The Effects of Turbine Blade Erosion on the Gas Path Measurements and Performance of Micro Gas Turbines

Document Type : Research Article

Authors

Department of Aerospace Engineering, Amirkabir University of Technology, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

This research aims to find suitable measurements to detect the occurrence of turbine erosion in Micro Gas Turbines (MGT). For this purpose, the off-design operation of the MGT under turbine's normal and eroded conditions has been modeled and the behavior of different parameters of the gas path has been analyzed. Turbine erosion is one of the most popular issues in gas turbine performance degradation. Accordingly, to have proportional health condition monitoring and diagnostics, it is necessary to know the effects of turbine erosion on MGT performance. Characteristic curves of an eroded turbine is utilized by the proposed off-design model to find the best parameters to detect turbine erosion. In the course of this research, two operation scenarios, one with maintaining the output power and the other with maintaining Turbine Inlet Temperature (TIT), are examined. In both scenarios, running line shifts to a new location with higher airflow and lower pressure ratio. When TIT is maintained, fuel flow, pressure ratio and output power fall dramatically (9.8%, 11.1%, and 14.3% respectively) while in the other scenario temperature in the combustion chamber inlet and the turbine exhaust with 7% and 7.6% rise and pressure ratio with 4.4% reduction show most deviations from the healthy condition. So depending on the control scenario, the proper parameters can be selected from these sensitive parameters to detect turbine erosion in the MGT.

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