Energy Conversion and Management 78 (2014) 219224

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Energy Conversion and Management

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Gas turbine with heating during the expansion in the stator blades
Rafea Mohamed Abd El-Maksoud
Faculty of Eng., Mataria, Helwan University, Cairo, Egypt

a r t i c l e

i n f o

a b s t r a c t
Reheat is used in the gas turbine to achieve higher power output. However, the reheat process is constrained by the heat quantity given to it and the choice of reheat point. Consequently, this paper introduces a new gas turbine cycle to overcome the reheat drawbacks and having superior features. In this cycle, the reheat process is replaced by processes of heating the expanded gases while passing through different turbine stator blades. Small amount of combusted gases is utilized to ow inside such blades for heating and mixing with the expanded gases. Nevertheless, this is performed with precautions of turbine overheating by reducing signicantly the maximum temperature of the present cycle. The simulated results demonstrate that the cycle performance is increased by raising the quantity of heating during the expansion. Additionally, this cycle achieves greater efcient output than the traditional reheat Brayton cycle operating with higher maximum cycle temperature. To boost the present cycle efciency, regeneration is used making the possibility of such cycle to be competitive to the combined cycle. 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Article history: Received 24 May 2013 Accepted 27 October 2013 Available online 21 November 2013 Keywords: Gas turbine Brayton cycle Heating during the expansion Reheat Regeneration

1. Introduction Many researches have been performed to investigate the gas turbine cycle where a special focus is done to increase the cycle work by raising the maximum cycle temperature using blade cooling [1] or utilizing different blade alloys [2]. Reheating is one of the common methods used to step up the output power of gas turbine. Subsequently, it has been investigated intensively by many researchers [38]. It is very recognizable that the reheat process is constrained by the heat quantity given to it and the choice of reheat point. Utilizing reheat results in high exhaust temperature and that is considered as a waste thermal energy as well as it participates in the cycle efciency reduction. Therefore, regeneration [9,10] and combined cycle [4,1116] are solutions to increase the cycle efciency. The humid air turbine was studied by [17] for cycle performance improvement. Additionally, Binary Brayton cycle [1820], and Brayton cycle with the isothermal [21,22] represent two promising steps for gas turbine enhancement where the combination of their concept has been introduced in [23]. Even several trends have been introduced; reheat is still investigated due to its signicance in gas turbines. In the present paper, the main objective is to introduce a new gas turbine cycle with higher output and efciency compared with the reheat cycle. This new cycle is performed by replacing the reheat process done outside the turbine by internal processes of heating during the expansion in different stator blade rows. The privilege of heating during the expansion, HDE, is to increase the
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cycle area. Furthermore, this process increases the ow kinetic energy of the expanded gases that can be used when the gases continue expanding in the rotor blades. In order to avoid turbine overheating, the maximum cycle temperature is remarkably reduced. This makes the temperature of the heated gases far below the overheating limit. Due to high exhaust temperatures, regeneration is utilized to boost the efciency. Comparison is done with reheat cycle aiming to represent the present cycle merits. 2. System layout Figs. 1 and 2 show the system layout and the cycle Ts diagram. The system is composed of compressor, regenerative heater, combustion, turbine and heating units. Foremost, air enters the compressor at state point 1 and is compressed to state 2. The ow temperature is increased in the regenerative heater leaving it and entering the combustor at state 3. The ow leaves the combustor at state 4. The combusted gases are divided into two parts nominated by the heated main ow and the heating ow. The heating ow is used to heat the heated main ow. The processes of the heating ow while passing through heaters are drawn in Fig. 2 which dash lines in order to differentiate between these processes and the processes of the main ow. The main ow enters the turbine at state 4 and exits at temperature 5. For the main ow, subsequent expansions with heating in the stator blade rows end to points; a, c and e where the temperature and the kinetic energy are increased. On the other side, expansions in rotor blade rows are done isentropically and terminates at states b, d and 5 for the rst, second and third stages, respectively. Still the ow temperature at state 5 is so high. Therefore, the ow passes through the

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Nomenclature Ar Cp c h k area ratio that equals the area at the stator inlet to that at the stator exit () specic heat at constant pressure (kJ/kg K) sound velocity (m/s) enthalpy (kJ/kg) ratio of the heat quantity given to the uid and the enthalpy difference for heating during the expansion process () kinetic energy (kJ/kg) Mach number () the mass ratio of the heating ow to the heated ow () pressure (kN/m2) heat needed for heating during the expansion process (kJ/kg K) heat transferred to the system (kJ/kg K) total heat transferred to the cycle (kJ/kg K) gas constant (kJ/kg K) temperature (K) maximum cycle temperature (K) temperature ratio that equals to the temperature at the stator row ow exit to that at the inlet () temperature of the heating ow leaving the rst passage (K) ow velocity (m/s) compressor work (kJ/kg) cycle work (kJ/kg) work produced by the system (kJ/kg) turbine work (kJ/kg)

Dpr
e

c g gst
#

KE M mr P qHDE qin qtot R T T8 Tr Tx v wc wcy wout wt

p r

pressure drop ratio; the ratio of the pressure drop in the rotor blades to that of the stage () regenerative heater effectiveness () specic heat ratio () cycle efciency () small stage efciency () specic volume (m3/kg) pressure ratio () percentage of the heating quantity supplied by the rst heating passage to that supplied by all passages of the blade ()

Subscript 1 2 3 4 5 a c e ex id in st w

compressor inlet condition compressor outlet condition combustor inlet condition combustor outlet condition turbine outlet outlet condition of the rst stator rows outlet condition of the second stator rows outlet condition of the third stator rows exit condition ideal condition inlet condition stator blade row state without heating

Symbols D difference ()

Abbreviation HDE heating during the expansion

regenerative heater and exhausted at point 6 to the atmosphere where the exhaust may be used for cogeneration. Instead of passing to the regenerative heater, the exhaust could be used to operate a bottoming cycle. However, selecting the regenerative heater in this work is to focus on the present cycle and to demonstrate its operation. Back to the heating ow, a ow control valve is used to regulate the heating ow that enters the heating unit at state 7. The heating ow represents few percentages of the main ow. After the ow enters the rst heating unit at state 7, some fuel is injected to raise

the ow temperature to state 8 that is slightly higher than that of the main ow. The heating ow enters the rst chamber that is attached to the rst stator blade row. Thereafter, the heating ow passes inside the stator blades through internal passages to heat the main ow. A portion of the heating ow is injected into the heated main ow through stator blade holes, while the other portion enters the second heating unit at state 9. Some fuel is injected into the heating ow and raising its temperature till reaching state 10. For the third heating unit, the heating ow is specied by the process 11 and 12. After the heating ow passes through the third

Regenerative heater

Flow control valve Heating flow

Heating units 1st 7 8 9 2nd 3rd

5 12 10 11

3 2 Combustor

Heated main flow

Turbine

Compressor

2nd 3rd Chambers attached Injected heating flow to stator blade rows
Fig. 1. Layout of the present cycle.

1st

a b c d e

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221

Temperature limit causing turbine overheat Traditional maximum cycle temperature Maximum cycle temperature Temperature entering the gas turbine 8 4 7 9 11 200 K 300 K

10 a 12 c b d e 5

blades while the other is connected to the their tip. This choice is to avoid a large number of passes inside the blades when using one chamber. This arrangement may reduce the temperature T8 by 200 K than the traditional maximum cycle temperature. Accordingly, the present cycle should be controlled precisely, otherwise; overheating problems could be faced. Furthermore, the ow regulation and control as well as utilizing extra components add more complexity and cost to the cycle. On the other side, high-pressure heating gases are preferred than to use low-pressure exhaust gases of the cycle. Selecting low-pressure exhaust gases has signicant drawbacks that are: 1. Heating the gases to maintain certain temperature requires high quantity of heat due to divergence of isobar lines. 2. The heating process will be inefcient because of its transference from low-pressure media. 3. The exhaust temperature of the heating gases is so high that will be wasted to the atmosphere. These gases cannot be injected into the heated main ow because of its low pressure. Therefore, using heating gases at high pressure overcomes these three drawbacks. 3. System analysis As in many gas-turbine analyses, the air quantity used for blade cooling is neglected since it represents a few percentages of the main ow. Especially, such quantity is usually mixed with gases expanded in the turbine. Same manner is used in the present treatment where the system is analyzed while considering only the heated expanded gases (main ow). To assign the relationship between the pressure and temperature for HDE process, it is necessary to consider the small stage efciency with the rst law of thermodynamics. Generally, the small stage efciency, gst, can be written as:

3 6 2

s
Fig. 2. Ts diagram of the present cycle.

blade row and heats the heated gases, it is injected totally into that ow. It is notable that the heating gases may be injected in all stator rows, or in two of them (where one of them is the last row), or only in the last row. As shown from Fig. 2, the temperature of the ow leaving the rst heat that represents the maximum cycle temperature is higher than that of second heater and third heater. Furthermore, the heating ow suffers from pressure drops during its different passes. It is notable for mention that; even the heating ow represents a few percentages of the heat ow, a sufcient quantity of fuel could be injected into the heating ow to increase the cycle performance. This is reasonable as the heating ow has enough of excess air where the air/fuel ratio varies from 60:1 to 120:1 for simple gas turbines, and from 100:1 to 200:1 if a regenerative heater is used. The author proposed that the temperature of gases at state 4 is considerably lower than that admitted to the traditional gas turbine by about 300 K. Decreasing of T4 participates in reducing the maximum cycle temperature (T8) to avoid turbine overheating as well as not to utilize special blades for such severe operation. Reducing of T8 is also achieved by replacing the rst heating unit by several heating units (more than four heating units). In this case, each of these units is attached to separate passage inside each blade of the rst stator row. Fig. 3 illustrates these separate passages where the task of the rst passage is to supply the main ow by a small quantity of heat to avoid blade overheating and increase of maximum cycle temperature. Moreover, instead of one chamber attached the rst stator blades as in Fig. 1, two chambers are preferable. One of the two chambers is attached to the hub of the stator

gst dh=dhid

where h is the enthalpy and the subscript id is the ideal condition. In the above equation, the small stage efciency is the differential of the actual enthalpy with respect to the ideal enthalpy. In case of HDE process, the ideal and actual processes are the ideal and actual HDE. To assign the ideal HDE condition, the rst law of thermodynamics for a system is written as:

dqin dwout duid

where qin is the heat transferred to the system, wout is the work produced by the system and u is the internal energy. The relationship between the enthalpy and internal energy can take the following formula:

dhid duid Pd# #dP

Substituting Eq. (3) in Eq. (2), this yields to:

dqin Pd# dhid Pd# #dP

The heat transfer of the HDE process is expressed in terms of the enthalpy by the following relation:

dqin kdhid

where k is the ratio of the heat quantity given to the uid and the enthalpy difference for HDE process. Therefore, Eq. (4) can be rewritten as:

First heating passage

Fig. 3. The heating passages in the blade of the rst stator row.

kdhid dhid #dP

where P is the pressure and # is the specic volume. The descriptive form of a HDE process is:

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dhid #dP=1 k
Applying the state equation, the specic volume is:

# RT =P

where R is the gas constant, and T is the temperature. On the other hand, the actual enthalpy is represented by the following equation:

dh C p dT

where Cp is the specic heat at constant pressure. Substituting Eq. (7) and Eq. (9) in Eq. (1), the small stage efciency takes this form:

gst P1 kC p =RTdT =dP

The above equation can be rewritten as:

10

of HDE process affects the degree of reaction as the enthalpy change in the stator blade row is being inuenced. Hence, to avoid confusion and variation of the degree of reaction according to the quantity of heat, the pressure drop ratio, Dpr, (Dpr is the ratio of the pressure drop in the rotor blades to that of the stage) is used instead. Therefore, assigning the value of Dpr is used to determine the value of pst in Eq. (18). It is notable that more reduction in Dpr may be restricted by the amount of heat given to HDE process and problems in energy conversion. To estimate the maximum cycle temperature, a heat balance is performed between the heated ow and the heating ow passing in the rst heating passage of the different stator blades, Fig. 3. The heat balance relation can be written as:

gst Pc1 k=T c 1dT =dP

11

mr C p T 8 T x rqHDE first stage

19

where c is the specic heat ratio. Integrating the above equation, the relationship of the temperature and pressure can be expressed in stator blades as:

T 4 =T a p4a 4a ;

c1gst c1k

T b =T c pbc bc and T d =T e pde de

c1gst c1k

c1gst c1k

12

where p is the pressure ratio, however; the different subscripts in the above equation are determined from Figs. 1 and 2. Since heating during the expansion process increases the enthalpy (temperature rise) of the ow stream and its kinetic energy, consequently; the two are accounted separately. Thus, the temperatures in the above equation can be considered as the static temperatures. For any stator row, the heat quantity for heating during the expansion process, qHDE, can be described by this equation:

where mr is the mass ratio of the heating ow to the heated ow, and Tx denotes the temperature of the heating ow leaving the rst passage, and r is the percentage of the heating quantity supplied by the rst heating passage to that supplied by all passages of the blade. Here, Tx could be assumed to be equal to T4. To reduce sufciently T8, it is necessary to raise mr and reduces r. On the other side, the total heat transferred to the cycle, qtot, is:

qtot h4 h3

qHDE

20

P where qHDE is the summation of the qHDE for the different stages assigned from Eq. (13). Considering the regenerative heater effectiveness, e, the above equation is formulated as:

qtot h4 h2 eh5 h2

qHDE

21

qHDE Denthalpy riseex;st DKEex;st

13

where the KE is the kinetic energy, and D is the difference. The subscripts ex and st denote the exit condition and the stator blades, respectively. Therefore, the heat needed to increase the enthalpy takes the following relation:

Considering the turbine as a thermodynamic system while regarding the kinetic energy at its inlet and outlet, the turbine work can be written as:

wt h4 h5

2 qHDE 0:5C p c 1T 4 M 2 4 T 5 M5

22

The compressor work takes this form:

2 wc h2 h1 0:5C p c 1T 2 M 2 2 T 1 M1

Denthalpy riseex;st ha hc he ha hc he w

14

23

where the subscript w denotes to the state of the ow without heating. On the other side, the kinetic energy of a ow can be expressed as:

The value of M1 is small, and its square term is negligible. Therefore, the cycle net work is:

KE 0:5v
where as:

15

wcy h4 h5 h2 h1
2 T 5 M2 5 T 2 M2

qHDE 0:5C p c 1T 4 M2 4 24

v is the ow velocity. The above equation can be rewritten

m2

The cycle efciency, g, can be specied as:

KE 0:5c2 c2 0:5cRTM2

16

g wcy =qtot

25

where c is the sound velocity and M is the Mach number. Therefore, the heat quantity required to increase the kinetic energy at the exit of different stator rows can be expressed as:
2 2 DKEex;st 0:5C p c 1T a M2 a T c Mc T e Me

T a M 2 a

T c M2 c

T e M2 e w

Table 1 The different data used for performing simulations.

17

Parameters

value 1.333 1.005 kJ/kg K 0.9 0.9 16 300 K 1200 K 0.65 1.1 Varies from 0 to 20 0.3 or 0.25 0.5 or 0.6 3% of p 3% of p

The Mach number at the exit of the stator blades is determined using the continuity equation:

c
Cp

M ex;st M in Ar pst

p T r st

18

gst for the compressor gst for the compressor p

The ambient temperature The turbine inlet temperature The effectiveness of the regeneration Ar for the three different stator rows k Dpr M4 Regenerative heater pressure drop Combustor pressure drop

where Ar is the area ratio that equals the area at the blade row inlet to that at the exit and Tr is the temperature ratio that equals to the temperature at the stator row ow exit to that at the inlet. The subscript in denotes the inlet condition. In the above equation, the increase of the parameters in the right-side terms leads to increase in kinetic energy and may have an adverse effect on energy conversion. Moreover, higher kinetic energy demands a lower degree of reaction to get use of this energy. It is notable that the heat quantity

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4. Results and discussion In the simulations, it is assumed that the working uid is air throughout the cycle with unchangeable properties. Table 1 summarizes the different data used for performing simulations unless otherwise are specied. In Table 1, the value of gst makes the compressor and turbine efciencies equal to 0.86% and 0.92%, respectively. The two efciencies are reasonable for a typical gas turbine and are estimated according to a relationship between each of them with gst [24]. According to Eq. (19) for mr equals to 7% and r equals 10%, the maximum cycle temperature is nearly 1300 K when the cycle operates at its extreme condition (M4 = 0.6, Dpr = 0.25 and k = 20). The selected values of M4, Ar and Dpr are justied where every axial ow gas turbine has its different design and parameters. In this paper, increasing of M4, Ar and reduction of Dpr are preferable to increase the cycle performance. However, their values are limited to avoid the increase of maximum cycle temperature. It is notable that the Mach number at the exit of each stage as well as at the compressor exit is identical and equals to that of turbine entry. The performance of the present cycle is compared with that of a reheat Brayton cycle operating with maximum temperature equals to 1500 K. Such temperature represents the inlet temperatures of the reheat high and low pressure turbines. The comparison is done based on same cycle inlet temperature and cycle pressure ratio. The quantity of heat needed for the reheat process and that during the expansion processes are identical. Fig. 4 reveals the relation between k and the temperature of gases at the inlet and the outlet of each stator row of the different three stages for Dpr = 0.3 and 0.25. At k = 0, the temperature at stator blades at the exit of each stage represents the temperature due to the adiabatic expansion. Increase of k results in the reduction of the difference between the ow temperatures at stator entry and exit of each stage. The minimal temperature difference occurs at k = 20 where the HDE process at such value resembles, to a certain extent, the isothermal process. Fig. 5 illustrates the variation of k with the present cycle work, and the heat needed for all HDE processes. The present cycle operates without regenerative heat and therefore, the combustor pressure drop is only considered. The output work and the heat are increased remarkably in the low range of k, thereafter; a slight increase in both is detected. Furthermore, they are raised by the reduction of Dpr as well as the increase of the M4.

600 500

1000

Work

800

Work (kJ/kg)

400 600 300 400 200 100

Heat for HDE
M 4 = 0.5 and pr = 0.3 M 4 = 0.6 and pr = 0.3 M 4 = 0.5 and pr = 0.25 M 4 = 0.6 and pr = 0.25

200

10

15

0 20

k
Fig. 5. Variation of k with the present cycle work, and the heat needed for all HDE processes.

Reheat cycle that corresponds the present cycle at M 4 = 0.5 and pr = 0.3

M 4 = 0.5 and pr = 0.25

Cycle work (kJ/kg)

M 4 = 0.6 and pr = 0.25

Work

400 4

200
Optimum reheat pressure Relative pressure ratio

0 0

10
k

15

0 20

Fig. 6. The variation of k with the reheat cycle work and the reheat relative pressure ratio.

1300 1200

1100 1000 900 800 700 600 0 5 10

Second stage Third stage First stage

Stator inlet at pr = 0.3 Stator inlet at pr = 0.25 Stator exit at pr = 0.3 Stator exit at pr = 0.25

15

20

k
Fig. 4. Variation of ow temperature at the stator entry and exiting for different stages with k.

In order to assess the performance of the reheat cycle, same quantity of heat needed for all HDE processes (Fig. 5) is identical to that given to the reheat process. Fig. 6 illustrated the reheat cycle performance where the values of k, M4 and Dpr (used for the present cycle and included implicitly in Eq. (13)) are utilized to determine the heat quantity given to the reheat process. Accordingly, the reheat cycle is assessed by the variation of k with the reheat cycle work and the reheat relative pressure ratio (reheat relative pressure ratio equals to the pressure ratio of the highpressure turbine to that of the low-pressure turbine of the reheat cycle). Four different curve pairs of cycle work with relative pressure ratios versus k are illustrated according to the quantity of heat given to the reheat process. As one can notice that the optimum reheat pressure achieving maximum cycle work occurs at pr equals one (conrmed by [7]). An increase in the k values results in more output work till optimum reheat point pressure is reached. This appears at low values of k. Subsequently; the cycle output decreases as a result of more heat is used in the reheating process at lower pressures. From these results indicated from the gure, the choice of reheat point and the heat quantity given to the reheat process are restricted by certain operating range. This range is described by small values of k compared with the present cycle, see Fig. 5. Fig. 7 illustrates a comparison between the present cycle and the reheat cycle. The performance lines the reheat cycle for the different values of Dpr and M4 are unied in most of their operating

Temperature (K)

Reheat relative pressure ratio

600

M 4 = 0.6 and pr = 0.3

Heat for HDE (kJ/kg)

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R.M. Abd El-Maksoud / Energy Conversion and Management 78 (2014) 219224

0.7

HDE with M 4 = 0.5 and pr = 0.3 HDE with M 4 = 0.6 and pr = 0.3 HDE with M 4 = 0.5 and pr = 0.25 HDE with M 4 = 0.6 and pr = 0.25 Reheat cycle with regeneration

0.6

Cycle efficiency

0.5

Optimum reheat point pressure

4. The present cycle operates with a sensibly higher output and efciency than that of the reheat cycle having a higher maximum cycle temperature. 5. Regeneration is used to boost the present cycle efciency. This makes the possibility of this cycle when applied commercially to be competitive to the combined cycle since bulky steam equipment are not used.

0.4
without regeneration

References
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0.3

0.2 200

300

400

500

600

Cycle work (kJ/kg)

Fig. 7. Comparison between the present cycle and the reheat cycle.

zones where all the performance curves are drawn as a single curve. The present cycle shows better performance than that of the reheat cycle even at its optimum operation. Increase of Mach number at the exit of each stator blade row and reduction of Dpr results in higher cycle output and efciency. Noteworthy, utilizing regeneration is used to boost the current cycle efciency much higher than the reheat cycle. It is noticed that; when using the regenerative heater, the outputs of the present and the reheat cycles are slightly smaller than without using it. This is due to the consideration of the regenerative heater pressure drop. Moreover, the maximum efciency of the present cycle equals to 57% at Dpr = 0.2 and k = 20. Noting that a typical combined cycle efciency ranges between 50% and 60%. Therefore, the present cycle when applied commercially may be competitive to the combined cycle since it does not require bulky steam equipment. Furthermore, the present cycle has better performance than a typical humid air turbine cycle that is known for its high efciency, low pollution, and competitive cost, especially in small and mediumcapacity gas turbines. These merits illustrate that the present cycle may be used as a promising power generation cycle. 5. Conclusions From this study, the following conclusions may be drawn according to the examined data: 1. The present work introduces heating during the expansion in the stator blades as a promising power generation method. 2. Turbine overheating avoidance is achieved by reducing signicantly the maximum cycle temperature than that of the traditional gas turbine. 3. The work and efciency of the cycle are increased by raising of the quantity of heating during the expansion. Such heating quantity is indicated by the raising of k, and Mach number at the exit of the turbine stator blade rows as well as with the reduction of the pressure drop ratio.