The filtration performance and the energy saving of Rotating Inlet Filter compared to ordinary static filters will be demonstrated for the first time with an industrial gas turbine in full process operation.
The consortium expects to prove considerable energy savings of 1.3% fuel efficiency as compared to ordinary filters in combination with enhanced filtration and reduced O&M costs.
We further expect that after this project being a success the RIF will be commercialised for the gas turbine market and for retrofitting of existing power plants in energy industry.
Increased thermodynamic efficiency of the gas turbine system with 1.3%.
Improved filtration (100% filtration for particles >0.1µ)
Lower O&M costs : NLG 37400/yr
Stabile performance of filter with industrial gas turbine through all weather conditions.
E-saving : 7460 GJoule/y per gas turbine.
Pay-back time : 4.2 years without optimisation and mass-fabrication
Market potential in EU : 2000 devices
Energy saving potential in EU : 15 x 10e15 Joule/y.
KNP-BT works at Hoogezand is the world's largest producer of boardpaper. For their energy they use a steam boiler (40 bar) heated by the exhaust gasses of an Allison gas turbine of 3640 kW also producing electricity and process heat. After the boiler a steam turbine (2.0 MW) is switched. In case of maintenance the energy and heat production is taken over by a second identical gas turbine and/or boiler. In this project one gas turbine will use the existing ordinary static air filter, the other turbine will be provided with one RIF-device consisting of 4 rotational air separators with a total capacity of 50000 m³/h air.
The RIF will be located next to the static filter on the roof of the turbine housing and coupled to the gas turbine with a connecting channel. In front of the RIF a water-evaporating nozzle will be placed to cool the inlet air.
All measurement equipment necessary for performance testing of the gas turbines will run parallel to the existing data acquisition system. Up to now, the most common technique used to prevent gas turbine fouling are static inlet filters. A gas turbine inlet filter consists in most cases of one or more inertial separators and disposable media-type filters in series. Alternatively advanced self-cleaning pulsejet filters can be employed.
In this project a new and patented filter is demonstrate, called inlet filter (RIF). The RIF consists of one or more rotating filter elements. A filter elements is composed of a large number of axial channels. Solids and/or liquid particles in the gas stream through the filter element are centrifuged towards the outer collecting walls. The radial velocity of the particles is determined by equilibrium of the centrifugal force and the Stokes force.
Apart from filtering characteristics attention is drawn on the thermodynamic aspects of the new filtering concept. As the rotating filter contains an impeller, the filtered air can be charged at limited costs. Combining this with evaporative cooling, e.g. dispersing fine water particles at the filter inlet, shaft power and fuel economy of the gas turbine will be positively influenced.
