The inlet fogging of gas turbine engines for power augmentation has seen increasing application over the past decade yet not a single technical paper treating the physics and engineering of the fogging process, droplet size measurement, droplet kinetics, or the duct behavior of droplets, from a gas turbine perspective, is available. This paper provides the results of extensive experimental and theoretical studies conducted over several years coupled with practical aspects learned in the implementation of nearly 500 inlet fogging systems on gas turbines ranging in power from 5 to 250 MW. Part A of the paper covers the underlying theory of droplet thermodynamics and heat transfer, and provides several practical pointers relating to the implementation and application of inlet fogging to gas turbine engines.
Increased fuel costs have created a strong incentive for gas turbine operators to understand, minimize and control performance deterioration. The most prevalent deterioration problem faced by gas turbine operators is compressor fouling. Fouling causes a drop in airflow, pressure ratio and compressor efficiency, resulting in a “re-matching” of the gas turbine and compressor and a drop in power output and thermal efficiency. This paper addresses the causes and effects of fouling and provides a comprehensive treatment of the impact of salient gas turbine design parameters on the susceptibility and sensitivity to compressor fouling. Simulation analysis of ninety two (92) gas turbines of ranging from a few kW to large engines rated at greater than 300 MW has been conducted. It is hoped that this paper will provide practical information to gas turbine operators.
Inlet fogging of gas turbine engines has attained considerable popularity due to the ease of installation and the relatively low first cost compared to other inlet cooling methods. With increasing demand for power and with shortages envisioned especially during the peak load times during the summers, there is a need to boost gas turbine power. There is a sizable evaporative cooling potential throughout the world when the climatic data is evaluated based on an analysis of coincident wet bulb and dry bulb information. This data is not readily available to plant users. In this paper, a detailed climatic analysis is made of 106 major locations over the world to provide the hours of cooling that can be obtained by direct evaporative cooling. This data will allow gas turbine operators to easily make an assessment of the economics of evaporative fogging. The paper also covers an introduction to direct evaporative cooling and the methodology and data analysis used to derive the cooling potential. Simulation runs have been made for gas turbine simple cycles showing effects of fogging for a GE Frame 7EA and a GE Frame 9FA Gas turbine for 60 and 50 Hz applications.
With deregulation in the power generation market and a need for flexibility in terms of power augmentation during the periods of high electricity demand, power plant operators all over the world are exploring means to augment power from both the existing and new gas turbines. An approach becoming increasingly popular is that of the high pressure inlet fogging. In this paper, the results of a comprehensive parametric analysis on the effects of inlet fogging on a wide range of existing gas turbines are presented. Both evaporative and overspray fogging conditions have been analyzed. The results show that the performance parameters indicative of inlet fogging effects have a definitive correlation with the key gas turbine design parameters. In addition, this study indicates that the aeroderivative gas turbines, in comparison to the heavy-duty industrial machines, have higher performance improvement due to inlet fogging effects. Plausible reasons for the observed trends are discussed. This paper represents the first systematic study on the effects of inlet fogging for a large number (a total of 67) of gas turbines available from the major gas turbine manufacturers.
The effects of performance deterioration in both land and aircraft gas turbines are presented in this paper. Models for two of the most common causes of deterioration, viz., fouling and erosion, are presented. A stage-stacking procedure, which uses new installed engine field data for compressor map development, is described. The results of the effect of fouling in a powerplant gas turbine and that of erosion in a aircraft gas turbine are presented. Also described are methods of fault threshold quantification and fault matrix simulation. Results of the analyses were found to be consistent with field observations.
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