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The specific power (or specific thrust) of modern gas turbines is much influenced by the gas temperature at turbine inlet. Even with the use of the best superalloy available and the most advanced cooling configurations, there are competitive pressures to operate engines at even higher gas temperatures. Ceramic coatings operate as thermal barriers and can allow the gas temperature to be increased by 50 to 220 K over the operating gas temperature for an uncoated turbine . It is important that the surface temperature of the blade be determined as accurately as possible. Large uncertainties as to the surface temperature require significant margins for safe operation . Blade surface temperatures can be determined with an accuracy of 10 K using radiation pyrometry and about'30 to 40 K by calculating the blade temperature based on---gas temperature measurement of the exhaust gas plane. This'- makes pyrometry an attractive option for advanced high temperature gas turbines . However, there is little experience in measuring surface temperatures of blades coated with ceramic coatings. There is evidence that the. radiation signal picked up by the pyrometer will not only depend on the surface temperature but also on a number of optical properties of the coating. Important among these are the emissivity of the coating and whether the coating is translucent. Parameters affecting this are the coating material, coating surface finish, coating thickness and whether or not a bond coat is used . This work explores these variables in a rig that simulates the conditions within a turbine stage of a gas turbine engine. In which six thermal barrier coating systems were tested. These systems are of current interest to gas turbine manufacturers and users. They include the latest advances in coating technology. Four stabilized zirconia systems and two alumina based systems were tested. It was found experimentally that the surface emissivity of these coating systems was invariant over the range 873 to 1023 K surface temperature. It was found that the use of different stabilizers did not affect the surface spectral emissivity. In further experiments six turbine wheels were coated with these systems and tested at turbine entry temperatures of 973, 1073, and 1173 K. It was found that the blade surface temperature was function of the coating material, coating thickness and turbine entry temperature. The blade surface temperature was also function of the blade height being maximum at the blade tip and minimum at the blade root . It was found that the C-YPSZ was better insulator than the rest of the systems. Whilst the blades coated with zirconia based systems suffered minor loss near the edges, the two alumina based systems were lost from more than a blade during the test. This coating loss was picked up by. the pyrometer . Analysis shows that the measured blade surface temperature was within 10 K of that calculated. The use of 0.3 mm of C-YPSZ on air cooled turbine blades caused 250 K surface temperature increase and 270 K metal temperature decrease for turbine entry temperature of 1673 K. The metal temperature reduction was as high as 310 K for coating thickness of 0.5 mm.

This thesis presents a detailed investigation of the capability of a modern three-dimensional Navier-Stokes solver to predict the secondary flows and losses in a linear cascade of high turning turbine rotor blades. Three codes were initially tested, to permit selection of the best of the available numerical solvers for this case. This program was then tested in more detail. Results showed that although very accurate prediction of the effects of inviscid fluid mechanics is now possible, the Reynolds stress modelling can have profound effects upon the quality of the solutions obtained. Solutions using two different calculation meshes, have shown that the results are not significantly grid dependent. The flowfield of the cascade was traversed with hot-wires to obtain measurements of the turbulent Reynolds stresses. A turbulence generating grid was placed upstream of the cascade, to produce a more realistic inlet turbulence intensity. Results showed that regions of high turbulent kinetic energy are associated with regions of high total pressure loss. Calculation of eddy viscosities from the Reynolds stresses showed that downstream of the -cascade the eddy viscosity is fairly isotropic. Evaluation of terms in the kinetic energy equation, also indicated that both the normal and shear Reynolds stresses are important as loss producing mechanisms in the downstream flow. The experimental Reynolds stresses have been compared with those calculated from the eddy viscosity and velocity fields of Navier-Stokes predictions using a mixing length turbulence model, a one equation model, and K - ϵ model. It was found that in the separated, shear flows, agreement was poor, although the K - ϵ model performed best. Further experimental work is suggested to obtain data with which to determine the accuracy of the models within the blade and endwall boundary layers.

The loss of performance of a gas turbine engine at off-design is primarily due to the rapid drop of the major cycle performance parameters with decrease in power and this may be aggravated by poor component performance. More and more stringent requirements are being put on the performance demanded from gas turbines and if future engines are to exhibit performances superior to those of present day: engines, then a means must be found of controlling engine cycle such that the lapse rate of the major cycle parameters with power is reduced. In certain applications, it may be desirable to vary engine cycle with operating conditions in an attempt to re-optimize performance. Variable geometry in key engine components offers the advantage of either improving the internal performance of a component or re-matching engine cycle to alter the flow-temperature-pressure relationships. Either method has the potential to improve engine performance. Future gas turbines, more so those for aeronautical applications, will extensively use variable geometry components and therefore, a tool must exist which is capable of evaluating the off-design performance of such engines right from the conceptual stage. With this in mind, a computer program was developed which can simulate the steady state performance of arbitrary gas turbines with or without variable geometry in the gas path components. The program is a thermodynamic component-matching analysis program which uses component performance maps to evaluate the conditions of the gas at the various engine stations. The program was used to study the performance of a number of cycles incorporating variable geometry and it was concluded that variable geometry can significantly improve the off-design performance of gas turbines.

The design and development of gas turbine combustors is a crucial but uncertain part of an engine development process. Combustion within a gas turbine is a complex interaction of, among other things, fluid dynamics, heat and mass transfer and chemical kinetics. At present, the design process relies upon a wealth of experimental data and correlations. The proper use of this information requires experienced combustion engineers and even for them the design process is very time consuming. Some major engine manufacturers have attempted to address the above problem by developing one dimensional computer programs based on the above test and empirical data to assist combustor designers. Such programs are usually proprietary. The present work, based on this approach has yielded DEPTH, a combustor design program. DEPTH ( Design and Evaluation of Pressure, Temperature and Heat transfer in combustors) is developed in Fortran-77 to assist in preliminary design and evaluation of conventional gas turbine combustion chambers. DEPTH can be used to carry out a preliminary design along with prediction of the cooling slots for a given metal temperature limit or to evaluate heat transfer and temperatures for an existing combustion chamber. Analysis of performance parameters such as efficiency, stability and NOx based on stirred reactor theories is also coupled. DEPTH is made sufficiently interactive/user-friendly such that no prior expertise is required as far as computer operation is concerned. The range of variables such as operating conditions, geometry, hardware, fuel type can all be effectively examined and their contribution towards the combustor performance studied. Such comprehensive study should provide ample opportunity for the designer to make the right decisions. It should also be an effective study aid. Returns in terms of higher thermal efficiencies is an incentive to go for combined cycles and cogeneration. In such cases, opting for higher cycle pressures together with a second or reheat combustor promise higher thermal efficiencies and exhaust temperatures and hence such designs are likely to be of interest. The concepts that are needed for understanding a double or reheat combustor are also addressed using the programme. A specific application of the programme is demonstrated through the design of a double combustor.

No description available.

This thesis starts out with a brief description of gas turbine engines and information on railroad locomotives being the gas-turbine electric locomotives with some comparison of the diesel-electric locomotives in the introduction. Section 1.1 is the research problem looking at the older gas turbine electric locomotives in the 1950’s that ran on the rail and the problems they suffered. In section 1.2 titled the purpose of the study takes a look at newer gas turbine locomotives that were being consider or has been built with improvements since the 1950’s. The objective of the study being section 1.3 looks at the advantages of new gas turbines engines. Section 1.4 titled the research questions discusses better materials and methods of gas turbine engines. Chapter 2 is the literature review looking at the fuel oil specifications being number 4, number 5, and number 6. This chapter also talks about the used of distillates, types of distillates, composition of distillates, specifications for distillates, residual fuel oil and fuel oil quality dealing with the firing of gas turbine engines. Section 2.3 of chapter 2 being titled power generation looks at power plant gas-turbine engines and the power they produce. Chapter 3, titled the proposed methodology looks at setting up an experiment using a gas-turbine engine and a diesel-electric engine to compare the advantages of along with the disadvantages. Section 3.1 is titled data collected, within this section is discussion on the data collected from the experiment and improvements that could be made to the gas turbine engines. The end of chapter 3, section 3.2 titled data analyzing, talks about possible the results collected, calculations done, improvements made and rerunning another experiment with the improvements made. Chapter 4 discuss the types of materials using in building the compressor and turbine blades. Last, but not least is chapter 5 which discusses the actual experiment using the gas turbine simulator for aircrafts and how to apply it to the railroad locomotives. After the conclusion which discusses the results, is the appendix a being gas tables, appendix b being trial run 1 and appendix c being trial run 2.

The objective of this investigation was to improve the thermal environment for a turbine vane through reduction of passage secondary flows. This was accomplished by modifying the vane/endwall junction to include a leading edge fillet. The problem approach was to integrate optimization methods with computational fluid dynamics to optimize the fillet design. The resulting leading edge fillet was then tested in a large-scale, low speed cascade to verify thermal performance. A combustor simulator located upstream of the cascade was used to generate realistic inlet conditions for the turbine vane. Both computational and experimental results underscore the importance of properly modeling the inlet conditions to the turbine. Results of the computational optimization process indicate that significant reductions in adiabatic wall temperature can be achieved with a leading edge fillet. While the intent of the initial fillet design was to improve the thermal environment for the vane endwall, computational results also indicate thermal benefit to the vane surfaces. Flow and thermal field results show that a fillet can enhance coolant effectiveness, prevent formation of the leading edge horseshoe vortex, and preclude full development of a passage vortex. In experimental testing, four cascade inlet conditions were investigated to evaluate the effectiveness of the fillet in reducing endwall temperature levels. Two tested conditions featured a flush combustor/cascade interface, while the remaining two included coolant injection through a backward-facing slot. With the flush interface, fillet thermal performance was evaluated for two inlet total pressure profiles. For the design profile, the fillet had a positive impact on the endwall temperature distribution as well as on the passage thermal field. For the off-design profile, the fillet was observed to have a slightly detrimental impact on the endwall adiabatic temperature distribution; however, passage thermal field results indicate a thermal benefit for the vane suction surface. With the backward-facing slot, thermal tests were conducted for two slot coolant flow rates. For both slot flow rates, the fillet improved endwall thermal protection and prevented coolant lift-off. While increasing the flow rate of slot coolant enhanced endwall effectiveness, fillet thermal performance was similar for the two slot flow rates. / Ph. D.

Cooling combustor chambers for gas turbine engines is challenging because of the complex flow fields inherent to this engine component. This complexity, in part, arises from the interaction of high momentum dilution jets required to mix the fuel with effusion film cooling jets that are intended to cool the combustor walls. The dilution and film cooling flow have different performance criteria, often resulting in conflicting flow mechanisms. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the influence that the dilution jets have on the film cooling effectiveness and how the flow and thermal patterns in the cooling layer are affected by both the dilution flow and the closely spaced film cooling holes. This study also intends to characterize the development of the flow field created by effusion cooling injection without dilution injection. This work is unique because it allows insight into how the full-coverage discrete film cooling layer is interrupted by high momentum dilution jets and how the surface cooling is affected. The film cooling flow was disrupted along the combustor walls in the vicinity of the high momentum dilution jets and the surface cooling effectiveness was reduced with increased dilution jet momentum. This was due to the secondary flows that were intensified by the increased jet momentum. High turbulence levels were generated at the dilution jet shear layer resulting in efficient mixing. The film cooling flow field was affected by the freestream turbulence and complex flow fields created by the combined dilution and effusion cooling flows both in the near dilution jet region as well as downstream of the jets. Effusion cooling holes inclined at 20Ë created lower coolant layer turbulence levels and higher surface cooling effectiveness than 30Ë cooling holes. Results showed an insensitivity of the coolant penetration height to the diameter and angle of the cooling hole in the region downstream of the dilution mixing jets. When high momentum dilution jets were injected into crossflow, a localized region in the flow of high vorticity and high streamwise velocity was created. When film cooling air was injected the inlet flow field and the dilution jet wake were fundamentally changed and the vortex diminished significantly. The temperature field downstream of the dilution jet showed evidence of a hot region which was moderated appreciably by film cooling flow. Differences in the temperature fields were nominal compared to the large mass flow increase of the coolant. A study of streamwise oriented effusion film cooling flow without dilution injection revealed unique and scaleable velocity profiles created by the closely spaced effusion holes. The effusion cooling considered in these tests resulted in streamwise velocity and turbulence level profiles that scaled well with blowing ratio which is a finding that allows the profile shape and magnitude to be readily determined at these test conditions. Results from a study of compound angle effusion cooling injection showed significant differences between the flow field created with and without crossflow. It was found from the angle of the flow field velocity vectors that the cooling film layer grew nearly linearly in the streamwise direction. The absence of crossflow resulted in higher turbulence levels because there was a larger shear stress due to a larger velocity difference between the coolant and crossflow. The penetration height of the coolant was relatively independent of the film cooling momentum flux ratio for both streamwise oriented and compound angle cooling jets. / Ph. D.

The continued use of fossil fuels along with a rise in energy demand has led to increasing levels of carbon emissions over the past years. The purpose of this research was to design a lean premixed hydrogen fuel system that could be readily retrofit into an existing gas turbine engine to provide a clean renewable energy solution to this growing problem. There were major hurdles that had to be overcome to develop a hydrogen fuel system that would be practical, stable, and would fit into the existing space. High flame temperatures coupled with high flame speeds are major concerns when switching from jet fuel or natural gas to hydrogen. High temperatures lead to formations of pollutants such as oxides of nitrogen (NOx) and can potentially cause damage to critical engine components. High flame speeds can lead to dangerous flashbacks in the fuel premixers. Past researches have developed various hydrogen premixers to combat these problems. This research designed and developed new hydrogen premixers using information gathered from these designs and utilized new ideas to address their shortcomings. A gas turbine engine was modified using 14 premixers and a matching combustor liner to provide lean operation with the existing turbomachinery. The engine was successfully operated using hydrogen while maintaining normal internal temperatures and practically eliminating the NOx emissions when compared to normal Jet-A operation. Even though full power operation was never achieved due to flashbacks in two premixers, this research demonstrated the feasibility of using lean-premixed hydrogen in gas turbine engines. / Master of Science