Gas turbine fogging system And influence of air channel geometry on cooling with fogging system

What is it about?

Today, a large part of the world's electricity needs is provided by gas turbines in single or combined cycle power plants. Gas turbines are highly sensitive to the inlet air temperature, this has led to the emergence of various cooling systems to reduce the inlet air temperature. A fogging system is a common system for this purpose. Gas turbine fogging is done by spraying micro-droplets with special and high-pressure nozzles into the air inlet channel, and this cooling is achieved through the heat transfer between the droplets and the hot incoming air and the evaporation of the droplets. This system has many attributes and parameters that have a direct effect on increasing its efficiency and usefulness. In this research, the effect of the installation location of the fogging system and the geometry of the channel on the characteristics such as efficiency, average temperature and relative humidity, droplet diameter and distortion at the outlet of the channel have been investigated.

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Photo by Johannes Plenio on Unsplash

Photo by Johannes Plenio on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Considering the increasing human need for energy, it is very important to supply the required electricity by power plants in the hot seasons of the year, which coincide with the highest demand. Due to the fact that gas turbines have a certain volumetric flow rate suction power, cooler inlet air means more mass flow rate suction and more gas turbine efficiency. Therefore, trying to design an inlet air cooling system in order to maximize the efficiency of the gas turbine is one of the integral priorities. The important characteristics of the air entering the gas turbine, such as the average temperature and humidity, temperature distortion and droplet diameter, are affected by the design of the fogging system and are important. Therefore, the higher the efficiency of the misting system, more droplets evaporated, The inlet temperature to the gas turbine is reduced and the number of drops and their diameters entering the gas turbine also shows a smaller number.