Reheat effect on the improvement in efficiency of the turbine driven by pulse detonation

Due to the strong unsteadiness of pulse detonation,large flow losses are generated when the detonation wave interacts with the turbine blades,resulting in low turbine efficiency.Considering that the flow losses are dissipated into the gas as heat energy,some of them can be recycled during the expansion process in subsequent stages by the reheat effect,which should be helpful to improve the detonationdriven turbine efficiency.Taking this into account,this paper developed a numerical model of the detonation chamber coupled with a two-stage axial turbine,and a stoichiometric hydrogen-air mixture was used.The improvement in turbine efficiency attributable to the reheat effect was calculated by comparing the average efficiency of the stages with the efficiency of the two-stage turbine.The research indicated that the first stage was critical in suppressing the flow unsteadiness caused by pulse detonation,which stabilized the intake condition of the second stage and consequently allowed much of the flow losses from the first stage to be recycled,so that the efficiency of the two-stage turbine was improved.At a 95%confidence level,the efficiency improvement was stable at 4.5%—5.3%,demonstrating that the reheat effect is significant in improving the efficiency of the detonation-driven turbine.

Improvement of part-load performance of gas turbine by adjusting compressor inlet air temperature and IGV opening

A novel adjusting method for improving gas turbine(GT)efficiency and surge margin(SM)under partload conditions is proposed.This method adopts the inlet air heating technology,which uses the waste heat of lowgrade heat source and the inlet guide vane(IGV)opening adjustment.Moreover,the regulation rules of the compressor inlet air temperature and the IGV opening are studied comprehensively to optimize GT performance.A model and calculation method for an equilibrium running line is adopted based on the characteristic curves of the compressor and turbine.The equilibrium running lines calculated through the calculation method involve three part-load conditions and three IGVopenings with different inlet air temperatures.The results show that there is an optimal matching relationship between IGV opening and inlet air temperature.For the best GT performance of a given load,the IGV could be adjusted according to inlet air temperature.In addition,inlet air heating has a considerable potential for the improvement of part-load performance of GT due to the increase in compressor efficiency,combustion efficiency,and turbine efficiency as well as turbine inlet temperature,when inlet air temperature is lower than the optimal value with different IGV openings.Further,when the IGV is in a full opening state and an optimal inlet air temperature is achieved by using the inlet air heating technology,GT efficiency and SM can be obviously higher than other IGVopenings.The IGV can be left unadjusted,even when the load is as low as 50%.These findings indicate that inlet air heating has a great potential to replace the IGV to regulate load because GT efficiency and SM can be remarkably improved,which is different from the traditional viewpoints.