The present invention relates to a method for cooling a heat shield element comprising a main wall with a cold inner side and a hot outer side, wherein a coolant is introduced into an impingement region of that heat shield element and an impingement flow of said coolant is directed on a surface area of that cold inner side through a plurality of holes for both impingement cooling and flow control.
Furthermore the invention relates to a heat shield element, comprising a main wall with an inner side and an outer side, having an impingement region adjacent to the inner side, said inner side having surface area which can be impinged by a coolant flow introduced through a plurality of impingement holes opposite to said surface area effecting an impingement pressure drop.
Because of the very high temperatures attained in a combustion chamber or in channels through which hot gases flow, it is very important to provide sufficient cooling to the main walls by using as little coolant as possible. In addition hot gas ingestion has to be avoided. For this reason an arrangement of heat shield elements is used and nowadays a few cooling methods are applied for cooling the large surfaces of such arrangements.
Regarding the velocity level and direction from which the coolant flow comes into contact with the area to be cooled there is the pure impingement cooling method—the coolant is blown perpendicularly to the surface and by a vigorous impact heat is transferred, the pure convection cooling method—the coolant is introduced parallel to the area and moves along it, and a combination of the above methods.
Regarding the further downstream use of the coolant two types of circuitries are in use:
“Open cooling”: Here the coolant discharges into the hot gas (simple design but thermodynamically inefficient)
“closed cooling”: After cooling the air is beneficially used, it is ducted to the burners, participating in combustion.
Two kinds of materials can be utilized for the construction of a heat shield element cooled by the methods that were just discussed. On and hand these are high-temperature resistant ceramics. The disadvantage of ceramic materials is their high brittleness. High-temperature Iron-, Chrome-, Nickel- or Cobalt-based metal alloys are the alternative. The thermal conductivity of metals is high, heat extraction is easily possible and the ductile metal is more forgiving the HCF- and LCF-loading. Their operating temperature is limited, however; metals must be cooled sufficiently.
A possible design of the heat shield arrangement used to cool a machine component through which hot gas is passing, especially a combustion chamber of a gas turbine installation, is revealed in WO 98/13645 A1. The arrangement comprises a number of heat shield components with cooling fluid and a hot gas wall to be cooled by that fluid. This heat shield component is composed of two walls—an outer wall which is in contact with the hot gas and a parallel inner wall, so that there is a gap between those two walls. An inlet duct is constructed in such a way, that the cooling fluid is directed towards the inner wall. There it flows through a plurality of apertures, impinges against the outer wall and extends in the direction of this wall. After cooling said wall the fluid flows through an outlet duct running parallel to the inlet duct, leaves the inner room of the heat shield component and is led preferably into the burner of the gas turbine installation.
In EP 1 005 620 B1 a heat shield component is described which is part of a hot gas wall to be cooled. The heat shield arrangement that consists of such heat shield components lines the walls of a hot gas space such as the combustion chamber of a gas turbine. The heat shield component comprises a hollow space; its bottom is exposed to a hot gas, which is attached to a carrier. In the hollow space there is a second hollow body element attached to the same carrier and this element has holes on its bottom. The carrier shows a plurality of inlet channels through which the cooling fluid is fed into the inner space of the hollow body element. The fluid flows through the holes at the bottom of the element, reaches the space between the hollow body element and the heat shield component and impinges the inner side of the bottom of the heat shield component. Then the warmed-up fluid is fed to an outlet channel which opens into the burner of the gas turbine.
Also the EP 1 318 353 A2 discloses heat shields each comprising a liner segment and a support shell for a combustor. The support shell is spaced apart the liner segments to define chambers there between. Impingement cooling holes are arranged in the support shell for establishing impingement cooling of the liner segments from the back. Outlet opening are distributed in the liner segments to enable film cooling of the liner segments.
Another arrangement is known by U.S. Pat. No. 5,396,759, disclosing a heat shield for a bulkhead of an annular combustion chamber.
Different areas of the heat shield are either only impingement cooled or only film cooled or only convective cooled. Spent air is discharged such, that a continuous annular flow is achieved.
Summarized, in all heat shield arrangements, especially those used in the combustion chambers of gas turbines, principally compressed air is branched off from the compressor before entering the combustion chamber and used for cooling the wall of the combustion chamber. The advantage is that at any time there is sufficient air at high pressure which can be utilized to remove the heat from the combustion chamber wall.
The biggest drawback is the loss of combustion air and the burner bypass. Moreover by mixing the cold air with the hot gases in the combustion chamber the temperature level decreases. That causes a reduction of the thermodynamic efficiency and the power output of the gas turbine.
An object of the present invention is to introduce a method that reduces the overall air consumption for cooling and sealing, especially in the case of open cooling, and thus providing more air for combustion.
Another object of the invention is to provide a heat shield design which utilizes that cooling method.
According to the first object of the invention a flexible method is provided by a heat shield element, comprising a main wall with an inner side, which is restricted by side walls, and an outer side, which can be exposed to a hot fluid, and wherein a coolant is introduced into an impingement region of that heat shield element and an impingement flow of said coolant is directed on a surface area of that inner side through a plurality of impingement holes, causing an impingement pressure drop, wherein after impingement the coolant flow cools the main wall convectively by flowing along the inner side while the coolant converts into a discharge flow, which is drained through a number of discharge holes through said side wall from the inner side to the outer side of the side wall, causing a discharge pressure drop in series with the impingement pressure drop. The impingement pressure drop and the discharge pressure drop are tailored such as to provide a locally required mass flow, which guarantees the predetermined varying heat transfer coefficients on the cold side.
This can be done by using the so-called controlled outlet flow scheme of the cooling air, i.e. one can match the holes through which the cooling air is introduced (impingement holes) with the holes through which the air is drained out of the side walls (or rims) of the heat shield element (discharge holes). Thus tailoring the in-series flow resistances allows two important things:
Adjust safely a defined mass flow for effective impingement cooling, i.e. minimize air consumption.
Prevent effectively any hot gas ingestion into cold structures by discharging into the gaps only, which gaps are built by neighbouring heat shield elements lying apart to each other.
If the static pressure outside the heat shield element after the compressor is P0 and the static pressure inside the heat shield element is P1 then the impingement pressure drop is ΔPI=P0−P1. Further, if the static pressure at the side of the hot gases is P2, then the discharge pressure drop is ΔPD=P1−P2. The relation among the different pressures is P0>P1>P2. The statement that the impingement pressure drop and the discharge pressure drop are in series means that the overall pressure drop ΔP is:
ΔP=ΔPI+ΔPD=P0−P2
According to the above equation the overall pressure drop depends only on the initial and final pressure values P0 and P2 and doesn't depend on the pressure in the heat shield element is P1. The “free” pressure level P1 allows adjusting a required impingement jet velocity level (i.e. heat transfer coefficient). If the impingement pressure drop is increases then the discharge pressure drop is decreases but for a prescribed overall pressure drop ΔP their summation remains always constant and is equal to difference of the pressure values after the compressor and at the hot gas side.
According to a preferred aspect of the method the matching of the impingement pressure drop and the discharge pressure drop includes adjusting the size (hole diameter DI,DD) and numbers (NI,ND) of both types of holes.
The impingement holes are preferably introduced in a symmetrical order and the distance between every two holes in the pattern is XI for the impingement flow. A hole pattern for the impingement holes can be characterized by taking the ratio between XI and the diameter of the impingement holes DI.
According to another preferred aspect of the method a partial impingement flow is directed to a first surface area and another partial impingement flow is directed to a second surface area which is separated from the first surface area. This denotes the application of two sub-regions separated by a dividing wall inside the heat shield element. Varying the pattern of the impingement holes and the discharge hole area of both sub-regions provides different heat transfer coefficients on the first and the second surface area. This design is particularly suitable for an environment where the hot side h.t.c.-gradient is high.
In another preferred development of the invention the relative discharge pressure drop ΔPD/ΔP is to adjust on the required heat transfer rate on the cold side e.g. inner side of the main wall. Where a large heat transfer rate is required the relative discharge pressure drop ΔPD/ΔP at least has to be 70%, for a medium heat transfer rate the relative discharge pressure drop ΔPD/ΔP has to be at least 90% und for a small heat transfer rate the relative discharge pressure drop ΔPD/ΔP has to be at least 97% of the overall pressure drop. This tayloring of the relative discharge pressure ΔPD/ΔP allows to adjust the varying required heat transfer coefficient across the inner surface of the main wall.
One more preferred aspect of the method is that the heat extraction is enhanced also by enlarging the surface area and by generating vortices close to the surface. This can be achieved by surface turbulation and/or by cooling fins and/or stiffening ribs and/or a dimple field positioned along said surface area. Stiffening ribs in turn allow lower main wall thicknesses, i.e. higher heat extraction.
The method of the present invention can be used for a combustion chamber, in particular an annular combustion chamber of a gas turbine. Moreover air can be taken from an air compressor as coolant.
According to the second object of the invention a heat shield element eligible for cooling by means of that method is a heat shield element, comprising a main wall with an inner side and an outer side, which can be exposed to a hot fluid, and having an impingement region adjacent to said inner side, said inner side having a surface area which can be impinged by a coolant flow introduced through a plurality of impingement holes opposite to said surface area effecting an impingement pressure drop, wherein said heat shield element possesses a number of discharge holes along its side wall for draining the coolant through said discharge holes from the inner side to the outer side of the wall, effecting a discharge pressure drop in series with the impingement pressure drop, and wherein the impingement holes and the discharge holes are matched to one another in such a way, that a required jet velocity coolant flow is obtained which yields a required predetermined heat-transfer coefficient αR for the main wall.
The advantages of the heat shield element are implied also from the advantages of the method described above.
Preferred aspects of the heat shield element are the minimization of air consumption and the prevention of hot gas ingestion:
One aspect is the control of local cooling (h.t.c.) via jet velocity/mass flow and P1 by matching in-series resistances towards ΔPI+ΔPD (pressure drops): Taylor DI, NI with DD,ND.
Another preferred aspect is, that a heat shield element may be constructed as a double-chamber heat shield element where the impingement region is split in two sub-regions or chambers separated by a dividing wall. Said sub-regions may have different impingement hole patterns in order to provide different heat-transfer coefficients when coolant is introduced into the heat shield element. As mentioned above this construction is favorable when the hot side h.t.c. gradient along the heat shield element is high, i.e. that the thermal load of the main wall is strongly differing in the two sub-regions. By means of this design air consumption is further reduced.
The single chamber design gives best results for small to medium heat shield sizes preferably ca 180×180 mm to 240×240 mm; the double-chamber construction for medium size heat shield elements with ca. 240×240 mm to 300×300.
Another way to improve the heat transfer on the cold side of the heat shield element can be done by enlarging the inner surface of the main wall. Surface-increasing elements comprise for instance cooling fins, stiffening ribs, dimples or riblets or combinations of such elements positioned on said inner side of the heat shield element. The surface is enlarged typically in the order of more than 50%, up to about 150% compared to a smooth surface with no surface-increasing elements. In addition riblets, dimples etc. generate vortices close to the surface, thus enhancing the h.t.c.-level even more.
One more preferred aspect is that said heat shield element is made of a metal, in particular of a high temperature resistant metal of high thermal conductivity. As aforementioned the heat shield element can be utilized for cooling a combustion chamber, in particular an annular combustion chamber of a gas turbine. The used coolant can be air, taken from the compressor of a gas turbine.
The proposed method and the heat shield element have a number of additional advantages, which will be briefly discussed below:
The main advantage of the invention is, that by applying the controlled outflow flow scheme the consumption of compressor air extracted for cooling purposes can be reduced by a factor of more or less 2, compared to current practices. For example in a typical conventional cooling scheme about 10% air from the compressor inlet air is required, whereas with the new cooling scheme of the invention the cooling air consumption can be significantly reduced to about 5-6%. Therefore, this directly leads to higher power and efficiency of the gas turbine, because more compressor air can be used for the combustion process.
This large potential suggests using metal heat shield elements being more ductile and forgiving than for example ceramic heat shield elements. The overall new design is simple and robust and very little changes have to be made to current conventional metal heat shields in operation. This new technology implies a high upgrade potential of the state-of-the-art.
The design procedure can be easily applied to other impingement applications as well, for instance aircraft turbine engines, other types of combustion chambers, etc.
The figures below display:
Identical reference indications have the same meaning in the figures.
In the following an embodiment of a heat shield component in a gas turbine is depicted and explained with the accompanying drawings. The proposed designs principally do not necessarily need seals between the combustion chamber carrier wall 11 and the heat shield element 13.
In
In
In
In example the impingement holes within in radius Ri establishing an impingement pressure drop ΔPI about 70% of the overall pressure drop ΔP an outside the radius Ri about 90% of the overall pressure ΔP. This leads to an impingement cooling varying over the area which is to cool while establishing an sufficient coolant flow speed for the subsequent convective cooling of the main wall 15.
The effect of the dimples 39 positioned on the inner side 151 of the main wall 15 of a heat shield element 13 is shown in a cross-sectional view along the cross section in
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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0425338.7 | Oct 2004 | EP | regional |
This application is the US National Stage of International Application No. PCT/EP2005/055461, filed Oct. 21, 2005 and claims the benefit thereof. The International Application claims the benefits of European application No. 04025338 EP filed Oct. 25, 2004, both of the applications are incorporated by reference herein in their entirety.
Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind | 371c Date |
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PCT/EP05/55461 | 10/21/2005 | WO | 4/24/2007 |