SMART POWER TURBINE
Gas turbines are the choice technology for high-performance power generation and are employed in both simple and combined cycle configurations around the world. The Smart Power Turbine (SPT) program has developed new technologies that are needed to further extend the performance and economic attractiveness of gas turbines for power generation. Today's power generation gas turbines control firing temperatures indirectly, by measuring the exhaust gas temperature and then mathematically calculating the peak combustor temperatures. But temperatures in the turbine hot gas path vary a great deal, making it difficult to control firing temperatures precisely enough to achieve optimal performance. Similarly, there is no current way to assess deterioration of turbine hot-gas-path components without shutting down the turbine. Consequently, maintenance and component replacements are often scheduled according to conservative design practices based on historical fleet-averaged data. Since fuel heating values vary with the prevalent natural gas fuel, the inability to measure heating value directly, with sufficient accuracy and timeliness, can lead to maintenance and operational decisions that are less than optimal. GE Global Research Center, under this Smart Power Turbine program, has developed a suite of novel sensors that would measure combustor flame temperature, online fuel lower heating value (LHV), and hot-gas-path component life directly. The feasibility of using the ratio of the integrated intensities of portions of the OH emission band to determine the specific average temperature of a premixed methane or natural-gas-fueled combustion flame was demonstrated. The temperature determined is the temperature of the plasma included in the field of view of the sensor. Two sensor types were investigated: the first used a low-resolution fiber optic spectrometer; the second was a SiC dual photodiode chip. Both methods worked. Sensitivity to flame temperature changes was remarkably high, that is a 1-2.5% change in ratio for an 11.1 C (20 F) change in temperature at flame temperatures between 1482.2 C (2700 F) and 1760 C (3200 F). Sensor ratio calibration was performed using flame temperatures determined by calculations using the amount of unburned oxygen in the exhaust and by the fuel/air ratio of the combustible gas mixture. The agreement between the results of these two methods was excellent. The sensor methods characterized are simple and viable. Experiments are underway to validate the GE Flame Temperature Sensor as a practical tool for use with multiburner gas turbine combustors. The lower heating value (LHV) Fuel Quality Sensor consists of a catalytic film deposited on the surface of a microhotplate. This micromachined design has low heat capacity and thermal conductivity, making it ideal for heating catalysts placed on its surface. Several methods of catalyst deposition were investigated, including micropen deposition and other proprietary methods, which permit precise and repeatable placement of the materials. The use of catalysts on the LHV sensor expands the limits of flammability (LoF) of combustion fuels as compared with conventional flames; an unoptimized LoF of 1-32% for natural gas (NG) in air was demonstrated with the microcombustor, whereas conventionally 4 to 16% is observed. The primary goal of this work was to measure the LHV of NG fuels. The secondary goal was to determine the relative quantities of the various components of NG mixes. This determination was made successfully by using an array of different catalysts operating at different temperatures. The combustion parameters for methane were shown to be dependent on whether Pt or Pd catalysts were used. In this project, significant effort was expended on making the LHV platform more robust by the addition of high-temperature stable materials, such as tantalum, and the use of passivation overcoats to protect the resistive heater/sensor materials from degradation in the combustion environment. Modeling and simulation were used to predict improved sensor designs.
- Research Organization:
- General Electric (US)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- (US)
- DOE Contract Number:
- FC26-01NT41021
- OSTI ID:
- 833266
- Resource Relation:
- Other Information: PBD: 1 Nov 2003
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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