Part load behavior of the LP part of an industrial gas turbine

Abstract

The operation under off-design conditions of a two-stage LP part of a 6.5 MW industrial gas turbine was analyzed in this work. Since the turbine is able to vary the rotation speed in a wide range from 40 to 140% of the design speed, a flow with extremely large positive and negative incidence angle appears. The flow field was calculated applying 2D through-flow code for the analysis of axial multistage turbines with cooling by air from compressor bleed. The code was developed by the authors and validated by calculation of a number of test cases with different configurations. The method is based on a stream function approach and a finite element solution procedure. In parallel, the flow in the turbine was calculated using a commercial CFD code. Based on the calculated flow field, the turbine efficiency and pressure ratio and also different stage parameters were determined for the design point and for a wide range of off-design conditions. Comparison of the predicted results and measured test data for a number of parameters showed good agreement.