brazil (mainly by IPT and PUC-RJ), around 0.30%, independent of the natural gas composition. The objective of this work is to develop a methodology to calculate the molar mass uncertainty of the natural gas derived from its chemical composition, analyzed by gaseous chromatography and to comparing it with the value currently practiced, evaluating the impact proceeding from this difference in the mass flow rate of the natural gas. Based on this methodology, the molar mass uncertainty is around 0.05% and the fiscal system uncertainty decreases in more than 10% when it is compared with the mass molar fixed value uncertainty.


Author(s):  
Martin Chilla ◽  
Howard Hodson ◽  
David Newman

In core gas turbines relatively cold air is purged through the hub gap between stator and rotor in order to seal the disc space against flow ingestion from the main annulus. Although the sealing mass flow rate is commonly very small compared to the main annulus mass flow rate, it can have significant effects on the development of the passage endwall flows and on the overall loss generation. In this paper, the interaction between annulus and rim sealing flows is investigated using numerical simulations of a generic high-pressure turbine. At first, the numerical approach is validated by comparing the results of calculations to measurement data at the design flow conditions. Following that, results from steady and unsteady calculations are used to describe in detail the aerodynamics in overlap-type rim seals and their effects on the blade passage flow. It is found that the flow interaction at the rim seal interface is strongly influenced by the velocity deficit of the rim sealing flow relative to the annulus flow as well as by the circumferentially non-uniform pressure field imposed by the rotor blades. At typical sealing flow conditions, the flow interaction is found to be naturally unsteady, with periodical vortex shedding into the rotor passage. Finally, the influence of the specific rim seal shape on the flow unsteadiness at the rim seal interface is investigated and the impact on turbine performance is assessed.


2014 ◽  
Vol 989-994 ◽  
pp. 2264-2267
Author(s):  
Dong Fang Zhao ◽  
Feng Guo Liu

This paper investigated a new type of gas distributor with two chambers by CFD software. The distributor has a natural gas inlet and nine nozzle outlets. For the investigation of this project, the mass flow rate of the distributor was analyzed in this paper to provide a way to optimize the structure of distributor. The N-S equations approached with the RNG k-ε turbulence model and the discretization were employed second order upwind. The simulation results will provide a number of useful suggestions and references for the further design.


Author(s):  
Mário Costa ◽  
Bruno Pizziol ◽  
Miguel Panao ◽  
André Silva

The growth of the aviation sector triggered the search for alternative fuels and continued improvements in thecombustion process. This work addresses the technological challenges associated with spray systems and theconcern of mixing biofuels with fossil fuels to produce alternative and more ecological fuels for aviation. This workproposes a new injector design based on sprays produced from the simultaneous impact of multiple jets, using anadditional jet of air to assist the atomization process. The results evidence the ability to control the average dropsize through the air-mass flow rate. Depending on the air-mass flow rate there is a transition between atomizationby hydrodynamic breakup of the liquid sheet formed on the impact point, to an aerodynamic breakup mechanism,as found in the atomization of inclined jets under cross-flow conditions. The aerodynamic shear breakupdeteriorates the atomization performance, but within the same order of magnitude. Finally, our experiments showthat mixing a biofuel with a fossil fuel does not significantly alter the spray characteristics, regarded as a stepfurther in developing alternative and more ecological fuels for aero-engines.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4995/ILASS2017.2017.4737


2021 ◽  
Vol 143 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Min Zhang ◽  
Dara W. Childs

Abstract With the increasing demand of the oil and gas industry, many pump companies are developing multiphase pumps, which can handle liquid–gas flow directly without separating the liquid from a mixed flow. The see-through labyrinth seal is one of the popular types of noncontact annular seals that act as a balancing piston seal to reduce the axial thrust of a high-performance centrifugal pump. The see-through labyrinth seal also generates reaction forces that can significantly impact the rotordynamic performance of the pump. Multiphase pumps are expected to operate from pure-liquid to pure-gas conditions. Zhang and Childs (2019) (Zhang, M., and Childs, D., 2019, “A Study on the Leakage and Rotordynamic Performance of a Long Labyrinth Seal Under Mainly-Air Conditions,” ASME J. Eng. Gas Turbines Power, 141(12), p. 121024) conducted a comprehensive experimental study on the performance (leakage and rotordynamic coefficients) of a see-through labyrinth seal under mainly gas conditions. This paper continues Zhang and Childs (2019) (Zhang, M., and Childs, D., 2019, “A Study on the Leakage and Rotordynamic Performance of a Long Labyrinth Seal Under Mainly-Air Conditions,” ASME J. Eng. Gas Turbines Power, 141(12), p. 121024) research and studies the performance of the see-through tooth-on-stator labyrinth seal under mainly liquid conditions. The test seal's inner diameter, length, and radial clearance are 89.256 mm, 66.68 mm, and 0.178 mm, respectively. The test fluid is a mixture of air and paper silicone oil (PSF-5cSt), and the inlet gas volume fraction (GVF) varies from zero to 12%. Tests are conducted at an exit pressure of 6.9 bars, an inlet temperature of 39.1 °C, three pressure drops (PDs) (27.6 bars, 34.5 bars, and 48.3 bars), and three rotating speeds ω (5 krpm, 10 krpm, and 15 krpm). The seal is always concentric with the rotor, and there is no intentional fluid prerotation at the seal inlet. The air presence in the oil flow significantly impacts the leakage as well as the dynamic forces of the test seal. The first air increment (increasing inlet GVF from 0% to 3%) slightly increases the leakage mass flow rate, while further air increments steadily decrease the leakage mass flow rate. For all test conditions, the leakage mass flow rate does not change as ω increases from 5 krpm to 10 krpm but decreases as ω is further increased to 15 krpm. The reduction in the leakage mass flow rate indicates that there is an increase in the friction factor, and there could be a highly possible flow regime change as ω increases from 10 krpm to 15 krpm. For ω ≤ 10 krpm, effective stiffness Keff increases as inlet GVF increases. Keff represents the test seal's total centering force on the pump rotor. The increase of Keff increases the seal's centering force and would increase the pump rotor's critical speeds. Ceff indicates the test seal's total damping force on the pump rotor. For ω ≤ 10 krpm, Ceff first decreases as inlet GVF increases from zero to 3%, and then remains unchanged as inlet GVF is further increased to 12%. For ω = 15 krpm, Keff first increases as inlet GVF increases from zero to 3% and then decreases as inlet GVF is further increased. As inlet GVF increases, Ceff steadily decreases for ω = 15 krpm.


Author(s):  
J. P. Yadav ◽  
Bharat Raj Singh ◽  
Onkar Singh

Although gas turbines are known as constant volume machines, but its performance considerably depends upon the ambient air temperature and mass flow rate. During summer season the density of the air decreases which affects the mass flow rate and ultimately the power output of a gas turbine is reduced. In order to overcome this situation several techniques are already in the practice and one of the most effective and economical is adopting the inlet fog cooling, and this technique basically enhances the power output of the machine. The cooling of ambient air by fog cooling up to wet bulb temperature increases the mass flow rate on account of increase in air density, as a result it ultimately increases the power output of a gas turbine. Fogging is applied with consideration of relative humidity of ambient air not only during summer season but also during dry days of summer season in order to increase the power output of gas turbine. This paper describes the effect on percentage enhancement of power out adopting various fuel options with low and high humidity ambient conditions. The result indicates the potential increase in the power output up to 14%. It is also observed that the total cost of power production increases due to increase in fuel consumption on account of enhanced power output. Thus the best suitable selling cost of power should be selected to compensate the increased investment on fuel cost.


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