1. The effect of start-up cycle in ceramic coating used as thermal barrier for a gas turbine bucket
- Author
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Alejandro Herna´ndez Rossette, J. A. Roque Lo´pez Hernandez, Alain Demeulenaere, and Zdzislaw Mazur C.
- Subjects
Engineering ,Turbine blade ,business.industry ,Nozzle ,Energy Engineering and Power Technology ,Mechanical engineering ,Thermal conduction ,Turbine ,Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering ,law.invention ,Thermal barrier coating ,Thermal insulation ,law ,Turbomachinery ,Heat transfer ,business - Abstract
The unsteady aerodynamic and aero-thermal performance of a first stage gas turbine bucket with thermal barrier coating (TBC) and internal cooling configuration were investigated by application of a three dimensional Navier–Stokes commercial turbomachinery oriented CFD-code. Convection and conduction were modeled for a super alloy blade with TBC. The CFD simulations were configured with a mesh domain including the nozzle and bucket interstage in order to accurately predict the fluid parameters at inlet and outlet of bucket. Comparisons to the gas turbine manufacturer data have permitted validation of the flow conditions at the inlet of the rotor. The effects of blade TBC surface temperature changes during a start-up cycle were simulated by means of an unsteady simulation, with unsteady inlet/outlet boundary conditions specified according to test data. The calculations include not only the fluid but also the solving of conduction within the blade, allowing for a correct modeling of the large difference of thermal inertia between the fluid and solid. The role of thermal barrier coatings (TBC) is, as their name suggests, to provide thermal insulation of the blade. A coating of about 100–400 μm can reduce the temperature by up to 200 °C. A TBC can be used either to reduce the need for blade cooling (by about 36%) increasing the turbine efficiency, while maintaining identical creep life of the substrate; or to increase considerably the creep life of the blade while maintaining level of blade cooling (and therefore allowing the blade to operate at a lower temperature for an identical turbine inlet temperature).
- Published
- 2009
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