Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Pulse detonation combustion holds the key to 45% simple cycle and
close to 65% combined cycle efficiencies at today’s 1400-1500°C
gas turbine firing temperatures.
The Kelvin-Planck statement of the Second Law of Thermo- Why constant volume combustion?
dynamics leaves no room for doubt: the maximum efficiency In a modern gas turbine with an approximately constant pres-
of a heat engine operating in a thermodynamic cycle cannot sure combustor, the compressor section consumes close to
exceed the efficiency of a Carnot cycle operating between 50% of gas turbine power output.
the same hot and cold temperature reservoirs. Assume one could devise a combustion system where
All practical heat engine cycles are attempts to approxi- energy added to the working fluid (i.e. air) via chemical re-
mate the ideal Carnot cycle within limits imposed by mate- action with fuel would simultaneously increase the enthalpy
rials, mechanical considerations, size and cost. The operat- (temperature) and pressure of the product gas. For that same
ing principles of such engines are described by idealized amount of air and fuel, the resultant saving in power spent
“closed” cycles with a pure “working fluid” as detailed in the for air compression would result in an increase in net cycle
Thermodynamics section of this article (page 00), output and efficiency.
Combustion engine cycles
Ultimate Gas Turbine Cycle Acronyms
Based on combustion process, the engine cycles are clas-
sified as internal combustion engine cycles such as Otto,
CPC constant pressure combustion
Diesel, Atkinson and Brayton (vehicular engines and gas
(current GT designs)
turbines) or external combustion engine cycles such as
CPHA constant pressure heat addition
Ericsson, Stirling and Rankine (Stirling engines and steam
CVC constant volume combustion (pressure gain)
turbines).
The internal combustion engine cycles are further clas-
CVC-GT constant volume combustion gas turbine (the
sified according to their heat addition process based on
ultimate)
constant pressure heat addition (such as Brayton gas turbine
CVHA constant volume heat addition
cycle) or constant volume heat addition (Otto and Diesel car
GT gas turbine
and truck engines).
In the remainder of the main body of this article, the
GTCC gas turbine combined cycle
academic term “heat addition” will be replaced by the techni-
METH mean-effective temperature (high)
cal term for its practical implementation in actual engines,
METL mean-effective temperature (low)
namely fuel-air combustion.
While constant volume combustion is presently limited
PDC pulse detonation combustion
to reciprocating (piston-cylinder) engines, the “first economi-
PDE pulse detonation engine
cally practical” gas turbine – as declared by none other than
PR pressure ratio
Aurel Stodola – was in fact a bona fide constant volume
combustion (CVC) gas turbine invented and developed by
PR' precompression pressure ratio
Hans Holzwarth around the turn of the 19th century.
RF realization factor
Subsequently however, starting in the early 1930s, gas
R-G Reynst-Gülen cycle
turbine development has centered almost exclusively on con-
stant pressure combustion (CPC) technology for aircraft
SSSF steady state steady flow
propulsion and land-based power generation, This article is
TIT turbine inlet temperature
intended to provide a glimpse into the potential benefits of a
USUF uniform state uniform flow
return “back to the future” that CVC technology has to offer.
Shock Wave
dition is the ideal cycle proxy Ma = 3.72 Qin fuel / air - 0.0415
for pressure gain combustion 5617 fps
whereas constant pressure heat 1713 m/s
Pressure Ratio
At the very basic level, air-standard cycles are character- CPHA process, are Steady State Steady Flow (SSSF) pro-
ized by three major assumptions: 1) a pure working fluid cesses in an open system (i.e., working fluid mass flow does
(air) modeled as a calorically perfect gas, 2) external heat ad- cross the control volume boundaries).
dition, and 3) internally reversible processes.
With the notable exceptions of the three-process Lenoir Constant volume heat addition
cycle and five-process dual cycles, practically all air-stan- Interestingly, the four-process air-standard cycle with steady
dard cycles of engineering interest have four key processes, state steady flow CVHA has been conspicuously absent
i.e. compression, heat addition, expansion, and heat rejection from the literature. As far as we can tell, it only appeared
in common. It has been demonstrated that: (implicitly) in papers by the Dutch engineer/scientist Fran-
For a given cycle heat addition, if no limit is imposed on çois Henri Reynst in 1950s [2]. The author formulated it
cycle pressure ratio (PR), the constant volume heat addition first in his 2010 paper and called it Reynst-Gülen or R-G
(CVHA) cycle is the most efficient air-standard cycle; specifi- cycle [3].
cally, the Atkinson cycle [1]. It can be shown that, at the same cycle heat input and
overall cycle pressure ratio, i.e., either at the end of the com-
For a given cycle pressure ratio and cycle heat addition, pression process for the Brayton cycle with CPHA, or at the
however, the most efficient air-standard cycle is the constant end of the heat addition process for the Atkinson and R-G
pressure heat addition (CPHA) cycle; specifically, the Bray- cycles with constant volume heat addition, the R-G cycle is
ton cycle [1]. Note that the efficiency of an air-standard Bray- more efficient than the Brayton cycle, which is more effi-
ton cycle is only a function of the cycle pressure ratio, i.e., cient than the Atkinson cycle.
The Atkinson cycle is more efficient than the Brayton
cycle at the same heat input only when the Brayton cycle
pressure ratio is the same as the precompression pressure
The practical ramifications of these fundamental thermo- ratio of the Atkinson cycle. In essence, the R-G cycle is the
dynamic assertions based on ideal air-standard cycles can be ultimate gas turbine cycle.
seen in the comparative performances of gas-fired reciprocat-
ing gensets, aeroderivative gas turbines with very high pres- Reynst cycle efficiency
sure ratios, and heavy-frame industrial gas turbines with very The R-G cycle is a theoretical construction with no informa-
high turbine inlet temperatures. tion regarding its practical implementation. Reynst envi-
While these assertions are not incorrect per se, they are sioned a hybrid or turbo-compound cycle where the combus-
incomplete. In effect, the CVHA process in the cylinder of tor of the gas turbine is replaced by a two-stroke reciprocat-
a Diesel engine or the explosion chamber of the Holzwarth ing engine, based on the three-process Lenoir cycle (missing
turbine is a Uniform State Uniform Flow (USUF) process the isentropic compression process), whose shaft drove a
in a closed system (i.e., no working fluid mass flow crosses compressor.
the control volume boundaries).
In contrast, all processes in a gas turbine, including the Reynst calculated the efficiency of that ideal constant vol-
V2 (S
gas turbine cycles can only be made at t.
METH
s Brayton (PR)
the same PR and heat input (qin) basis. st. con
on = Reynst-Gülen
The efficiency hierarchy of the cycles is =c V 2′
P2
Brayton (PR)
st.
Brayton (PR′)
shown in Figure 7.
Atkinson
4′′′
on 4′′
The cycles have different mean-effec- =c 4
2 P 2′
METL 4′
tive heat rejection temperatures (METL)
2′ t.
controlled by the temperature of cycle cons
P1 =
state point 4. However, in order to not 1
Entropy (S)
complicate the chart, only METL corre-
sponding to T4 is shown and the variation
The first half of the last century witnessed a number of pioneering and
landmark (albeit short-lived) applications of pressure-gain combustion
in a turbine framework for power generation, airborne, marine and
vehicular propulsion.
Turbo-compound engine
This was the turbo-compound engine, essentially a Brayton
cycle gas turbine with the combustor replaced by a two-
stroke Diesel or free-piston Pescara gas generator (i.e., con-
stant volume combustion).
In order to avoid confusion, it must be stated up front that
this is different from a turbocharged Diesel engine which
Figure 11. General Motors XP-500 Firebird powered by a
involves a scheme to “squeeze” more air (i.e., more power free-piston gas turbine engine.
output) into the engine cylinders (up to about 50% more) by
compressing the intake air (known as forced air induction). ....It found some fame on this side of the Atlantic as well. In
The low pressure ratio (~1.5) turbo-compressor is driven 1956, as a SIGMA licensee, General Motors installed a free-
by an exhaust gas turbine (in effect, the combined system is piston gas turbine engine in a futuristic car, XP-500 Firebird
a miniature gas turbine) whereas, in the turbo-compound en- (Figure 11). Apparently, the car was conceived as an adver-
gine, the gas turbine is a major cycle component and not an tising gimmick rather than a serious commercial product
accessory. since “advertisements that generated the same attention
The two practical turbo-compound cycle/engine examples would have been much more expensive.”
of interest are the French Alsthom-SIGMA (Société Indus- By all accounts, Napier’s Nomad (Figure 12) was ahead
trielle Générale de Mécanique Appliquée) GS-34 turbine of its time in terms of its achieved efficiency, about 0.325 lb/
(Pescara free-piston gas generator with power turbine shown hr of fuel per shp at cruising speed and altitude (equivalent to
in Figure 10) and Nomad aircraft engine designed and manu- around 40% efficiency).
factured by the British company D. Napier and Son (a gas The second generation Nomad II had a 12-cylinder two-
turbine engine with two-stroke Diesel generator). stroke Diesel engine in two six-cylinder blocks, which served
as a gas generator for the gas turbine (12-stage axial com-
Free-piston engine pressor with a pressure ratio of 8.25). Both the Diesel engine
The former, developed by the Swiss engineer Robert Huber and the gas turbine contributed shaft power to the single pro-
(a student of Stodola) based on patents by the Argentinian peller via a complicated gear arrangement.
engineer cum inventor Raul Pescara, had actually a quite At the end of the day, however, the low thrust-to-weight
successful run during the 1950s with installations for power ratio (as a result of low airflow, heavy engine and gearbox)
generation (in multi-engine configurations up to 24 MW total and immense complexity (mechanics referred to it as “parts
in 1959) and ship propulsion in France. recovery engine”) doomed the Nomad by 1955.
Engine
Gas Collector
Cylinder
(Pressure Equalizer)
Cushion
Cylinder Figure 12 Layout of the original Nomad I flight engine with
intercooled axial-centrifugal compressor and twin propellers
Gas Turbine (one driven by the gas turbine (6) and the other by the Diesel
engine (2). Note the auxiliary combustor (3) and auxiliary tur-
bine, activated by the flap valve to the left of (4), for extra power
Figure 10. Diagram of a free-piston gas generator and gas during take-off. In the final Nomad II variant, there was only
turbine. (Animated videos of free-piston engines are widely one propeller, one 3-stage turbine and a single-spool 12-stage
available on Wikipedia and YouTube.) axial compressor without any intercooler (7).