Micro Gas Turbine Based Test Rig for Hybrid System Emulation

Abstract

The Thermochemical Power Group (TPG) is building at the laboratory of the University of Genoa, Italy, a new high temperature fuel cell - micro gas turbine physical emulator based on commercial machine technology. The aim of this new test rig is the experimental analysis of the coupling of commercial machines with fuel cell stacks focusing the attention on the critical phases of start-up, shutdown and load changes. The experimental facility is composed of a Turbec T100 micro gas turbine package modified for the fuel cell emulator connection, a set of pipes designed for by-pass, measurement or bleed reasons, and a high temperature volume designed for the RRFCS stack dimension physical emulation. This experimental approach is essential for model validations, and to test different transient operative procedures and control systems without any risk for an expensive real fuel cell stack. This paper shows the preliminary experimental data obtained with the machine in stand alone configuration, focusing the attention on the comparison of these results with the tests performed with the external pipes. Furthermore, a theoretical transient model of this new experimental facility has been developed with the TRANSEO tool. It is essential for the rig design and to perform preliminary results necessary to prevent dangerous conditions during the tests. This paper reports a preliminary verification of this model performed with the facility.

Flexible Micro Gas Turbine Rig for Tests on Advanced Energy Systems

“…As an example, this chapter shows the comparison between experimental data and model results related to recuperator outlet temperature (cold side), during a cold start-up phase. Besides the additional developments and tests on the rig, already planned and presented in (Pascenti et al, 2007;Ferrari et al, 2009a;Ferrari et al, 2010c;Prando et al, 2010), all the different layout configurations will be considered for tests. For instance, in an ongoing work it is planned to use the real-time model for control system development activities related on SOFC hybrid plants and the absorber cooler to carry out tests at lower ambient temperature conditions, also considering tri-generative configurations.…”

“…This kind of volume is extremely significant on machine transient behaviour especially for plant component safety reasons (to avoid stress or dangerous conditions (Pascenti et al, 2007)). Therefore, this test rig was equipped with a modular vessel designed for experimental tests on the coupling of the machine with different kinds of components (e.g.…”

Experimental Investigation of the Dynamic Performance of a Micro Gas Turbine Recuperator Including Innovative Cycle Configurations

“…This micro gas turbine consists of a complete module [23] for power generation (100 kW at nominal conditions, N=70000 rpm, β=4.45 at a TIT of 950°C, that is 1223.15 K), a heat exchanger located downstream of the recuperator outlet (hot side) for cogenerative applications, and two battery packages for the startup phase (when the machine is in stand-alone mode). The commercial power unit was modified for the volume coupling, as described in [22]. For this reason, the original piping was substituted with four pipes for the external connections.…”

“…frequent machine part-load conditions for distributed generation market reasons, different mass flow rate values on recuperator sides for additional flow injections, frequent start-up phases and load variations) lead researchers to perform a wide experimental campaign on this component also far from design conditions. A previous publication [21] exploited the micro gas turbine test rig [22], developed by TPG at the University of Genoa. It showed an extensive experimental analysis on recuperator performance focusing attention on recuperator effectiveness.…”

Model of a novel pressurized solid oxide fuel cell gas turbine hybrid engine

“…Direct SOFC-GT hybrid models and laboratory tests have been published [9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17]. Both TPG and NETL have test rigs able to model "hardware-in-the-loop" systems, thus validating computational models [11,16,18]. NFCRC with collaborators have published several transient studies as well as control strategies for indirect SOFC-GT hybrids and molten carbonate fuel cells (MCFC) hybrids [19][20][21][22].…”