Prospects for the Use of Gas Turbine Engines in Marine Power Plants

Abstract

The information about the appearance of steam and gas turbine engines in the fleet, the current state and prospects of their use is presented in the paper. The information about the technical characteristics of marine gas turbine engines is given, the directions of their improvement are determined in order to expand their use in civil shipbuilding. It is shown that the basis for the creation of marine gas turbine engines are industrial and aviation gas turbine engines. For their successful conversion into shipboard systems, it is necessary to choose a design scheme depending on the purpose and displacement of the vessel, upgrade the systems in accordance with the requirements of the operating conditions, and ensure a rational choice of structural materials. The most important tasks in the creation of marine gas turbine installations are to ensure the deep utilization of secondary energy resources by optimizing the parameters of the working process and the design of heat exchange equipment, as well as to ensure the possibility of using the traditional and alternative fuels, including gas. The choice of a heat recovery scheme and the development of a fuel treatment system are complex tasks, when solving which it is necessary to take into account many factors, namely, the purpose of the vessel, the need for heat for their own needs, the availability of free space, the operating modes of the power plant, the limits of the complexity of the working cycle. Promising areas for the use of gas turbine engines in the fleet are the creation of hybrid power plants based on them, including for the vessels with electric propulsion, as well as environmentally safe installations with closed cycles, including for facilities operating in the coastal shelf. The solution of complex scientific and technical problems associated with the expansion of using the gas turbine engines at civil marine facilities requires comprehensive research, including energy and exergetic assessment of the installations efficiency, numerical modeling of the processes, conducting field experiments and experimental design work.