On-going development and recent results of the research in the Swedish Gas Turbine Centre (GTC)

• This paper describes a way of co-operation between industries, universities and government that has proven to be very fruitful. The Swedish Gas Turbine Centre (GTC) is constituted as a research consortium between technical universities and gas turbine industry. The overall goal of the centre, that was founded in 1996 on a governmental initiative, is to build up a basis of knowledge at Swedish universities to support the industrial development in Sweden of gas turbines of the future with expected requirements on low emissions, high efficiencies, high availability, and low costs. Since the start the research has had a focus on high temperature components of gas turbines (combustion chamber and turbine). This is also reflected in the on-going development phase where the research program consists of four project areas: cooling technology, combustion technology, aeroelasticity, and life time prediction of hot components. The projects are aiming at developing design tools and calculation and verification methods within these fields. A total of eleven research students (among them one industrial PhD student) are active in the centre at present. Numerical analysis as well as experimental verification in test rigs are included. The program has so far produced eleven Licentiate of Engineering and five PhD. On-going activities and recent results of the research in the four research areas are presented: A new test rig for investigation of time-dependent pressures of three-dimensional features on a vibrating turbine blade at realistic Mach, Reynolds and Strouhal numbers and first experimental results. Results of numerical simulations of heat loads on turbine blades and vanes, especially platform cooling. First results of numerical investigations of combustion and thermo-acoustic instabilities in gas turbine chambers. Experimental investigation of crack propagation in gas turbine materials using the scanning electron microscope (SEM).

Subject headings

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Maskinteknik (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Mechanical Engineering (hsv//eng)

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Maskinteknik -- Energiteknik (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Mechanical Engineering -- Energy Engineering (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Aerodynamics

Carbon dioxide

College buildings

Combustion

Computer simulation

Cooling

Hydrogen

Managers

Natural gas

Personnel

Project management

Scanning electron microscopy

Turbomachine blades

Vibrations (mechanical)

Energy use

Research programs

Sustainable energy

Swedish Gas Turbine Center

Gas turbines

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

kon (subject category)