Patent Grant
11543131
This application claims priority to Korean Patent Application No. 10-2021-0006860, filed on Jan. 18, 2021, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
Apparatuses and methods consistent with exemplary embodiments relate to a nozzle assembly, a combustor, and a gas turbine including the same and, more particularly, to a nozzle assembly provided in a combustor of a gas turbine to inject fuel and compressed air into a combustion chamber of the combustor, a combustor having the nozzle assembly, and a gas turbine having the same.
A turbomachine refers to an apparatus that generates a driving force used to generate power with a fluid (e.g., gas) passing through the turbomachine. Therefore, the turbomachine is usually installed and used together with a generator. The turbomachine may include a gas turbine, a steam turbine, a wind power turbine, and the like. The gas turbine is an apparatus that mixes compressed air and natural gas and combusts an air-fuel mixture to generate combustion gas, and generates power for power generation by using the combustion gas. The steam turbine is an apparatus that heats water to generate steam and generates power for power generation by using the steam. The wind turbine is an apparatus that converts wind power into power for power generation.
A gas turbine includes a compressor, a combustor, and a turbine. The compressor includes a plurality of compressor vanes and a plurality of compressor blades alternately arranged in a compressor casing with an air inlet through which air is introduced. The introduced air is compressed by the compressor vanes and the compressor blades while passing through an inside of the compressor. The combustor supplies fuel to the compressed air compressed by the compressor to form a fuel-air mixture.
In addition, the combustor ignites the fuel-air mixture with an igniter to generate high-temperature and high-pressure combustion gas. The generated combustion gas is supplied to the turbine. The turbine includes a plurality of turbine vanes and turbine blades alternately arranged in a turbine casing. The combustion gas generated by the combustor rotates the turbine blades while passing through an inside of the turbine and then is discharged to outside through a turbine diffuser.
A steam turbine includes an evaporator and a turbine. The evaporator heats water supplied from the outside to generate steam. The turbine of the steam turbine includes a plurality of turbine vanes and a plurality of turbine blades alternately disposed in a turbine casing. While the gas turbine uses the combustion gas, the steam turbine uses the steam generated in the evaporator to rotate the turbine blades.
In a gas turbine, hydrogen may be used as a fuel. However, the hydrogen gas turbine has a problem in that due to the nature of hydrogen combustion, when a mixture of hydrogen and compressed air is combusted in a combustion chamber of the combustor, a flame holding phenomenon occurs in which the flame is held around a spray nozzle and a backfire/flash back phenomenon in which a flame is directed in the reverse direction instead of toward the turbine, resulting in a tip of the spray nozzle being heated by the flame holding.
Aspects of one or more exemplary embodiments provide a nozzle assembly in which a cooling fluid is supplied to a combustion chamber through a nozzle body to cool a tip of a spray nozzle and a first flow path formed in a first nozzle tube through which combustion air and fuel are supplied to the combustion chamber has a cross-section area that gradually decreases toward an outlet side thereof to increase the spray speed of combustion air and fuel so that a flame holding phenomenon or backfire/flashback phenomenon in which a flame generated in the combustion chamber of the combustor adheres to the spray nozzle or flows back can be prevented, a combustor including the nozzle assembly, and a gas turbine having the same.
Additional aspects will be set forth in part in the description which follows and, in part, will become apparent from the description, or may be learned by practice of the exemplary embodiments.
According to an aspect of an exemplary embodiment, there is provided a nozzle assembly for injecting fuel and compressed air into a combustion chamber of a gas turbine combustor, the nozzle assembly including: a nozzle body disposed in the combustor and having a coolant outlet on one end of which an inside of the nozzle body communicates with the combustion chamber communicate; a spray nozzle disposed in the nozzle body and including a plurality of first nozzle tubes, each first nozzle tube having a first flow path formed therein to allow combustion air to flow into the combustion chamber and a fuel hole formed on a circumferential surface thereof to supply fuel, and a second nozzle tube disposed adjacent to the first nozzle tube and having a plurality of through-holes to allow the first nozzle tubes to pass therethrough and a second flow path formed therein to supply fuel; and a diaphragm disposed inside of the nozzle body and including a plurality of coolant flow holes through which a coolant supplied to the nozzle body is supplied towards one end of the nozzle body and a plurality of tube holes through which the first nozzle tubes pass.
The nozzle body may have a cylindrical shape with one closed end on which the coolant outlet is formed, and the coolant outlet may include a plurality of coolant outlet holes arranged in a ring shape.
The plurality of coolant outlet holes may include a first group of coolant outlet holes arranged in a circumferential direction in the ring shape on an inner circumferential portion of the closed end of the nozzle body, and a second group of coolant outlet holes arranged in the circumferential direction in the ring shape on an outer circumferential portion of the closed end of the nozzle body.
The coolant outlet holes of the second group of coolant outlet holes may be formed to extend obliquely upward in a longitudinal direction of the nozzle body from inside to outside through the closed end of the nozzle body.
A swirler may be formed inside the first nozzle tube to mix fuel and combustion air supplied to the first nozzle tube.
The swirler may be disposed in the first flow path downstream from a position in which the fuel hole is formed based on a flow direction of combustion air flowing through the first flow path.
The first flow path may have a cross-sectional area gradually decreasing toward an outlet side thereof.
According to an aspect of another exemplary embodiment, there is provided a combustor including: a nozzle casing configured to receive compressed air from a compressor and to receive fuel from an outside; a liner connected to the nozzle casing and defining a combustion chamber in which a mixture of the compressed air-fuel is combusted; a transition piece connected to the liner to supply combustion gas generated in the combustion chamber to a turbine; and a nozzle assembly disposed in the nozzle casing to inject fuel and compressed air into the combustion chamber. The nozzle assembly including: a nozzle body disposed in the combustor and having a coolant outlet on one end of which an inside of the nozzle body communicates with the combustion chamber; a spray nozzle disposed in the nozzle body and including a plurality of first nozzle tubes, each first nozzle tube having a first flow path formed therein to allow combustion air to flow into the combustion chamber and a fuel hole formed on a circumferential surface thereof to supply fuel, and a second nozzle tube disposed adjacent to the first nozzle tube and having a plurality of through-holes to allow the first nozzle tubes to pass therethrough and a second flow path formed therein to supply fuel; and a diaphragm disposed inside of the nozzle body and including a plurality of coolant flow holes through which a coolant supplied to the nozzle body is supplied towards one end of the nozzle body and a plurality of tube holes through which the first nozzle tubes pass.
According to an aspect of another exemplary embodiment, there is provided a gas turbine including: a compressor configured to suck and compress external air; a combustor configured to mix the compressed air supplied from the compressor with fuel and combust the air-fuel mixture to produce combustion gas; and a turbine rotated by the combustion gas produced by the combustor to generate power, the combustor including: a nozzle casing; a liner connected to the nozzle casing and defining a combustion chamber in which the compressed air-fuel mixture is combusted; a transition piece connected to the liner to supply combustion gas generated in the combustion chamber to the turbine; and a nozzle assembly disposed in the nozzle casing to inject fuel and compressed air into the combustion chamber. The nozzle assembly including: a nozzle body disposed in the combustor and having a coolant outlet on one end of which an inside of the nozzle body communicates with the combustion chamber; a spray nozzle disposed in the nozzle body and including a plurality of first nozzle tubes, each first nozzle tube having a first flow path formed therein to allow combustion air to flow into the combustion chamber and a fuel hole formed on a circumferential surface thereof to supply fuel, and a second nozzle tube disposed adjacent to the first nozzle tube and having a plurality of through-holes to allow the first nozzle tubes to pass therethrough and a second flow path formed therein to supply fuel; and a diaphragm disposed inside of the nozzle body and including a plurality of coolant flow holes through which a coolant supplied to the nozzle body is supplied towards one end of the nozzle body and a plurality of tube holes through which the first nozzle tubes pass.
According to one or more exemplary embodiments, as a cooling fluid is supplied to the combustion chamber through the nozzle body, the spray nozzle can be cooled using compressed air supplied to the combustion chamber, and a swirler is provided inside of the first nozzle tube of the spray nozzle to increase the mixing efficiency of fuel and combustion air that are supplied to the first flow path of the spray nozzle, the first flow path has a cross-section area that gradually decreases toward an outlet side thereof to increase the spray speed of combustion air and fuel so that an air-fuel mixture is combusted relatively downstream side compared to a related art combustion spot to prevent a flame from adhering to the outer wall of the spray nozzle, thereby avoiding the flame holding phenomenon or backfire/flashback phenomenon.
The above and other aspects will become more apparent from the following description of the exemplary embodiments with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:
Various modifications and various embodiments will be described with reference to the accompanying drawings. However, it should be noted that the various embodiments are not for limiting the scope of the disclosure to the specific embodiment, but they should be interpreted to include all modifications, equivalents, or substitutions of the embodiments included within the spirit and scope disclosed herein.
Terms used herein are used to merely describe specific embodiments and are not intended to limit the scope of the disclosure. As used herein, an element expressed as a singular form includes a plurality of elements, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise. Further, it will be understood that the term “comprising” or “including” specifies the presence of stated features, numbers, steps, operations, elements, parts, or combinations thereof, but does not preclude the presence or addition of one or more other features, numbers, steps, operations, elements, parts, or combinations thereof.
For clear illustration, components that are irrelevant to the description are omitted, and like reference numerals refer to like components throughout the specification. In certain embodiments, a detailed description of known functions and configurations that may obscure the gist of the present disclosure will be omitted. For the same reason, some of the elements in the drawings are exaggerated, omitted, or schematically illustrated.
Hereinafter, a configuration of a gas turbine according to an exemplary embodiment will be described with reference to the accompanying drawings.
Referring to
The compressor 110 includes compressor vanes and a compressor rotor including a compressor disk and compressor blades in a compressor casing. The turbine 120 includes turbine vanes and a turbine rotor including a turbine disk and turbine blades in a turbine casing. The compressor vanes and the compressor rotor are arranged in a multi-stage along a flow direction of compressed air, and the turbine vanes and the turbine rotor are also arranged in a multi-stage along a flow direction of combustion gas.
The compressor 110 has an internal space of which volume decreases from a front-stage toward a rear-stage so that the introduced air can be compressed while passing through the inside of the compressor 110, whereas the turbine 120 has an internal space of which a volume increases from a front-stage toward a rear-stage so that the combustion gas supplied from the combustor 1000 can expand while passing through the inside of the turbine 120.
In addition, a torque tube serving as a torque transmission member is disposed between the last-stage compressor rotor and the first-stage turbine rotor to transmit rotational torque generated by the turbine 120 to the compressor 110. Although the torque tube may include a plurality of torque tube disks arranged in three stages as illustrated in
The compressor rotor includes a compressor disk and a plurality of compressor blades. A plurality of compressor disks may be disposed inside the compressor casing, and each of the compressor disks is fastened by a tie road so as not to be separated from each other in an axial direction. That is, the compressor disks are aligned along the axial direction with the tie rod extending through centrals thereof. In addition, adjacent compressor disks are arranged such that opposing surfaces of the adjacent compressor disks are compressed by the tie rod so that the compressor disks cannot rotate relative to each other.
The plurality of compressor blades are radially coupled to an outer surface of each of the compressor disks along a circumferential direction. For each compressor stage, the plurality of compressor vanes coupled to an inner surface of the compressor casing along the circumferential direction are alternately arranged with the plurality of compressor blades. While the compressor disks rotate along with a rotation of the tie rod, the compressor vanes fixed to the compressor casing do not rotate. The compressor vanes align the flow of compressed air passing through the compressor blades and guide the flow of the compressed air moved from front-stage compressor blades to rear-stage compressor blades. Here, the compressor casing and the compressor vanes may be collectively defined as a compressor stator to distinguish them from the compressor rotor.
The tie rod is arranged to extend through the centers of the plurality of compressor disks and the plurality of turbine disks, such that one end thereof is fastened to the compressor disk located on the foremost end side of the compressor and the other end thereof is fastened by a fastening nut.
Because the tie rod may be formed in various structures depending on a type of the gas turbine, a shape of the tie rod is not limited to the example illustrated in
Also, the compressor may include a deswirler that serves as a guide blade. The deswirler increases a pressure of fluid flowing into the combustor and adjusts a flow angle of the fluid to be substantially equal to a designed flow angle.
The combustor 1000 serves to mix an incoming compressed air with fuel supplied from a fuel injector and combust the air-fuel mixture to produce high-temperature and high-pressure combustion gas with high energy, thereby raising the temperature of the combustion gas to the heat-resistant temperature at which the components of the combustor and turbine can endure through an isothermal combustion process.
A plurality of combustors constituting the combustor 1000 may be arranged in a form of a cell in a combustor casing. Each combustor includes a nozzle casing 1100, a liner 1200, a transition piece 1300, and a nozzle assembly.
The nozzle assembly is disposed inside of the nozzle casing 1100 to inject fuel and compressed air, and the liner 1200 connected to a rear end (i.e., downstream end) of the nozzle casing 1100 defines a combustion chamber 1210 in which a mixture of fuel supplied from outside and compressed air supplied from the compressor 110 is combusted.
The transition piece 1300 is connected to a rear end (i.e., downstream end) of the liner 1200 to supply combustion gas generated in the combustion chamber 1210 to the turbine 120.
That is, the liner 1200 includes the combustion chamber that provides a combustion space in which fuel and compressed air injected from the nozzle assembly are mixed and burned and a liner annular flow path that surrounds the combustion chamber 1210 to provide an annular space. The nozzle assembly is installed at a front end of the liner 1200 and an igniter is installed at a sidewall of the liner.
In the liner annular flow path, compressed air introduced through a plurality of holes formed in an outer wall of the liner 1200 flows, and the introduced compressed air cools the liner 1200 while flowing toward the transition piece 1300. Because the compressed air flows along the outer wall of the liner 1200, it is possible to prevent the liner 1200 from being thermally damaged by high temperature combustion gas.
The transition piece 1300 is connected to the rear end (i.e., downstream end) of the liner to transfer the combustion gas to the turbine. The transition piece 1300 has an annular flow path surrounding an inner space of the transition piece 1300. As the compressed air flows along the annular flow path, an outer wall of the transition piece is cooled by the compressed air to prevent thermal damage by high temperature combustion gas.
The high-temperature and high-pressure combustion gas supplied to the turbine 120 expands while passing through the inside of the turbine 120. The expansion of the combustion gas causes impulses and reaction forces with respect to the turbine blades, thereby generating rotational torque. The rotational torque is transmitted to the compressor through the torque tube, and an excessive portion the rotational torque exceeding the power required to drive the compressor is used to drive a generator or the like.
The turbine 120 is similar in structure to the compressor 110. That is, the turbine 120 includes a plurality of turbine rotors similar to the compressor rotors of the compressor 110. Each turbine rotor includes a turbine disk and a plurality of turbine blades radially disposed around the turbine disk. The turbine disk and the plurality of turbine blades are designed in a structure in which they are arranged in a multi-stage to be spaced apart from each other along a flow direction of the combustion gas. A plurality of turbine vanes are radially coupled to the inner surface of the turbine casing along the circumferential direction such that each stage of turbine vanes is disposed between adjacent stages of turbine blades to guide a flow direction of the combustion gas passing through the turbine blades. Here, the turbine casing and the turbine vanes may be collectively defined as a turbine stator to distinguish them from the turbine rotor.
Referring to
The closed end of the nozzle body 1410 is provided with a coolant outlet 1411 including a plurality of coolant outlet holes 1412a and 1414a arranged in a ring shape so that the inside of the nozzle body 1410 and the combustion chamber 1210 communicate with each other, and a plurality of insertion holes 1415 into which a first nozzle tube 1421 of the spray nozzle 1420 is inserted.
Referring to
Referring to
Cooling air as a coolant is supplied to the nozzle body 1410 to cool the nozzle body 1410. For example, the cooling air is supplied to the inside of the closed end of the nozzle body 1410 through coolant flow holes 1431 of the diaphragm 1430 to cool the nozzle body 1410. After cooling the nozzle body 1410, the cooling air is sprayed to the outside of the nozzle body 1410 through the second coolant outlet part 1414, and a flame generated by combustion gas and fuel injected from the spray nozzle 1420 do not adhere to an outer wall of the spray nozzle 1420, thereby preventing a flame holding phenomenon or a backfire/flashback phenomenon from occurring in the spray nozzle 1420. The cooling air includes compressed air supplied from the compressor 110. A part of the compressed air supplied from the compressor is supplied as cooling air and the rest as combustion air. It is understood that external air or cooling water may be used as a cooling air to cool the nozzle.
Referring to
The fuel supplied to the upstream side of the second nozzle tube 1422 flows toward the downstream side of the second nozzle tube 1422 through the second flow path 1422a and is supplied to the first flow paths 1421a of the first nozzle tubes 1421 through the fuel holes 1421b formed on the circumferences of the first nozzle tubes 1421. Then, the fuel is mixed with the combustion air flowing through the first flow path 1421a and injected toward the combustion chamber 1210.
Referring to
Because the swirler 2423 is provided inside the first nozzle tube 2421, the mixing efficiency of fuel and combustion gas that are mixed while the combustion air flows from the upstream side toward the downstream side of the first flow path 2421a increases. Because the swirler 2423 is known technology in the art, a detailed description thereof will be omitted. The swirler 2423 is preferably disposed on the downstream side of the first flow path 2421a rather than a position in which the fuel hole 2421b through which fuel is supplied to the first flow path 2421a is formed based on a flow direction of combustion air flowing through the first flow path 2421a. If the combustion air and fuel flowing along the circumference of the first flow path 2421a pass through the swirler 2433, the combustion air and fuel are concentrated in the central portion of the first flow path 2421a, thereby increasing the mixing efficiency of the combustion air and fuel.
Referring to
Because a cross-sectional area of the first nozzle tube 3421 gradually decreases from the outlet side (i.e., area d) to the inlet side (i.e., area D), the spray speed of combustion air and fuel injected into the combustion chamber 1210 through the outlet of the first nozzle tube 3421 increases so that an air-fuel mixture is combusted relatively downstream side compared to a related art combustion spot, thereby preventing the flame holding phenomenon or backfire/flashback phenomenon from occurring on the spray nozzle 3420.
In the fuel assembly 1400, 2400, and 3400, as compressed air is supplied to the combustion chamber 1210 through the nozzle body 1410, the spray nozzle 1420 can be cooled using the compressed air supplied to the combustion chamber 1210, and the swirler 2423 is formed inside the first nozzle tube 2421 of the spray nozzle 2420 to increase the mixing efficiency of fuel and combustion air that are supplied to the first flow path 2421a of the spray nozzle 2420, and the first flow path 3421a has a cross-sectional area that gradually decreases toward an outlet side thereof to increase the spray speed of combustion air and fuel so that an air-fuel mixture is combusted relatively downstream side compared to the related art combustion point.
While exemplary embodiments have been described with reference to the accompanying drawings, it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that various modifications in form and details may be made therein without departing from the spirit and scope as defined in the appended claims. Therefore, the description of the exemplary embodiments should be construed in a descriptive sense and not to limit the scope of the claims, and many alternatives, modifications, and variations will be apparent to those skilled in the art.
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|---|---|---|---|
| 10-2021-0006860 | Jan 2021 | KR | national |
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