Gas Turbine

The gas turbine is an internal combustion engine that uses air as

the working fluid. The engine extracts chemical energy from fuel
and converts it to mechanical energy using the gaseous energy of
the working fluid (air) to drive the engine and propeller, which, in
turn, propel the airplane.
Brief History
Although lots of scientists and Philosophers of past from, 1500 B.C
till 1791, invented lots of devices that looked or worked on the
principle of, or like, Gas Turbine.
In 1791, John Barber took out a patent which contained all of the
important features of a successful gas turbine. Planned as a method
of propelling a "horseless carriage", Barber's design included a
chain-driven, reciprocating gas compressor, a combustion
chamber, and a turbine. After John Barber, In 1872 Dr. F. Stolze
designed the first true gas turbine engine. His engine used a
multistage turbine section and a flow compressor. This engine
never ran under its own power. Then Aegidius Elling of Norway In
1903 built the first gas turbine that was able to produce more
power than needed to run its own components. Thats why he is
considered the father of gas turbines. He completed the first
turbine that produced excess power; his original machine used
both rotary compressors and turbines He further developed a gas
turbine system with separate turbine unit and compressor in series,
a combination that is now common. One major challenge for him
was to find the material of turbine that could withstand the high
temperatures developed in the turbine to achieve high output
powers. His 1903 turbine could withstand inlet temperatures up to
400 Celsius (752 F). Elling understood that if better materials
could be found, the gas turbine would be an ideal power source for
airplanes. Later in 1897 - Sir Charles Parson patented a steam
turbine which was used to power a ship. In 1914 Charles Gordon
Curtis patented the first U.S. gas turbine his achievement was, that
his steam turbine of 1896 required one tenth the space and
weighed one eighth as much as machines it replaced. In 1918 Dr.
Stanford A. Moss developed the GE turbosupercharger
engine( turbo charger is a turbine driven forced induction device
used to allow more power to be produced by an engine of a given
size) during W.W.I . It used hot exhaust gases from a reciprocating
engine to drive a turbine wheel that in turn drove a centrifugal
compressor used for supercharging. Many years later, Sir Frank
Whittle, building on the early work of Elling, managed to build a
practical gas turbine engine for an airplane, the jet engine.
In 1930 - Sir Frank Whittle in England patented a design for a gas
turbine for jet propulsion. The first successful use of this engine
was in April, 1937. His early work on the theory of gas propulsion
was based on the contributions of most of the earlier pioneers of
this field.In 1936 - At the same time as Frank Whittle was working
in Great Britain, Hans von Ohian and Max Hahn, students in
Germany developed and patented their own engine design.
Later in 1941 - Sir Frank Whittle designed the first successful
turbojet airplane, the Gloster Meteor, flown over Great Britain.
Whittle improved his jet engine during the war, and in 1942 he
shipped an engine prototype to General Electric in the United
States. America's first jet plane was built the following year.
In 1942 - Dr. Franz Anslem developed the axial-flow turbojet,
Junkers Jumo 004, used in the Messerschmitt Me 262, the world's
first operational jet fighter.
After W.W.II, the development of jet engines was directed by a
number of commercial companies. Jet engines soon became the
most popular method of powering airplanes.
We can distinguish two important types of gas turbines. There are
industrial gas turbines and there are jet engine gas turbines.
Industrial gas turbines were developed rather slowly. This was
because, to use a gas turbine, a high initial compression is
necessary. This rather troubled early engineers. Due to this, the
first working gas turbine was only made in 1905 by the
Frenchman Rateau. The first gas turbine for power generation
became operational in 1939 in Switzerland. It was developed by
the company Brown Boveri.
Gas turbines had a rather low thermal efficiency. But they were
still useful. This was because they could start up rather quickly.
They were therefore used to provide power at peak loads in the
electricity network. In the 1980s, natural gas made its
breakthrough as fuel. Since then, gas turbines have increased in
popularity. After world war 2, the gas turbine developed rapidly.

Classification of gas turbine
Gas turbines are classified into two main types
Impulse Gas Turbine Reaction Gas Turbine

Impulse Gas turbine
Impulse turbines change the direction of flow of a high velocity
fluid or gas jet. The resulting impulse spins the turbine and leaves
the fluid flow with diminished kinetic energy. There is no pressure
change of the fluid or gas in the turbine blades (the moving
blades), all the pressure drop takes place in the stationary blades
(the nozzles). Before reaching the turbine, the fluid's pressure
head is changed to velocity head by accelerating the fluid with
a nozzle Impulse turbines do not require a pressure casement
around the rotor since the fluid jet is created by the nozzle prior to
reaching the blading on the rotor. The advantage of the impulse
design is that there is no pressure force tending to move the wheel
in the axial direction and no special thrust balancing arrangement
is required. There being no tendency for gas to leak over the tips of
the moving blades
Reaction Gas Turbine
Reaction turbines develop torque by reacting to the gas or fluid's
pressure or mass. The pressure of the gas or fluid changes as it
passes through the turbine rotor blades. A pressure casement is
needed to contain the working fluid as it acts on the turbine
stage(s) or the turbine must be fully immersed in the fluid flow.
The casing contains and directs the working fluid and maintains
the suction imparted by the draft tube. A purely reaction turbine is
not generally used. In a small multi-stage construction the velocity
change in the moving and fixed blades is about the same, the
design being 50% reaction types. Such a design has fixed and
moving blades of the same shape, but to the opposite hand
constituting a symmetrical stage.
Types OF Gas Turbine power plants
There are two types of gas turbine power plants. These are
Open cycle gas turbine Closed cycle gas turbine

Open cycle Gas Turbine power plants
In this type of plant the atmospheric air is charged into the
combustor through a compressor and the exhaust of the turbine
also discharge to the atmosphere.
Fresh air enters the compressor at ambient temperature where its
pressure and temperature are increased. The high pressure air
enters the combustion chamber where the fuel is burned at
constant pressure. The high temperature (and pressure) gas enters
the turbine where it expands to ambient pressure and produces
work.

Open cycle gas turbine performs following processes
Isentropic compression
Heat addition at constant pressure
Isentropic expansion
Heat rejection at constant pressure
In actual operation the processes along Isentropic compression and
Isentropic expansion are never isentropic and the degree or
irreversibility of these processes and the mechanical efficiencies of
the machine components greatly reduce the ideal value of thermal
efficiencies of the cycle.If the air entering the combustor is
preheated by the heat of exhaust gases escaping from the turbine,
some heat can be recovered resulting into an increase in the
efficiency of the cycle improved. Such heating of combustion air is
known as regeneration and the heat exchanger transferring heat
from gas to air is called regenerator. Since most of the output of
turbine is consumed by the compressor, the actual efficiency of the
cycle greatly depends upon an efficient working of the compressor.
Closed cycle Gas Turbine power plants
A closed-cycle gas turbine is a turbine that uses a gas (e.g.
air, nitrogen, helium, argon etc.) for the working fluid as part of
a closed thermodynamic system that circulates through the cycle
over and over again.
In the closed cycle, quantity of air is constant, or another suitable
gas used as working medium, circulates through the cycle over and
over again. Combustion products do not come in contact with the
working fluid and, thus, remain closed.
A development in the basic gas turbine cycle is the use of the closed
cycle which permits a great deal of flexibility in the use of fuels.
Moreover, working medium of the plant could by any suitable
substance other than air which would give higher efficiency In this
cycle, working fluid is compressed through the requisite pressure
ratio in the compressor, and fed into
the heater, where it is heated up to the temperature of turbine
itself. The fluid is then expanded in the turbine and the exhaust is
cooled to the original temperature in the pre-cooler. It then re-
enter the compressor to begin the next cycle. Thus, the same
working fluid circulates through the working parts of the system.
The heater burns any suitable fuel and provides the heat for
heating the working fluid. In fact, this combustor is akin to an
ordinary boiler furnace, working at the atmosphere pressure and
discharging the gaseous products to the atmosphere. There is, thus,
a great deal of flexibility in respect of furnace design and use of
fuel, allowing low cost fuel to be used.
Another advantages in use of closed cycle is the choice of selecting
a convenient pressure range, once the pressure ratio has been
selected. The volume of the air or the working fluid in the cycle
depends upon the pressure range which, in turn, affects the
sizes of the air heater, compressor, turbine, etc. In a closed cycle,
there is no restriction to keep the pressure low.
Components OF Gas Turbine
Gas turbine has three basic components
Compressor
Combustion chamber
Turbine

Compressor
A gas compressor is a mechanical device that increases
the pressure of a gas by reducing its volume. An air compressor is a
specific type of gas compressor. As gases are compressible, the
compressor also reduces the volume of a gas
A compressor in gas turbine is used to supply compressed air to the
combustion
chamber.
Types of Compressor
Compressors are broadly classified as positive displacement type
and rotodynamic type and may be of single stage or multi-stage
design.
Positive displacement Compressor
These are the compressors which discharges a measured amount of
gas in every stroke or cycle and requires some mechanical stroke to
run. They generally have intermittant flow not the continous one
Ther are two types of positive displacement compressors
a) Reciprocating
b) Rotary.

Reciprocating compressors:
Reciprocating compressors are positive displacement machines,
meaning that they increase the pressure of the air by reducing its
volume. This means they are taking in successive volumes of air
which is confined within a closed space and elevating this air to a
higher pressure.
The reciprocating air compressor accomplishes this by a piston
within a cylinder as the compressing and displacing element.
Reciprocating compressors are relatively low flow rate, high
pressure machines. Pressures as high as 35,000-50,000 psi (3000
bar ) are developed with maximum compression ratios of l0/stage
and any desired number of stages provided with intercoolers.
Reciprocating compressors are usually cheaper than other types,
but are generally less efficient and have a higher maintenance
requirement.
These are further divided into two types:
Piston compressors.
Diagphragm compressors.

Rotary Compressors.
A rotary compressor is a type of gas compressor which uses a
rotary type positive displacement mechanism. They are commonly
used to replace piston compressors where large volumes of high
pressure air are needed.
There are four types of rotary compressors.
screw compressors
lobe
sliding vane
liquid ring

Rotodynamic compressors
These compressors have rotating equipment parts imparting
momentum to the gas particles which is later converted to
pressure. For the rotodynamic type of compressors the flow is
continuous. These compressors are often smaller in size and
produce much less vibration than the positive displacement
compressors.
They are classified as
Centrifugal compressors
Axial Flow Compressors
Centrifugal compressors
These compressors operate with the same principle as that of
thecentrifugal pumps. The gases come on from an axial direction
to the rotating compressor impeller, which then imparts a radial
velocity to the gas particles. These particles then hit the diffuser
where the velocity is converted to pressure head. The impellers
usually operate with high rotational velocities, typically in the
range of 9000-15000 RPM for compressors used in chemical
industry. The compressors can have either a single casing with
multiple stages or multiple casings with intercoolers between them
to reduce the power required to drive the compressors. The
compressors are typically driven by gas / steam turbines or electric
motors.
The stable operating region for a centrifugal compressor occurs
between the surge point and the choke point. Surge point
corresponds to minimum flow of stable operation. Surge point is
characterized by the reversal of main flow in the compressor,
excessive vibration and sound coming from the compressor. Choke
point of a compressor at a given operating speed occurs at the
maximum flow limit.
Axial Flow compressors
These compressors are primarily used for applications involving
large gas flowrates and relatively low outlet pressures, as
compared to centrifugal compressors. Axial flow compressors are
usually more efficient than centrifugal compressors. An axial flow
compressor consists of a large number of blades attached to a
rotating blade with stationary adjustable blades fixed to the
compressor casing. This arrangement of blades creates multiple
stages resulting in high efficiency and pressure ratio per casing.
The operation of an axial flow compressor is governed by the
rotational speed of the blades. The stable operating range for an
axial flow compressor is however narrow, compared to the
centrifugal compressors. Typical revolution speeds for axial
compressors are in the range 1000-3000 RPM.