ME-09 Class

ME-460 (Gas Turbines)

Introduction to Gas Turbines
(Part-II)
 Gas Turbines Fuels: Important Requirement
• Minimum carbon deposit on turbine blades and on
combustion chamber
• Variety of fuels – solid, liquid and gaseous may be used
• Coal is generally not used owing to ash handling
problems
• Liquid fuels such as kerosene, gas oil, diesel oil, residual
oil are quite suitable but their use is limited because of
higher cost
• Natural gas (methane) has high calorific value and is
generally used for auxiliary power generation in oil fields
• Now-a-days mainly natural gas and liquid petroleum fuels
are used

21-Oct-20 Lecture by Asst. Prof. NAEEM 2

 Gas Turbines Elements: Compressor
• A compressor is a device that is used to supply
compressed air to the combustion chamber.
• Compressors are broadly classified as:
– positive displacement type
– roto-dynamic type
• Each of them may be of single stage or multi-stage
design.
• In the positive displacement machine, successive
volumes of air are pressurized within a closed space.
• These may be of reciprocating type or rotary type
• Gas turbines normally incorporate roto-dynamic
compressors.
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 Gas Turbines Elements: Compressor
• The roto-dynamic compressors may be of the type:
– radial flow (centrifugal compressor)
– axial flow
– mixed flow

Centrifugal Axial Flow

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 Gas Turbines Elements: Compressor
• In roto-dynamic type compressors, compression takes
place by dynamic action of rotating vanes or impellers
• Rotors impart velocity and pressure to the air as it flows
through the compressor
• These machines are all high speed machines running at
as high as 3,000 to 4,000 RPM driven by turbines
• These are designed to have high value of air discharge
capacity at moderate pressure

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 Gas Turbines Elements: Combustor
• A combustor is a device inside which the combustion
of fuel takes place.
• A good combustor should:
– Achieve complete combustion
– Encounter the lowest possible pressure drop in the gas

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 Gas Turbines Elements: Combustor

• Complete combustion of fuel depends upon three

factors:
– Temperature
– Time
– Turbulence
• Temperature in the combustor directly affects
combustion
• High temperature is conductive to rapid combustion.

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 Combustion System Requirements
• High Rate of Heat Release
• To achieve total combustion in a small a
space, the rate of heat release must be as
high as possible.
• Flame Stabilization
• Flame instability can lead to:
– Unsteady burning causing cyclic stresses and
temperatures
– Flame out in its worst case
• Combustion Efficiency
• A high rate of heat release and gradual
admission of air during combustion give good
combustion efficiency

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 Combustion System Requirements
• Even Distribution of Turbine Entry Temperature
• The TIT limitations are imposed by the stress and creep
characteristics of turbine blades.
• For maximum efficiency, temperature should vary along the
blade length.
• Minimum Pressure Loss
– Hot Loss: refers to stagnation pressure loss due to heat addition
(reminds you of Rayleigh Flow)
– Cold Loss: depends on the gas velocity on inlet to the
combustion system (turbulence, skin friction, cooling holes)
• Minimum Carbon Formation
• Carbon formation is caused by over-rich mixture strengths in
the combustion zone for inefficient atomization and mixing.

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 Combustion System Requirements
• Reliability
• Although there are no moving parts in a combustion system,
there are considerable thermal and vibrational stresses
caused by:
– Unsteady combustion vibrating the chamber walls.
– Pressure differentials across the walls of the combustion chamber.
– Change in momentum of the gas flow through the chamber.
• Thermal stresses can be reduced by:
– suitable choice of materials
– reducing the vibration
• Failure to eliminate vibration will result in fatigue cracks and
effectively limit the useful life of the combustion system.

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 Flow Through
Typical Combustion Chamber
• A typical combustion chamber is considered to have three
zones: primary, secondary and tertiary.
• Figure below shows the layout and main components of a
typical combustion chamber.

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 Flow Through
Typical Combustion Chamber
• A small amount (18 %) of air enters the snout
• It flows through either the swirl vanes (10 %) to mix directly with atomized fuel
from the burner nozzle
• Or it passes through the flare (8 %) which stabilizes the flame by creating a
turbulent, slow moving zone of air called the "combustion" or "primary zone"

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 Flow Through
Typical Combustion Chamber
• A further 10% of the air is introduced aft of the primary zone to
mix with the flame generated in the primary zone to form the
main area of burning.
• This area is called the secondary zone and is the main central
section of the flame tube.

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 Flow Through
Typical Combustion Chamber
• The rear half of the combustion system (tertiary zone) is used
for the introduction of the remaining 72 % of the air.
• This air:
– not only increases the efficient burning,
– but also cools the burnt gases to a temperature which is
acceptable to the turbine blades.

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 Flow Through
Typical Combustion Chamber
• In practice, these zones overlap, with air being admitted
gradually and continuously over practically the whole length
of the flame tube.

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 Combustion System Layout
• Three types of layout are used for combustion systems:
– Multiple chamber.
– Tubo-annualar or cannular chamber.
– Annular chamber.

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 Combustion Chamber Layouts: Comparison
• The advantages and disadvantages of the multiple and annular types of combustion
chamber are given below.
• The cannular chamber is between these two types and compromises their
advantages and disadvantages.

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 Combustion Chamber Materials
• The flame tube of the combustion chamber must be:
– capable of withstanding the high burning temperature involved,
and
– resistant to thermal shock during transient operations caused
by:
• high temperature differentials during rapid transient changes of
combustion temperature.
• local hot spots created by carbon formation
– resistant to fatigue caused by vibration.
• The materials used are usually alloys of nickel and chromium,
with traces of aluminiun, titanium and cobalt (the Nimonic
series of alloys).

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 Gas Turbines Elements: Turbine
• The basic construction of a gas turbine employs vanes
or blades mounted on a shaft and enclosed in a
casing.
The flow of fluid through
turbine in most designs is axial
and tangential to the rotor at
a nearly constant or increasing
radius.
Modern gas turbine engine
operate with high overall
pressure ratio (about 40:1) and high turbine entry temperature
(TET or TIT) of about 1800 K.
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 Gas Turbines Elements: Turbine
• There are two types of blades used in all turbines :
– fixed on the rotor and move with the shaft (rotor blades)
– fixed blades or vanes, those are fixed to the casing and help to
guide and accelerate or decelerate the flow of fluid (stators).

One set
of rotor
and
stator is
called a
Stage

21-Oct-20 Lecture by Asst. Prof. NAEEM 20

 Gas Turbines Elements: Turbine
Turbine Power Output
• To minimize the size and weight of the turbine for a given
output power, the output per kg of airflow should be
maximized.
• This is obtained by maximizing the pressure ratio
between the air inlet and exhaust outlet.
• The pressure ratio across the compressor can be as
high as 40:1 in modern gas turbines.
• In simple cycle applications increase in pressure ratio is
limited by:
– The maximum allowable cycle temperature
– Also increasing the pressure ratio means that more energy will
be consumed by the compressor (big compressor, more fuel
consumption)
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 Gas Turbines Elements: Turbine
• The power of the turbine depends upon the size,
shape and the speed of the blades used.
• Multi-staging is employed to increase the power
output of the turbine by placing additional sets of
fixed and moving blades in series.
• To prevent leakage of gas along the shaft gas seals or
glands are provided where the shaft emerges from
the turbine casing.
• The extending lengths of the shaft
on the two sides of the turbine are
supported on journal bearings
which also maintain it’s proper
alignment.
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 Gas Turbines Elements: Turbine

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 Gas Turbines Elements: Turbine
• The turbine can be classified into two
categories:
– impulse gas turbine
– reaction gas turbine
• If the entire pressure drop of the turbine
occurs across the fixed blades (stators), the
design is impulse type
• if the drop takes place in the moving blades
(rotor), and the fixed blades serve only as
deflectors, the design is called reaction type.

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 Gas Turbines Elements: Turbine
• The advantage of the impulse design:
– there is no pressure force tending to move the wheel
in the axial direction
– no special thrust balancing arrangement is required
– no tendency for gas to leak over the tips of the
moving blades
• A purely reaction turbine is not generally used.
• 50% reaction types:
– In a small multi-stage construction the velocity change
in the moving and fixed blades is about the same

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 Gas Turbines Elements: Generator
• It is a device that generates electricity.
• It is coupled to the same shaft of turbine and
runs at same speed to that of the turbine.
• The capacity of generators depends on
installed capacity of the plant.
• The types of generators to be used depend on
the purpose for which electrical energy is to
be produced.

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 Gas Turbines Elements: Generator

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 Gas Turbines Elements: Accessories
• Accessories fitted to the turbine are:
– a tachometer driven through a gear box
– an over speed governor
– a lubricating oil pump
– a fuel regulator
• The starting gear is mounted on the shaft at one end
• The tachometer:
– shows the speed of the machine
– actuates the fuel regulator in case of speed rises
above or falls below the regulated speed
• Accordingly the fuel regulator adjusts fuel into the
combustor and varies the turbine power according to
demand of load.
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 Gas Turbines Elements: Accessories
• The governor back off fuel feed, if the exhaust
temperature from turbine exceeds the safe limit
• The lubricating pump supplies oil to bearing under
pressure.
• Other auxiliaries used on the turbine plant include:
– the starting motor or engine with starting gear
– oil coolers and filters
– inlet and exhaust mufflers
• The turbine (and with it the compressors) is driven by the
starting motor through a clutch and set-up gearing.
• A standby motor driven pump is also provided for
emergency service.
• A failure of lubricating pump system results in stopping of
the unit automatically.
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 End of Lecture

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