Search Results

In modern turboprop engines, reduction in emission and fuel consumption is the primary goals during the development of gas turbine aero engines. In this paper, a concept has been proposed for hybridizing the air blade cooled turboprop engines by integrating it with a fuel cell. The proposed study focuses on thermodynamic analysis of a turboprop engine integrated to a solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) system. A solid oxide fuel cell is the perfect candidate for utilizing waste heat available at turboprop engine exhaust, through recuperation process. Integration of SOFC is ultimately leads to enhancement the overall performance of the turboprop-SOFC hybrid system. Power generated by the SOFC system can be utilized by the aircraft and in can complement the auxillary-power-unit (APU) and may even supplement it. On the basis of 1st and 2nd law of thermodynamic modeling analysis of a turboprop-SOFC system has been presented in this article.

Increasing in the turbine rotor inlet temperature improves the aviation gas turbine efficiency, while on the other hand, but also leads to a higher requirement for blade cooling air, which in turn reduces the gain in efficiency achieved by increasing temperature. Turbine rotor inlet temperature has been increasing with the entry of highly-efficient gas turbines have been developed for the last decades for the aviation market. Around one fifth of the compressed air is extracted from the compressor and is used for blade cooling purposes and is thus not used in the actual power/thrust generation process, which has a negative impact on the engine efficiency. For this reason, new cooling methods and hot-gas path component materials that will be compatible with these high temperature’s gases are among the areas being analyzed.

In the present scenario, when the non-conventional energy resources are still under development stage for their full potential as a source of energy for our fast growing population, gas turbines are one of the most promising power generation technologies. The gas turbine based power utilities are also gaining acceptance across globe, because of increase in extraction of natural gas. Further reduction in the price of natural gas would also result in the number of gas turbine units installed across globe and thus it is important to carry out the environmental analysis of gas turbine based utilities. The gas turbines are employed in power generation in industries, aircrafts and marine propulsion units. The present exercise carries out thermodynamic performance analysis i.e. energy, exergy and emission performance analysis of an air-craft gas turbine. The gas turbine blades of present cycle are assumed to be cooled by air-film blade cooling technique.

In comparison to other thermal power cycles, gas turbine based energy conversion cycles exhibit superior thermodynamic performance as well as reduced emission. Gas turbine manufacturers and research & development (R&D) organizations are working on modification in basic gas turbine (BGT) cycle, which are intended to improve the basic gas turbine cycle thermodynamic performance and reduce emissions. The present work reports a comparison of thermodynamic performance, NOx and CO emission for basic and intercooled gas turbine (IcGT) cycles. Various cycle operating parameters such as compressor-pressure-ratio (rp,c), combustor-primary-zone-temperature, equivalence-ratio, and residence time of gas turbine based cycles has been examined. IcGT cycle exhibits higher gas turbine specific work and gas turbine efficiency in comparison to BGT cycle for the same rp,c and turbine rotor inlet temperature.