Patent Application
20190101019
The present disclosure relates to a method for determining a local hot gas temperature in a hot gas duct, in particular of combustion flue gases, as set forth in claim 1. It further relates to devices for carrying out the method as set forth in the device claims.
Temperatures in gas turbine engines downstream the combustor an upstream a first expansion turbine stage commonly reach, at least at high loads, values which push the strength of mechanical components in the hot gas duct to the limits, although they are cooled. A direct measurement of the hot gas temperature would be extremely expensive in field engines. For instance, thermocouples have very limited lifetime as they do not withstand the high temperatures in modern gas turbine engines, and even if they did, the measurement results would, due to heat conduction effects and radiative heat transfer to cooled walls, be highly unreliable and inaccurate. Thus, measurements are taken, which allow a calculation of the temperature at the exit of the combustor. Those calculations may comprise a temperature after the expansion turbine and a pressure ratio across the expansion turbine. The commonly applied measurements yield in results which are not, or in best case very poorly, spatially resolved. Moreover, those measurements may be largely influenced by the addition of cooling fluid to the working fluid while it is expanded in the turbine.
On the other hand, it is known that with the high temperatures commonly present at the expansion turbine inlet of modern gas turbine engines, deviations of a local temperature from a mean temperature yield a highly non-linear effect on the component lifetime. For instance, an increase in hot gas temperature at a particular location of a vane of an expansion turbine first stage of as little as 30° C. may reduce component lifetime by about 50%. The result may be severe engine damage, or, to reduce the related risk, over-dimensioning and/or overcooling of the components, or premature overhaul and component replacement. All these measures have a negative economic impact in reducing engine efficiency, increasing engine down time, and adding cost. It is thus found desirable to determine the temperature at the exit of the combustion chamber, or at the entry to the first expansion turbine stage, respectively, reliably, accurate, and spatially and timely resolved.
The method disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,318,891 enables to determine gas temperatures by chemiluminescence measurements. The measured chemiluminescence originates from excited radicals, e.g. hydroxyl or carbohydrate radicals, and may thus only be applied within a reaction zone of combustion. Also, the methods disclosed in US 2007/0133921 and US 2013/0100445 focus on optical in-situ measurements in flames rather than chemically inactive combustion flue gases. WO 01/22045 discloses a method and device for measuring the temperature of a gas using laser-induced incandescence pyrometry. US 2016/0252019 for an instance describes a state-of-the art method of determining a combustor outlet or expansion turbine inlet, respectively, temperature based upon the exhaust temperature after the expansion turbine, and the expansion turbine pressure ratio. It is obvious that a spatially resolved determination of the temperature at the turbine inlet is thus not possible. The skilled person will also appreciate, that the detection of changes in the turbine inlet temperature is delayed, and the use of the thus gained data for control purposes is thus limited to comparatively slow control actions.
It is an object of the present disclosure to disclose a method and a device of the kind initially mentioned. In one more specific aspect, a method shall be disclosed which enables a reliable, accurate and fast in situ determination of a local temperature of the hot flue gas downstream a combustor, or at the entry to a first stage of the expansion turbine of a gas turbine engine. In an even more specific aspect, a method shall be disclosed which enables a spatially and, in certain embodiments also timely, resolved determination of the temperature distribution across a cross section of a hot gas channel. Determination of the temperature, as will be readily appreciated by the skilled person, means in this context measurement of at least one factor or parameter which is correlated with a temperature and deriving the hot gas temperature from the one or a multitude of parameters. Further, devices shall be disclosed which are useful in carrying out the method.
This is achieved by the subject matter described in claim 1 and further in the device claims.
Further effects and advantages of the disclosed subject matter, whether explicitly mentioned or not, will become apparent in view of the disclosure provided below.
Accordingly, disclosed is a method for determining a local hot gas temperature in a hot gas duct downstream a combustion device, which method comprises extracting, in particular continuously extracting, at least one flue gas sample downstream the combustion device at at least one specific cross-sectional location of the hot gas duct, determining at least one flue gas species concentration in the sample, and determining the local flue gas total temperature based upon the at least one flue gas species concentration. In order to be able to determine the actual temperature of the extracted flue gas sample, the sample is extracted in particular before the hot flue gas flow from the combustor has delivered any useful work to a turbine. In more particular embodiments, the sample is extracted at a vane row of a first stage of the expansion turbine, and in even more particular embodiments at an upstream stagnation point of an airfoil profile of a guide vane of the expansion turbine first stage.
The method may in particular embodiments comprise cooling, or quenching, an extracted sample upon extraction through heat conduction. The cooling may in particular be provided in that a duct inside which the sample is ducted is cooled from outside. Said cooling or quenching may in particular be useful when the sample is extracted for example in or immediately downstream a furnace, such that further chemical reactions of a hot flue gas, in particular in the presence of a metallic duct surface, are prevented. Said reactions after extraction of the sample would otherwise falsify the measurement results.
The flue gas species may comprise, while not being limited to, carbon dioxide CO2, oxygen O2, water H2O, and/or nitric oxides NOx. Information about the water content may be particularly useful if water or steam is injected into the combustion device or upstream of the combustion device. Methods for determining a gas temperature downstream a combustor based upon at least one flue gas species concentration are generally known to the skilled person. For instance, a measurement of residual oxygen in the flue gas, and/or the carbon dioxide content, may, with knowledge of the fuel composition, enable to determine how much fuel was combusted per unit mass of flue gas and compute an enthalpy balance of the sample on the way through the combustor. Thus, with knowledge of the enthalpy of the constituents upon entry of the combustion device, a local total enthalpy and total temperature of the flue gas at the location of extraction may be calculated. Such calculations may require knowledge of all specific enthalpies of all fluids flowing into the combustor, and may thus require, for instance, while not limited to: pressure and temperature of air at the entering the combustor, for instance pressure and temperature downstream a compressor of a gas turbine engine; temperature and/or pressure of the fuel when introduced into the combustor; temperature and/or pressure of any inert fluids, such as water of steam, which may be introduced into the combustor. In case of air breathing engines, knowledge of ambient conditions may be useful to determine the water content of the air. It is understood that such thermodynamic conditions must be known as total conditions, i.e. the enthalpies need to be determined inclusive of kinetic energy components. In embodiments, the fuel composition may be measured online, which is particularly beneficial if an enthalpy balance of the sample shall be calculated. Mass flow ratios of fluids introduced into the combustor may be determined based upon the species measurements. Determination of the nitric oxides concentration may provide an indication of local combustion peak temperatures, but may, with knowledge of the nitric oxides formation model of a combustor or specific burner, also serve to determine the local total temperature at the location of sample extraction. The method also accounts for the effect of coolant leakages, as those dilute the sample to the same extent as they have an impact on the actual temperature.
It is noted that within the framework of the present disclosure the use of the indefinite article “a” or “an” does in no way stipulate a singularity nor does it exclude the presence of a multitude of the named member or feature. It is thus to be read in the sense of “at least one” or “one or a multitude of”.
In a more specific embodiment, the method comprises extracting a multitude of samples at a multitude of locations across a cross section of a hot gas duct. The at least one flue gas species concentration is determined individually for each of the samples. Thus, spatially resolved temperatures across the hot gas duct are may be determined. More in particular, a spatially resolved temperature distribution across the hot gas duct may be determined. In even more specific embodiments, a sample may be extracted at each of a multitude of different radial positions within a circumferential, or circumferentially delimited, respectively, ring or annular segment of the hot gas duct. A sample may be extracted for instance at each of at least four, or exactly four, different radial positions within a circumferential ring segment of the hot gas duct. With, for instance, a hot gas temperature at four different radial positions, the radial distribution of the temperature may be modelled by a third degree polynomial. More generally spoken, with n sampling locations radially distributed, in particular along a radius, such as for on one airfoil, and accordingly n temperatures being determined at different radii, a radial temperature distribution may be modelled by a polynomial of degree n−1. Moreover, when all the samples are continuously extracted, and a sufficiently fast measurement technique is applied for determining the at least one flue gas species concentration, a time-resolved determination of the hot gas temperature can be achieved. If more than one flue gas species concentration is determined, it may be found advantageous if the concentration of said flue gas species is determined simultaneously, or at least within a narrow time window, such as to determine the species concentration in the same sample volume. The method may thus further comprises applying an analytics device for each sample.
One possible technique to be applied for the characterization of the flue gas composition, that is, the determination of the species concentration of at least one flue gas species, is Raman spectroscopy. A method or device applicable for the characterization of the flue gas composition is disclosed in US 2012/0136483. It is noted that these methods and devices are generally applicable for the characterization of gas compositions, and may thus for instance also be applied to continuously determine a fuel gas composition.
The fuel composition of a fuel gas may for an instance be continuously measured online, as suggested above, but may in other instances be determined in certain time increments by any suitable analysis method. The composition of a liquid fuel may for instance be determined by an analysis of a fuel sample from a tank, or fuel samples may be taken intermittently. It may in this respect be a reasonable assumption that the fuel composition of a specific fuel does not significantly change in a short term.
Exemplary embodiments of the method may comprise extracting the flue gas sample at a stagnation point of a component provided in a hot gas duct downstream the combustion device, and more in particular immediately downstream the combustion device. Such embodiments may yield at least two beneficial effects. On the one hand, the recovered dynamic pressure at the stagnation point may support conveying an appropriate mass flow of flue gas through narrow sample orifices and sample lines. On the other hand, in extracting the samples at an upstream stagnation point of a component avoids that cooling air which is discharged onto the surface of the component, as is familiar to the person having skill in the art, has an impact on the result of the temperature determination. Such, the highest temperature the component is actually subjected to is determined. In even more particular embodiments, the combustion device is a combustor of a gas turbine engine, and the component is a first guide vane downstream the combustor. The method then may comprise extracting the flue gas sample at an upstream stagnation point of an airfoil profile at the leading edge of an airfoil of the first guide vane. It is readily understood that an airfoil profile in this context designates a cross sectional profile of an airfoil. The method may further comprise, as suggested above, extracting the flue gas sample upstream of any coolant discharge opening provided on an outer surface of the component such as to avoid ingestion of discharged coolant into the sample.
When applying the herein described method in a gas turbine engine, a comparison with the standard calculation of the temperature at the turbine inlet, which is based upon a measurement of the exhaust temperature at the turbine outlet and the turbine pressure ration, may serve for a mutual calibration of the methods.
The at least one local temperature or spatially resolved temperature distribution determined by the method may be used for performing lifetime calculations of components in the hot gas duct.
The at least one determined local temperature is in further exemplary embodiments of the method fed into a control loop for controlling the operation of burners in the combustion device. Such, at least one of a mean temperature and/or a local temperature and/or a temperature profile of the flue gas in the hot gas duct may be controlled. For instance, fuel supply to individual burners may be controlled such as to even out the temperature distribution across the hot gas duct, and/or to avoid local temperature spikes. This serves to extend the lifetime of components, but may also, for thermodynamic reasons, yield beneficial effects on efficiency and performance of a gas turbine engine. Also, the overall fuel/air ratio of the combustion process may be controlled such as to avoid local overheating. Other control action may be conceived.
In other aspects of the present disclosure, an airfoil is disclosed. At least one sample extraction orifice is provided on an outer surface of the airfoil, and in particular embodiments at a stagnation point, more in particular at an upstream stagnation point, of an airfoil profile. A sample duct is provided in fluid communication with the sample extraction orifice and running inside the airfoil. In more particular embodiments, a multitude of extraction orifices may be provided on the outer surface of the airfoil. All extraction orifices may be provided at an upstream stagnation point of the airfoil profile. Each extraction orifice may in particular be in fluid communication with a separate sample duct. More in particular, the sample duct or the sample ducts run towards a spanwise end of the airfoil, and all sample ducts may run towards the same spanwise end. The skilled person will appreciate, that the sample duct is intended to be provided in fluid communication with an analytics device for determining and quantifying the concentration of at least one characteristic flue gas species which is expected in the sample. As implied, important species to quantify may comprise at least one of oxygen O2, carbon dioxide CO2, and water H2O, but also nictric oxides NOx. The residual species concentration of oxygen, as noted above, is suited to determine by an appropriate calculation an equivalence ratio of the combustion. Combined information about the residual oxygen concentration in the flue gas, the carbon dioxide concentration and water content of the flue gas may in certain instances be sufficient for a characterization of the fuel composition. If a combustion device is operated with steam or water injection, a determination of the water content of the flue gas, and additional information about fuel composition, equivalence ratio, and the water content for instance of ambient air used for the combustion may provide a relative mass flow of added water or steam per unit mass flow of oxidizer or flue gas. The airfoil may in particular be provided as an airfoil for an expansion turbine. The airfoil may further be equipped with cooling means of any kind familiar to the skilled person. The skilled person will also appreciate, that in that the sample orifices are provided at an upstream stagnation point of a respective airfoil profile, it is avoided that for instance cooling air which is discharged onto the surface of the airfoil may mix with a flue gas extracted at a sample orifice.
It will be appreciated that it may be useful if the sample duct, inside which the sample is ducted upon extraction, is cooled from outside, and is sufficiently cooled to quench the sample such as to prevent further reaction of fuel gas species. In a gas turbine airfoil, the duct will anyway run within a coolant cavity, and thus cooling of the duct will intrinsically be provided. The duct may or may not, as needed, be equipped with cooling features. Also, adequate conductive cooling for the sample orifices may be required, and adequate cooling features may be provided.
In other aspects of the present disclosure, a vane member is disclosed, wherein the vane member comprises at least one airfoil of the type described above. In particular, the sample duct runs towards the root of the vane member. The root of a vane member is commonly considered as the end which is intended to be installed radially outwardly and in a turboengine housing, while the tip of a vane is intended to be pointing radially inwardly. The vane member may in particular be provided as a vane member for an expansion turbine. The vane member may further be equipped with cooling means of any kind familiar to the skilled person.
A multitude of extraction orifices may in more particular embodiments of the vane member be provided on the outer surface of the vane member, and at least at two different positions along a spanwidth of an airfoil or a radial extent of the vane member, respectively. It is understood, in this respect, that a vane member may comprise one single or multiple airfoils. It is further understood that a vane member may be intended to be placed in a turboengine, with clearly dedicated spanwise ends of the airfoil or the airfoils to be placed at a radially inner position and a radially outer position of the turboengine. Thus, for a single airfoil as a vane member reference is made to the spanwidth of the airfoil. If the vane member, however, comprises platforms, and more in particular for a multi-airfoil vane member, reference may be made to a well-defined radial direction. The multiple extraction orifices may be distributed along the spanwidth extent of one airfoil, but may also be provided on more than one airfoil of a multi-airfoil vane member, and distributed along the radial extent of the vane member on multiple airfoils. In particular, there may be at least four, and in specific embodiments exactly four, extraction orifices be provided at different spanwise or radial positions, such that samples may be extracted at at least four or exactly four radial positions in a hot gas duct in which the vane member is installed. As indicated above, extracting n samples at n different radial positions within a circular ring segment of the hot gas duct allows modelling a radial temperature profile by a polynomial of degree n−1. Further, a separate sample duct is provided in fluid communication with each extraction orifice.
As the skilled person will readily appreciate, the internal geometry of an airfoil or a vane member comprising extraction orifices and internal sample ducts may prove rather complex and may be expensive to manufacture with the required precision. As such, the airfoil vane member disclosed herein is predestined for being manufactured by means of an additive manufacturing technique, in which layers of material are subsequently generated and fused to each other. Substantially, those techniques work similar to three dimensional printing. A layer of material powder, for instance a metal powder, is placed on a surface, and along a specific geometry the powder is melted and re-solidified. A further layer of material powder is placed on top, and again the material powder is along a specific geometry melted and re-solidified, and the solidified material fused to the underlying layer. A layer thickness may typically, while non-limiting, be in a range of tenths of millimeters. For melting the powder, for non-limiting instances, a laser beam or electron beam may be applied. These techniques are referred to in the art as Selective Laser Melting SLM and Electron Beam Melting EBM. The geometry along which the material is melted and re-solidified can easily be controlled in controlling the path of the beam and/or in modulating the beam intensity.
In still further aspects of the present disclosure, a gas turbine engine is disclosed which comprises at least one airfoil and/or turbine vane member of the type disclosed above. Said airfoil vane member may in particular be provided in an expansion turbine, and more in particular in a guide vane row, also referred to in the art as a nozzle, of a first stage of an expansion turbine. This enables to locally determine hot gas temperatures downstream the combustor and at the entry of the first expansion turbine stage, that is, to locally determine the hot gas temperature at the mechanically and thermally highly loaded first expansion turbine guide vanes. As noted above, local hot spots can be detected and the temperatures detected at those local hot spots may be used for lifetime calculations of an airfoil vane member. Likewise, of course, also temperatures lower than expected may influence predictions of lifetime, or lifetime consumption, of the component. In this respect, in order to generate a picture of the temperature distribution which is as comprehensive as required or feasible, at least two airfoils or vane members with extraction orifices and sample lines are provided at different circumferential positions in a guide vane row. As noted above, the said guide vane row may in particular be a guide vane row of a first turbine stage of an expansion turbine. It is understood that it is not necessary and may not be economically feasible that every airfoil or all vane members of the first expansion turbine stage static vane row is equipped with sample extraction orifices. In certain embodiments, the airfoils and/or vane members which are equipped with extraction orifices may be at least essentially equally distributed at for non-limiting instances three, four or five circumferential positions around the circumference of the hot gas duct.
The determined temperatures may be used in a closed loop control to control the temperature in controlling the overall fuel and/or oxidant and/or inert medium mass flows provided to the combustor. A comprehensive temperature profile may be used in a closed loop control to control the fuel and/or oxidant mass flow provided to individual burners inside a combustor, and/or control inert medium fluid flow to certain segments of the combustor, and thus to control and, for instance, even out the temperature distribution in the hot gas duct, or at the entry to the first expansion turbine stage, respectively.
It is further understood that the different flue gas samples must not be mixed before determining the flue gas species of interest. It may prove complicated, and is furthermore not feasible if continuous measurements are desired, to multiplex the different samples. Thus, it may be provided that a flue gas analytics device is provided in flow communication with each sample duct.
It is understood that the features and embodiments disclosed above may be combined with each other. It will further be appreciated that further embodiments are conceivable within the scope of the present disclosure and the claimed subject matter which are obvious and apparent to the skilled person.
The subject matter of the present disclosure is now to be explained in more detail by means of selected exemplary embodiments shown in the accompanying drawings. The figures show
It is understood that the drawings are highly schematic, and details not required for instruction purposes may have been omitted for the ease of understanding and depiction. It is further understood that the drawings show only selected, illustrative embodiments, and embodiments not shown may still be well within the scope of the herein disclosed and/or claimed subject matter.
The gas flowing to the first guide vane row of an expansion turbine in a gas turbine engine from the combustor still yields the same total temperature as after combustion. The total temperature, as the skilled person will readily appreciate, is the temperature at a stagnation point, with the dynamic energy of a gas flow been recovered through a loss-free deceleration. That is, in other words, the hot gas flow from the combustor has not yet delivered any useful work to the turbine. Thus, the total temperature of the hot gas flow meeting a first expansion turbine vane member can be determined by an enthalpy balance over the boundaries of the combustor. In brief, one method for determining a local temperature may roughly follow the following principle. For an instance, in one embodiment an air breathing gas turbine engine may be operated with dry gas fuel combustion. That is, no water or steam is injected in the combustor. If for each sample extracted through one of the sample extraction orifices the residual oxygen content is determined, this provides information about the equivalence ratio of the combustion process from which the flue gas sample originates. If the fuel gas composition is known, it is known how much fuel was combusted per unit mass flow of air flowing into the combustor, or per unit mass flow of flue gas. It can subsequently be determined how much combustion gases like carbon dioxide and water have been generated per unit mass flow of flue gas. Based upon this information, the oxygen consumption and the fuel mass per unit mass of flue gas is corrected recursively, until a converging solution is achieved about how much air and how much fuel was provided per unit mass of flue gas. The water content of the combustion air is generally known from measurements of ambient conditions. Thus, the flue gas composition can be determined, in one instance, from a fuel gas composition and the residual oxygen content, or the oxygen consumption, respectively. This allows to determine the specific heat capacity cp of the flue gas. If the total temperature of the combustion air flowing into the combustor and of the fuel is known, the total enthalpy of the combustion air and the fuel per unit mass of combustion air and fuel, respectively, can be determined. As it is further known how much combustion air and fuel contributed to one unit mass of flue gas, it can readily be determined how much enthalpy per unit mass of flue gas was provided by combustion air, by the fuel, and, with the lower heating value of the fuel, how much enthalpy per unit mass of flue gas was provided by combusting the fuel in the combustion air. This finally results in the total enthalpy per unit mass of flue gas, and with the specific heat capacity cp of the flue gas sample the total temperature of the flue gas from which the flue gas sample was extracted is determined. That is, the local flue gas temperature at the location where the sample was extracted is known. The vane member shown in
It is understood that the method for determining a local flue gas temperature from at least one flue gas species concentration as sketched up above provides only a rough outline of one possibility to do so. The person skilled in the art of gas turbine engineering will know and/or be able to readily conceive and implement other ways to calculate the enthalpy balance based upon at least one flue gas species concentration, and from there the total temperature of the flue gas. It is understood that other ways of calculation may be chosen without deviating from the teaching of the present disclosure, and thus are covered by the claimed scope of protection.
While the subject matter of the disclosure has been explained by means of exemplary embodiments, it is understood that these are in no way intended to limit the scope of the claimed invention. It will be appreciated that the claims cover embodiments not explicitly shown or disclosed herein, and embodiments deviating from those disclosed in the exemplary modes of carrying out the teaching of the present disclosure will still be covered by the claims.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 17193981.2 | Sep 2017 | EP | regional |
