Summary of research and development effort on air and water cooling of gas turbine blades
The review on air- and water-cooled gas turbines from the 1904 Lemale-Armengaud water-cooled gas turbine, the 1948 to 1952 NACA work, and the program at GE indicates that the potential of air cooling has been largely exploited in reaching temperatures of 1100/sup 0/C (approx. 2000/sup 0/F) in utility service and that further increases in turbine inlet temperature may be obtained with water cooling. The local heat flux in the first-stage turbine rotor with water cooling is very high, yielding high-temperature gradients and severe thermal stresses. Analyses and tests indicate that by employing a blade with an outer cladding of an approx. 1-mm-thick oxidation-resistant high-nickel alloy, a sublayer of a high-thermal-conductivity, high-strength, copper alloy containing closely spaced cooling passages approx. 2 mm in ID to minimize thermal gradients, and a central high-strength alloy structural spar, it appears possible to operate a water-cooled gas turbine with an inlet gas temperature of 1370/sup 0/C. The cooling-water passages must be lined with an iron-chrome-nickel alloy must be bent 90/sup 0/ to extend in a neatly spaced array through the platform at the base of the blade. The complex geometry of the blade design presents truly formidable fabrication problems. The water flow rate to each of many thousands of coolant passages must be metered and held to within rather close limits because the heat flux is so high that a local flow interruption of only a few seconds would lead to a serious failure.Heat losses to the cooling water will run approx. 10% of the heat from the fuel. By recoverying this waste heat for feedwater heating in a command cycle, these heat losses will give a degradation in the power plant output of approx. 5% relative to what might be obtained if no cooling were required. However, the associated power loss is less than half that to be expected with an elegant air cooling system.
- Research Organization:
- Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
- DOE Contract Number:
- W-7405-ENG-26
- OSTI ID:
- 5495469
- Report Number(s):
- ORNL/TM-6254
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
COOLING
RESEARCH PROGRAMS
GAS TURBINES
TURBINE BLADES
AIR
COPPER ALLOYS
DESIGN
EXPERIMENTAL DATA
FATIGUE
GRAPHS
HEAT LOSSES
HEAT RECOVERY
HEAT TRANSFER
MATERIALS
PHYSICAL PROPERTIES
PIPES
POWER PLANTS
REVIEWS
TABLES
TESTING
THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY
WASTE HEAT
WATER
ALLOYS
DATA
DATA FORMS
DOCUMENT TYPES
ENERGY
ENERGY LOSSES
ENERGY RECOVERY
ENERGY SOURCES
ENERGY TRANSFER
FLUIDS
GASES
HEAT
HYDROGEN COMPOUNDS
INFORMATION
LOSSES
MACHINERY
MECHANICAL PROPERTIES
NUMERICAL DATA
OXYGEN COMPOUNDS
RECOVERY
THERMODYNAMIC PROPERTIES
TURBINES
TURBOMACHINERY
WASTES
200101* - Fossil-Fueled Power Plants- Cooling & Heat Transfer Equipment & Systems
200104 - Fossil-Fueled Power Plants- Components