HOW GAS TURBINE POWER PLANTS WORK

The combustion (gas) turbines being installed in many of today's natural-gas-fueled power
plants are complex machines, but they basically involve three main sections:
The compressor, which draws air into the engine, pressurizes it, and feeds it to the
combustion chamber at speeds of hundreds of miles per hour.
The combustion system, typically made up of a ring of fuel injectors that inject a steady
stream of fuel into combustion chambers where it mixes with the air. The mixture is
burned at temperatures of more than 2000 degrees F. The combustion produces a high
temperature, high pressure gas stream that enters and expands through the turbine
section.
The turbine is an intricate array of alternate stationary and rotating aerofoil-section
blades. As hot combustion gas expands through the turbine, it spins the rotating blades.
The rotating blades perform a dual function: they drive the compressor to draw more
pressurized air into the combustion section, and they spin a generator to produce
electricity.
Land based gas turbines are of two types: (1) heavy frame engines and (2) aeroderivative
engines. Heavy frame engines are characterized by lower pressure ratios (typically below
20) and tend to be physically large. Pressure ratio is the ratio of the compressor discharge
pressure and the inlet air pressure. Aeroderivative engines are derived from jet engines, as
the name implies, and operate at very high compression ratios (typically in excess of 30).
Aeroderivative engines tend to be very compact and are useful where smaller power
outputs are needed. As large frame turbines have higher power outputs, they can produce
larger amounts of emissions, and must be designed to achieve low emissions of pollutants,
such as NOx.
One key to a turbine's fuel-to-power efficiency is the temperature at which it operates.
Higher temperatures generally mean higher efficiencies, which in turn, can lead to more
economical operation. Gas flowing through a typical power plant turbine can be as hot as
2300 degrees F, but some of the critical metals in the turbine can withstand temperatures
only as hot as 1500 to 1700 degrees F. Therefore, air from the compressor might be used
for cooling key turbine components, reducing ultimate thermal efficiency.
One of the major achievements of the Department of Energy's advanced turbine program
was to break through previous limitations on turbine temperatures, using a combination of
innovative cooling technologies and advanced materials. The advanced turbines that
emerged from the Department's research program were able to boost turbine inlet
temperatures to as high as 2600 degrees F - nearly 300 degrees hotter than in previous
turbines, and achieve efficiencies as high as 60 percent.
Another way to boost efficiency is to install a recuperator or heat recovery steam generator
(HRSG) to recover energy from the turbine's exhaust. A recuperator captures waste heat in
the turbine exhaust system to preheat the compressor discharge air before it enters the
combustion chamber. A HRSG generates steam by capturing heat from the turbine exhaust.
These boilers are also known as heat recovery steam generators. High-pressure steam from
these boilers can be used to generate additional electric power with steam turbines, a
configuration called a combined cycle.
A simple cycle gas turbine can achieve energy conversion efficiencies ranging between 20
and 35 percent. With the higher temperatures achieved in the Department of Energy's
turbine program, future hydrogen and syngas fired gas turbine combined cycle plants are
likely to achieve efficiencies of 60 percent or more. When waste heat is captured from these
systems for heating or industrial purposes, the overall energy cycle efficiency could
approach 80 percent.



Gas Turbine Working Principle
Gas turbine engines derive their power from burning fuel in a combustion chamber and using the fast flowing
combustion gases to drive a turbine in much the same way as the high pressure steam drives a steam turbine.

One major difference however is that the gas turbine has a second turbine acting as an air compressor mounted on
the same shaft. The air turbine (compressor) draws in air, compresses it and feeds it at high pressure into the
combustion chamber increasing the intensity of the burning flame.
It is a positive feedback mechanism. As the gas turbine speeds up, it also causes the compressor to speed up forcing
more air through the combustion chamber which in turn increases the burn rate of the fuel sending more high
pressure hot gases into the gas turbine increasing its speed even more. Uncontrolled runaway is prevented by
controls on the fuel supply line which limit the amount of fuel fed to the turbine thus limiting its speed.

The thermodynamic process used by the gas turbine is known as the Brayton cycle. Analogous to the Carnot cycle in
which the efficiency is maximised by increasing the temperature difference of the working fluid between the input and
output of the machine, the Brayton cycle efficiency is maximised by increasing the pressure difference across the
machine. The gas turbine is comprised of three main components: a compressor, a combustor, and a turbine. The
working fluid, air, is compressed in the compressor (adiabatic compression - no heat gain or loss), then mixed with
fuel and burned by the combustor under constant pressure conditions in the combustion chamber (constant pressure
heat addition). The resulting hot gas expands through the turbine to perform work (adiabatic expansion). Much of the
power produced in the turbine is used to run the compressor and the rest is available to run auxiliary equipment and
do useful work. The system is an open system because the air is not reused so that the fourth step in the cycle,
cooling the working fluid, is omitted.


Gas Turbine Aero Engine (Deutches Museum)

Gas turbines have a very high power to weight ratio and are lighter and smaller than internal combustion engines of
the same power. Though they are mechanically simpler than reciprocating engines, their characteristics of high speed
and high temperature operation require high precision components and exotic materials making them more
expensive to manufacture.

History

Electrical Power Generation
In electricity generating applications the turbine is used to drive a synchronous generator which provides the electrical
power output but because the turbine normally operates at very high rotational speeds of 12,000 r.p.m or more it
must be connected to the generator through a high ratio reduction gear since the generators run at speeds of 1,000
or 1,200 r.p.m. depending on the AC frequency of the electricity grid.

Turbine Configurations
Gas turbine power generators are used in two basic configurations
Simple Systems consisting of the gas turbine driving an electrical power generator.



Combined Cycle Systems which are designed for maximum efficiency in which the hot exhaust gases from the
gas turbine are used to raise steam to power a steam turbine with both turbines being connected to electricity
generators.

Turbine Performance
Turbine Power Output
To minimise the size and weight of the turbine for a given output power, the output per pound of airflow should
be maximised. This is obtained by maximising the air flow through the turbine which in turn depends on
maximising the pressure ratio between the air inlet and exhaust outlet. The main factor governing this is the
pressure ratio across the compressor which can be as high as 40:1 in modern gas turbines. In simple cycle
applications, pressure ratio increases translate into efficiency gains at a given firing temperature, but there is a
limit since increasing the pressure ratio means that more energy will be consumed by the compressor.

System Efficiency
Thermal efficiency is important because it directly affects the fuel consumption and operating costs.
Simple Cycle Turbines
A gas turbine consumes considerable amounts of power just to drive its compressor. As with all cyclic heat
engines, a higher maximum working temperature in the machine means greater efficiency (Carnot's Law),
but in a turbine it also means that more energy is lost as waste heat through the hot exhaust gases whose
temperatures are typically well over 1,000C . Consequently simple cycle turbine efficiencies are quite low.
For heavy plant, design efficiencies range between 30% and 40%. (The efficiencies of aero engines are in
the range 38% and 42% while low power microturbines (<100kW) achieve only 18% to 22%). Although
increasing the firing temperature increases the output power at a given pressure ratio, there is also a
sacrifice of efficiency due to the increase in losses due to the cooling air required to maintain the turbine
components at reasonable working temperatures.

Combined Cycle Turbines
It is however possible to recover energy from the waste heat of simple cycle systems by using the exhaust
gases in a hybrid system to raise steam to drive a steam turbine electricity generating set . In such cases
the exhaust temperature may be reduced to as low as 140C enabling efficiencies of up to 60% to be
achieved in combined cycle systems.
In combined-cycle applications, pressure ratio increases have a less pronounced effect on the efficiency
since most of the improvement comes from increases in the Carnot thermal efficiency resulting from
increases in the firing temperature.

Thus simple cycle efficiency is achieved with high pressure ratios. Combined cycle efficiency is obtained
with more modest pressure ratios and greater firing temperatures.

See also Heat Engines

Fuels
One further advantage of gas turbines is their fuel flexibility. They can be adapted to use almost any flammable gas
or light distillate petroleum products such as gasoline (petrol), diesel and kerosene (paraffin) which happen to be
available locally, though natural gas is the most commonly used fuel. Crude and other heavy oils and can also be
used to fuel gas turbines if they are first heated to reduce their viscosity to a level suitable for burning in the turbine
combustion chambers.

Applications
Gas turbines can be used for large scale power generation. Examples are applications delivering 600 MW or more
from a 400 MW gas turbine coupled to a 200 MW steam turbine in a co-generating installation. Such installations are
not normally used for base load electricity generation, but for bringing power to remote sites such as oil and gas
fields. They do however find use in the major electricity grids in peak shaving applications to provide emergency peak
power.
Low power gas turbine generating sets with capacities up to 5 MW can be accommodated in transportation
containers to provide mobile emergency electricity supplies which can delivered by truck to the point of need.