Thermodynamic Analysis of a Steam Injected and Recuperated Gas Turbine Air Compressor

Author(s):  
Matthew J. Blom ◽  
Ashley P. Wiese ◽  
Michael J. Brear ◽  
Chris Manzie ◽  
Anthony Kitchener

Compressed air and steam are perhaps the most significant industrial utilities after electricity, gas and water, and are responsible for a significant proportion of global energy consumption. Microturbine technology, in the form of a Gas Turbine Air Compressor (GTAC), offers a promising alternative to traditional, electrically driven air compressors providing low vibration, a compact size, reduced electrical consumption and potentially reduced greenhouse gas emissions. With high exhaust temperatures, gas turbines are well suited to the cogeneration of steam. The compressed air performance can be further increased by injecting some of that cogenerated steam or by conventional recuperation. This paper presents a thermodynamic analysis of various forms of the GTAC cycle incorporating steam cogeneration, steam injection (STIGTAC) and recuperation. The addition of cogeneration leads to improved energy utilisation, while steam injection leads to a significant boost in both the compressed air delivery and efficiency. As expected, for a low pressure ratio device, recuperating the GTAC leads to a significant increase in efficiency. The combination of steam injection and recuperation forms a recuperated STIGTAC with increased compressed air performance over the unrecuperated STIGTAC at the expense of reduced steam production. Finally, an analysis using a simplified model of the STIGTAC demonstrates a significant reduction in CO2 emissions, when compared to an equivalent air compressor driven by primarily coal-based electricity and a natural gas fired boiler.

Author(s):  
Uyioghosa Igie ◽  
Marco Abbondanza ◽  
Artur Szymański ◽  
Theoklis Nikolaidis

Industrial gas turbines are now required to operate more flexibly as a result of incentives and priorities given to renewable forms of energy. This study considers the extraction of compressed air from the gas turbine; it is implemented to store heat energy at periods of a surplus power supply and the reinjection at peak demand. Using an in-house engine performance simulation code, extractions and injections are investigated for a range of flows and for varied rear stage bleeding locations. Inter-stage bleeding is seen to unload the stage of extraction towards choke, while loading the subsequent stages, pushing them towards stall. Extracting after the last stage is shown to be appropriate for a wider range of flows: up to 15% of the compressor inlet flow. Injecting in this location at high flows pushes the closest stage towards stall. The same effect is observed in all the stages but to a lesser magnitude. Up to 17.5% injection seems allowable before compressor stalls; however, a more conservative estimate is expected with higher fidelity models. The study also shows an increase in performance with a rise in flow injection. Varying the design stage pressure ratio distribution brought about an improvement in the stall margin utilized, only for high extraction.


Author(s):  
Abdallah Bouam ◽  
Slimane Aissani ◽  
Rabah Kadi

The gas turbines are generally used for large scale power generation. The basic gas turbine cycle has low thermal efficiency, which decreases in the hard climatic conditions of operation, so the cycles with thermodynamic improvement is found to be necessary. Among several methods shown their success in increasing the performances, the steam injected gas turbine cycle (STIG) consists of introducing a high amount of steam at various points in the cycle. The main purpose of the present work is to improve the principal characteristics of gas turbine used under hard condition of temperature in Algerian Sahara by injecting steam in the combustion chamber. The suggested method has been studied and compared to a simple cycle. Efficiency, however, is held constant when the ambient temperature increases from ISO conditions to 50°C. Computer program has been developed for various gas turbine processes including the effects of ambient temperature, pressure ratio, injection parameters, standard temperature, and combustion chamber temperature with and without steam injection. Data from the performance testing of an industrial gas turbine, computer model, and theoretical study are used to check the validity of the proposed model. The comparison of the predicted results to the test data is in good agreement. Starting from the advantages, we recommend the use of this method in the industry of hydrocarbons. This study can be contributed for experimental tests.


1970 ◽  
Vol 185 (1) ◽  
pp. 953-961 ◽  
Author(s):  
N Gašparović ◽  
J. G. Hellemans

Water injection into the compressed air between the compressor and the heat exchanger of a gas turbine plant represents only one of various possible methods of introducing water into a gas turbine cycle. With this process, it is advantageous to inject just sufficient water to produce saturation of the compressed air with water vapour. Assuming that the same size of heat exchanger is used, the following changes are introduced as compared with a gas turbine cycle without water injection. The efficiency is increased to an extent equivalent to raising the temperature at the turbine inlet by 100 degC. The gain in specific work is still greater. It attains values which can only be achieved with about 140 degC higher temperature at the turbine inlet. With a normal size of heat exchanger, the water consumption is about 6–8 per cent of the mass flow of air. This rate of consumption is not high enough to introduce any detrimental side effects in the cycle. Special water treatment is not necessary. The performance of existing designs or installations without a heat exchanger can be improved by adding a heat exchanger and water injection without necessitating any change in pressure ratio.


Author(s):  
Ibrahim Sinan Akmandor ◽  
O¨zhan O¨ksu¨z ◽  
Sec¸kin Go¨kaltun ◽  
Melih Han Bilgin

A new methodology is developed to find the optimal steam injection levels in simple and combined cycle gas turbine power plants. When steam injection process is being applied to simple cycle gas turbines, it is shown to offer many benefits, including increased power output and efficiency as well as reduced exhaust emissions. For combined cycle power plants, steam injection in the gas turbine, significantly decreases the amount of flow and energy through the steam turbine and the overall power output of the combined cycle is decreased. This study focuses on finding the maximum power output and efficiency of steam injected simple and combined cycle gas turbines. For that purpose, the thermodynamic cycle analysis and a genetic algorithm are linked within an automated design loop. The multi-parameter objective function is either based on the power output or on the overall thermal efficiency. NOx levels have also been taken into account in a third objective function denoted as steam injection effectiveness. The calculations are done for a wide range of parameters such as compressor pressure ratio, turbine inlet temperature, air and steam mass flow rates. Firstly, 6 widely used simple and combined cycle power plants performance are used as test cases for thermodynamic cycle validation. Secondly, gas turbine main parameters are modified to yield the maximum generator power and thermal efficiency. Finally, the effects of uniform crossover, creep mutation, different random number seeds, population size and the number of children per pair of parents on the performance of the genetic algorithm are studied. Parametric analyses show that application of high turbine inlet temperature, high air mass flow rate and no steam injection lead to high power and high combined cycle thermal efficiency. On the contrary, when NOx reduction is desired, steam injection is necessary. For simple cycle, almost full amount of steam injection is required to increase power and efficiency as well as to reduce NOx. Moreover, it is found that the compressor pressure ratio for high power output is significantly lower than the compressor pressure ratio that drives the high thermal efficiency.


1987 ◽  
Vol 109 (1) ◽  
pp. 46-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. Cerri

Combined gas-steam cycles have been analyzed from the thermodynamic point of view. Suitable thermodynamics indices—explained in Appendix A—have been utilized. The parameters that most influence efficiency have been singled out and their ranges of variability have been specified. Calculations have been carried out—see Appendix B—taking into account the state of the art for gas turbines and the usual values for the quantities of steam cycles. The results are given. The maximal gas turbine temperature has been varied between 800°C and 1400°C. The gas turbine pressure ratio has been analyzed in the range of 2–24. Afterburning has also been taken into consideration. Maximal efficiency curves and the corresponding specific work curves (referred to the compressed air) related to the parameters of the analysis are given and discussed.


Author(s):  
G. Cerri

Combined gas-steam cycles have been analyzed from the thermodynamic point of view. Suitable thermodynamics indices — explained in Appendix A — have been utilized. The parameters that most influence efficiency have been singled out and their ranges of variability have been specified. Calculations have been carried out — see Appendix B — taking into account the state of the art for gas turbines and the usual values for the quantities of steam cycles. The results are given. The maximal gas turbine temperature has been varied between 800°C and 1400°C. The gas turbine pressure ratio has been analyzed in the range of 2–24. Afterburning has also been taken into consideration. Maximal efficiency curves and the corresponding specific work curves (referred to the compressed air) related to the parameters of the analysis are given and discussed.


2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 28
Author(s):  
Emmanuel O. Osigwe ◽  
Arnold Gad-Briggs ◽  
Theoklis Nikolaidis

When selecting a design for an unmanned aerial vehicle, the choice of the propulsion system is vital in terms of mission requirements, sustainability, usability, noise, controllability, reliability and technology readiness level (TRL). This study analyses the various propulsion systems used in unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), paying particular focus on the closed-cycle propulsion systems. The study also investigates the feasibility of using helium closed-cycle gas turbines for UAV propulsion, highlighting the merits and demerits of helium closed-cycle gas turbines. Some of the advantages mentioned include high payload, low noise and high altitude mission ability; while the major drawbacks include a heat sink, nuclear hazard radiation and the shield weight. A preliminary assessment of the cycle showed that a pressure ratio of 4, turbine entry temperature (TET) of 800 °C and mass flow of 50 kg/s could be used to achieve a lightweight helium closed-cycle gas turbine design for UAV mission considering component design constraints.


Author(s):  
C. Kalathakis ◽  
N. Aretakis ◽  
I. Roumeliotis ◽  
A. Alexiou ◽  
K. Mathioudakis

The concept of solar steam production for injection in a gas turbine combustion chamber is studied for both nominal and part load engine operation. First, a 5MW single shaft engine is considered which is then retrofitted for solar steam injection using either a tower receiver or a parabolic troughs scheme. Next, solar thermal power is used to augment steam production of an already steam injected single shaft engine without any modification of the existing HRSG by placing the solar receiver/evaporator in parallel with the conventional one. For the case examined in this paper, solar steam injection results to an increase of annual power production (∼15%) and annual fuel efficiency (∼6%) compared to the fuel-only engine. It is also shown that the tower receiver scheme has a more stable behavior throughout the year compared to the troughs scheme that has better performance at summer than at winter. In the case of doubling the steam-to-air ratio of an already steam injected gas turbine through the use of a solar evaporator, annual power production and fuel efficiency increase by 5% and 2% respectively.


Author(s):  
Andreas Carl Pfahnl ◽  
David Gordon Wilson

A novel regenerator sealing concept is reported that can potentially reduce net compressed-air regenerator-seal leakage in gas turbines to unprecedented levels — near 1% of the net flow, greatly increasing the cycle thermal efficiency. The concept involves primarily discontinuously rotating a disk-type regenerator and implementing clamping seals. This work explains the principle of operation with discussions on preliminary-design calculations based on its use in a conceptual automotive gas turbine (Pfahnl and Wilson, 1995). Detailed regenerator-leakage calculations illustrate the drastically improved leakage rates.


Author(s):  
M. F. Bardon ◽  
J. A. C. Fortin

This paper examines the possibility of injecting methanol into the compressor of a gas turbine, then dissociating it to carbon monoxide and hydrogen so as to cool the air and reduce the work of compression, while simultaneously increasing the fuel’s heating value. A theoretical analysis shows that there is a net reduction in compressor work resulting from this dissociative intercooling effect. Furthermore, by means of a computer cycle model, the effects of dissociation on efficiency and work per unit mass of airflow are predicted for both regenerated and unregenerated gas turbines. The effect on optimum pressure ratio is examined and practical difficulties likely to be encountered with such a system are discussed.


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