Gas Turbines — Dust — Air Cleaners: Experience and Trends

Abstract

The object of this paper is to present in one place most of the documented experience that shows the interrelationship of gas turbines, dust and air cleaners; and to compare opinions on what an air cleaner must do to prevent a gas turbine from failing because of air-borne contaminants. This experience covers three types of gas turbine air cleaners in both the laboratory and the field, on wheeled and tracked vehicles, and on helicopters and air cushion vehicles. The consensus is that gas turbines do need air cleaners if they are going to compete with piston engines in their environment. The information is presented so that a person specifying a gas turbine air cleaner knows what factors he must consider, and can determine the relative importance of the features of the air cleaner that would best suit his needs.

Predicting Erosion Damage in a Centrifugal Fan

“…The size distribution of this sample is between 0.1 and 100 microns [43], with a mean diameter equal to 10.4 microns and a standard deviation of 9.9 microns. The second sample follows the engine testing standard dust based on the Coarse Arizona Road Dust "AC-coarse" of a size range between 1 and 200 microns [44]. For this sample, the mean diameter equals 37.7 microns, and the standard deviation is 30.3 microns.…”

A Compressor Fouling Review Based on an Historical Survey of ASME Turbo Expo Papers

“…With the same accuracy level used in Ref. [124], Giannotti [125] described the primary filtration methods (impingement, diffusion, electrostatic, and sedimentation) and the secondary methods of separation (viscous air cleaner, ultrasonic agglomerator, thermal precipitators, and wet scrubber), while Mund and Guhne [126] cover three types of gas turbine air cleaners, both in the laboratory and the field, on wheeled and tracked vehicles, in helicopters and air cushion vehicles. In the same way, Hill [35] reported the differences in the air filtration systems as a function of the environment (large cities, industrial areas, desert locations, tropical environment, and arctic environment) summarized in Tables 5 and 6.…”

Survey of Turbine Bucket Erosion, Deposits, and Corrosion

“…Dust erosion in helicopter engines proved so severe in field operations in Vietnam that in some instances, engines had to be removed after less than 100 hr of operation (20). The Air Force instituted an extensive program to investigate the problem.…”

“…Fig. 8 shows the particle removal efficiency of a unit of this type and the pressure drop as a function of the airflow rate per unit of inlet face area of the separator bank (20). These data were for dust in which 25 percent by weight of the particles had equivalent diameters of less than 10 dun.…”