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The demand for clean energy continues to increase as the human society becomes more aware of environmental challenges such as global warming. Various power systems based on high-temperature fuel cells have been proposed, especially hybrid systems combining a fuel cell with a gas turbine, and research on carbon capture and storage technology to prevent the emission of greenhouse gases is already underway. This study suggests a new method to innovatively enhance the efficiency of a molten carbonate fuel cell/micro gas turbine hybrid system including carbon capture. The key technology adopted to improve the net cycle efficiency is off-gas recirculation. The hybrid system incorporating oxy-combustion capture was devised, and its performance was compared with that of a post-combustion system based on a hybrid system. A molten carbonate fuel cell system based on a commercial unit was modeled. Externally supplied water for reforming was not needed as a result of the presence of the water vapor in the recirculated anode off-gas. The analyses confirmed that the thermal efficiencies of all the systems (MCFC stand-alone, hybrid, hybrid with oxy-combustion capture, hybrid with post-combustion capture) were significantly improved by introducing the off-gas recirculation. In particular, the largest efficiency improvement was observed for the oxy-combustion hybrid system. Its efficiency is over 57% and is even higher than that of the post-combustion hybrid system.

This study analyzes the fluid dynamic characteristics of an ultrasupercritical (USC) high-pressure turbine with additional steam supplied through an overload valve between the second and third stages. The mixing between the main and admission flows causes complex flow phenomena such as swirl and changes of velocity vectors of the main flow. This causes a pressure drop between the second-stage outlet and third-stage inlet, which could potentially affect the performance of the turbine. First, a single-passage computational analysis, which is usually preferred in predicting the performance of multistage turbomachines, was performed using a simple model of an admission flow path and a single passage (SP) for the second and third stages of the turbine. However, the actual flow in the overload valve is supplied through the admission flow path, which has the shape of a casing that circumferentially surrounds the turbine, after flowing in two directions perpendicular to the turbine axis. This necessitates full-passage computational analyses of the two stages and the flow paths of the admission flow. To achieve this, we implemented a full three-dimensional (3D) geometric model of the admission flow path and conducted a full-passage computational analysis for all the flow paths, including those of the second and third stages of the turbine. The focus of analysis was on the pressure drop due to the admission flow. The results of the single and full-passage analyses were compared, and the effects of two different methods were analyzed.

A simulation program for transient analysis of the startup procedure of heavy duty gas turbines for power generation has been constructed. Unsteady one-dimensional conservation equations are employed and equation sets are solved numerically using a fully implicit method. A modified stage-stacking method has been adopted to estimate the operation of the compressor. Compressor stages are grouped into three categories (front, middle, rear), to which three different stage characteristic curves are applied in order to consider the different low-speed operating characteristics. Representative startup sequences were adopted. The dynamic behavior of a representative heavy duty gas turbine was simulated for a full startup procedure from zero to full speed. Simulated results matched the field data and confirmed unique characteristics such as the self-sustaining and the possibility of rear-stage choking at low speeds. Effects of the estimated schedules on the startup characteristics were also investigated. Special attention was paid to the effects of modulating the variable inlet guide vane on startup characteristics, which play a key role in the stable operation of gas turbines.

This study aims to present various design aspects and realizable performance of the natural gas fired semi-closed oxy-fuel combustion combined cycle (SCOC-CC). The design parameters of the cycle are set up on the basis of the component technologies of today’s state-of-the-art gas turbines with a turbine inlet temperature between 1400 °C and 1600 °C. The most important part of the cycle analysis is the turbine cooling, which considerably affects the cycle performance. A thermodynamic cooling model is introduced in order to predict the reasonable amount of turbine coolant needed to maintain the turbine blade temperature of the SCOC-CC at the levels of those of conventional gas turbines. The optimal pressure ratio ranges of the SCOC-CC for two different turbine inlet temperature levels are researched. The performance penalty due to the CO2 capture is examined. The influences of the purity of the oxygen provided by the air separation unit on the cycle performance are also investigated. A comparison with the conventional combined cycle, adopting a postcombustion CO2 capture, is carried out, taking into account the relationship between the performance and the CO2 capture rate.