Modular Gas Turbine - Aerodynamic and Thermodynamic Design of Heat Management Systems (Accelerating Net Zero Using Advanced Fluids)

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EPSRC
EPSRC
EPSRC
EPSRC
EPSRC

No funds listed.

Sept. 30, 2022

Sept. 30, 2026

Decarbonizing the global economy can only be achieved by reducing the carbon intensity of energy sources. A key to achieving this is reducing the techno-economic barriers to replacing fossil fuel usage with low carbon and renewable sources. Solutions which reduce plant costs, improve plant efficiency, and increase plant flexibility with other energy sources, are key to delivering the UK Net Zero target. This project addresses this by developing design methods to improve the performance of turbomachines operating with non-conventional or 'advanced' fluids, which can be used to reduce energy demand and improve energy efficiency. These advanced fluids include dense-gases (such as organic vapours) and supercritical fluids (such as sCO2) and are fundamental to low-carbon energy systems using Organic Rankine Cycles and sCO2. These systems are important for a range of technologies including Heat Recovery and CHP, Hydrogen Gas Turbines and Renewables. Advanced fluids can be used as working fluids for heat management systems (e.g., intercooling, heat recovery) to augment the performance of the gas-turbine prime mover. By exploiting the very high-power densities achievable with high pressure advanced fluids, these systems can be relatively compact and therefore minimize overall system cost and size.
A significant barrier to the exploitation of advanced fluids in energy systems is a lack of accurate predictive tools and appropriate design methods. Conventional turbomachinery design methods are very likely to be unsuitable for these fluids since data is very limited. Developing energy systems which exploit the properties of advanced fluids requires us to answer three key questions:
1) In what ways do advanced fluid phenomena affect turbomachinery aerodynamics?
2) What is the impact on performance and loss mechanisms?
3) How do we account for these effects in design to develop robust design methods?

In this project these questions will be answered through a combination of experiments and computational analysis. The experiments will be performed with an existing facility which will be adapted for testing at increased pressure conditions. The computational work will use high fidelity scale-resolving simulations.