Turbine Cooling Configuration Selection and Design Optimization for the High-Reliability Gas Turbine. Final Report

摘要

The potential of advanced turbine convectively air-cooled concepts for application to the Department of Energy/Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) Advanced Liquid/Gas-Fueled Engine Program was investigated. Cooling of turbine airfoils is critical technology and significant advances in cooling technology will permit higher efficiency coal-base-fuel gas turbine energy systems. Two new airfoil construction techniques, bonded and wafer, were the principal designs considered. In the bonded construction, two airfoil sections having intricate internal cooling configurations are bonded together to form a complete blade or vane. In the wafer construction, a larger number (50 or more) of wafers having intricate cooling flow passages are bonded together to form a complete blade or vane. Of these two construction techniques, the bonded airfoil is considered to be lower in risk and closer to production readiness. Bonded airfoils are being used in aircraft engines. A variety of industrial materials were evaluated for the turbine airfoils. A columnar grain nickel alloy was selected on the basis of strength and corrosion resistance. Also, cost of electricity and reliability were considered in the final concept evaluation. The bonded airfoil design yielded a 3.5% reduction in cost-of-electricity relative to a baseline Reliable Engine design. A significant conclusion of this study was that the bonded airfoil convectively air-cooled design offers potential for growth to turbine inlet temperatures above 2600 exp 0 F with reasonable development risk. (ERA citation 06:020140)