The ultra-high efficiency gas turbine engine, UHEGT, part I: Design and numerical analysis of the multistage system

Abstract

The Ultra-High Efficiency Gas Turbine Engine (UHEGT) was introduced in our previous studies. In UHEGT, the combustion process is no longer contained in isolation between the compressor and turbine. It is rather distributed in multiple stages and integrated within the high-pressure turbine stator rows. Compared to the current most advanced conventional gas turbines, UHEGT considerably improves the efficiency and output power of the engine while reducing its emissions and size. In this study, a six-stage UHEGT turbine with three stages of stator internal combustion is designed and analyzed. The design represents a single spool turboshaft system for power generation using gaseous fuels. The preliminary flow path for each turbine stage is designed by the meanline approach and modified using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). Unsteady CFD calculation (via commercial software ANSYS CFX) is used to simulate and optimize the flow and combustion process through high-pressure turbine stages. The results show a base thermal efficiency of above 45% is achieved. It shows a successful integration of the multi-stage combustion process into the high-pressure turbine stages and a highly uniform temperature distribution at the inlet of each rotor row. High temperatures in some areas on the stator blade surfaces are controlled using indexing of fuel injectors and stator blades.