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Content archived on 2024-06-11

Advanced industrial gas turbines - development of transonic cooled stages for high pressure ratios through innovative design, manufacturing and testing techniques

Objective



For industrial, land based gas turbines with power ranging from 1 to 40 MW, the market trend is towards higher and higher efficiency at constant and possibly decreasing costs per kW shaft power. Higher efficiencies can be achieved with advanced 3-D aerodynamic design techniques and with the increase in the maximum cycle temperatures associated with advanced cooling techniques and hot part materials. These latter however imply substantial increases in the manufacturing costs, therefore, it is necessary to reduce the number of stages, especially in the turbine hot sections. The main aim of the project is to provide significantly higher efficiency than current technology will allow for, while at the same time reducing the manufacturing costs through the use of a lower number of components. To achieve this goal it is required to: - Iimit the number of turbine stages to two for a single-spool machine; - make the aerodynamic design suitable for pressure ratios in the order of 18:1 to 20: 1; - design the high Mach number (1.4) high pressure ratio blading suitable to provide very high aerodynamic expansion efficiency (of the order of 92 %), but within stress and metal temperature constraints suitable to assure reliability and long life. These requirements imply the use of transonic stages with associated problems of cooling effectiveness if conventional cooling techniques are used Accordingly, a novel cooling system applicable to transonic stages will be developed requiring also the development of a specific manufacturing technology since, convergent slits with negative taper of the hole exit are required. The development of high load transonic stages is a challenging task, requiring the availability of development techniques beyond the present state-of-the-art Accordingly, a unique full scale continuous operation facility will be employed to provide the required run time to allow observation of unsteady flow phenomena. In order to take full advantage of this unique capability. a 3D Particle Image Velocimeter will be developed to capture the presence of oscillatory shocks through simultaneous measurement of the 3D velocity field over a plane inside the rotating blades. Finally the design and experimental activities will be supported by the extensive use of simulation codes modelling the unsteady behaviour of complex flow in real machinery Expected achievements at the end of the project are: 1 design tools for high load, high efficiency turbine stages 2 innovative film cooling system for blades in transonic stages 3. manufacturing technologies for cooling ports in blades 4. experimental database on full scale transonic stages 5. setup of an unprecedented and worldwide unique experimental facility 6. 3D PIV system for unsteady measurements in turbomachinery. The consortium comprises a manufacturer of industrial gas turbine (NUOVO PIGNONE - IT), a university department which has designed and built the continuous flow facility and which patented the innovative blade cooling system, (UNIVERSITY OF GRAZ, Institute for Thermal Turbomachinery and Machine Dynamics - AT), a university department active in modelling of unsteady fluid dynamics (UNIVERSITY OF FLORENCE, Department of Energy Engineering - IT), a developer and manufacturer of parts for the gas turbine industry (ELDIM -NL), a developer and manufacturing of advanced flow measurement equipment (DANTEC - DK)

Call for proposal

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Coordinator

Nuovo Pignone
EU contribution
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Address
Via Felice Matteucci 2
50127 Firenze
Italy

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Total cost
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Participants (5)