During hot days, gas turbine power output deteriorates significantly. Among various means to augment gas turbine output, inlet air fog cooling is considered as the simplest and most costeffective method. During fog cooling, water is atomized to micro-scaled droplets and introduced into the inlet airflow. In addition to cooling the inlet air, overspray can further enhance output power by intercooling the compressor. However, there are concerns that the water droplets might damage the compressor blades and increased mass might cause potential compressor operation instability due to reduced safety margin. Furthermore, the two-phase flow thermodynamics during wet compression in a rotating system has not been fully established, so continued research and development in wet compression theory and prediction model are required. The objective of this research is to improve existing wet compression theory and associated models to accurately predict the compressor and the entire gas turbine system performance for the application of gas turbine inlet fog cooling. The following achievements have been accomplished: (a) At the system level, a global gas turbine inlet fog cooling theory and algorithm have been developed and a system performance code, FogGT, has been written according to the developed theory. (b) At the component level, a stage-stacking wet compression theory in the compressor has been developed with known airfoil configurations. (c) Both equilibrium and non-equilibrium water droplet thermal-fluid dynamic models have been developed including droplet drag forces, evaporation rate, breakup and coalescence. A liquid erosion model has also been developed and incorporated. (d) Model for using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code has been developed to simulate multiphase wet compression in the rotating compressor stage. In addition, with the continued increase in volatility of natural gas prices as well as concerns regarding national energy security, this research has also investigated employing inlet fogging to gas turbine system fired with alternative fuels such as low calorific value synthetic gases. The key results include discovering that the saturated fogging can reduce compressor power consumption, but overspray, against conventional intuition, actually increases compressor power. Nevertheless, inlet fogging does increase overall net power output.

La conduite à grande vitesse d’une voiture dans des conditions dangereuses, tel un environnement très poussiéreux, est une des situations auxquelles sont confrontés les conducteurs. Dans ce cas, les essuie-glaces doivent fonctionner correctement et nettoyer efficacement le pare-brise sale pour à la fois assurer la sécurité des passagers et le bon fonctionnement des différents organes du véhicule. La mise en route des essuie-glaces entraîne l’activation des buses d’injection du liquide nettoyant qui s’atomise et qui se dépose sur les essuie-glaces et le pare-brise. Une fine couche du liquide se développe sur les surfaces des balais d’essuie-glace. Lorsque l’injection s’arrête et que les essuie-glaces continuent leur mouvement, la fine couche de liquide interagit avec le champ d’écoulement d’air extérieur. Il en résulte une génération de gouttelettes qui sont emportées par l’air en s’éloignant des balais d’essuie-glace. Une partie de ces gouttelettes impacte le pare-brise avec pour conséquence un nettoyage insuffisant et une mauvaise visibilité pour le conducteur. Dans cet exemple, les essuie-glaces peuvent à la fois enlever la poussière du pare-brise mais aussi être à l’origine de la formation des gouttelettes et de leur impact sur le pare-brise. Le phénomène d’interaction air-liquide sur les essuie-glaces produisant une génération de gouttelettes, leur transport et leur impact sur le pare-brise est connu sous le vocable ‘Overspray’ dans le domaine de l’automobile. Il est important de tenir compte du phénomène d’Overspray pour la conception et laréalisation des essuie-glaces. Bien que ce phénomène ait été mis en évidence depuis longtemps, les mécanismes qui le régissent demeurent encore peu connus. C’est pour cette raison que les essuie-glaces ne parviennent pas à satisfaire tous les critères de qualité liée à leur fonction. Cette thèse vise à une meilleure compréhension du phénomène de l’Overspray en mettant l’accent sur les interactions air-liquide pour la génération des gouttelettes, et plus particulièrement sur les conditions critiques où le film commence à s’atomiser. Cette étude a été réalisée essentiellement par voie expérimentale à partir de laquelle un modèle a été proposé. / Driving the car in hazard conditions, like an environment with a lot of dust, is a case which is encountered often by the drivers. The wiper blades have to work successfully and clean the dirty windshield for both the safety of the passengers and the functionality of the car. Activating the car nozzle jets, washer is ejected from the nozzles towards the wiper blades and the windshield. A thin layer of liquid is developed on the surfaces of the wiper blades. When the nozzle jets stop and the wiper blades continue to move, the thin layer of liquid interacts with the strong external air flow field. The result of the interaction is the generation of droplets which are transported by the air flow far from the wiper blades. However, a part of those droplets impact on the windshield resulting in an insufficient cleaning of the screen and the deterioration of the driver’s sight. The wiper blades may remove the dust from the screen but they will cause the droplet impact on it. The phenomenon of the air-liquid interaction on the wiper blades involving the droplet generation, transport and impact on the screen is known as Overspray in the automotive domain. The Overspray is an important parameter for the design and development of the wiper blades. Although Overspray has been observed quite early, little is known for the mechanisms involved in. Thus, the wiper blades still suffer to clean the windshield adequately in such conditions. The current thesis aims to give a deep insight in the Overspray focusing more on the air-liquid interactions for the droplet generation, especially, the investigation of the critical conditions for the onset of the film atomization from the blade surfaces. For that reason mainly experimental and theoretical work has been conducted.