Design and Development of a 14-Stage Axial Compressor for Industrial Gas Turbine

Abstract

A 14-stage axial flow compressor was newly designed and tested for developing an advanced industrial gas turbine. In order to achieve a high thermal efficiency required for the new gas turbine, the compressor needed to have a significantly higher pressure ratio and higher efficiency than those of existing engines. The new design methodology used to this compressor design was based on an automated airfoil geometric optimization system combined with a 3D-CFD analysis, which resulted in arbitrary shaped airfoil design in most blade rows. A multi-stage CFD analysis was used effectively in order to adjust a loading distribution along stages and to obtain a proper stage matching. Before the full development of the gas turbine, an approximately two-thirds scaled compressor rig tests were conducted to verify the aerodynamic design and the structural reliability. The test results of the first build indicated a satisfactory level of efficiency and mass flow, but with a lack of sufficient stall margin. The second build with the re-staggered vanes was tested and its result showed improvements both in stall margin and in efficiency. The prototype test of developing an industrial gas turbine also had been conducted. The measured performance of the compressor which was scaled up from the second build rig compressor achieved the design target. Consequently, the aerodynamic design which considered the scale effects of the compressor was successful.

Redesign of an Axial Compressor With Mass Flow Reduction of 30%

“…For multistage axial compressor design several papers were also presented [3]- [5]. In [3] a rich literature overview is given.…”

Design optimization of a multi-stage axial compressor using throughflow and a database of optimal airfoils

“…The new blade designs have been evaluated with 3D CFD and measurements. In (Ikeguchi et al 2012) a 14-stage compressor has been designed based on an automated airfoil optimization system combined with 3D CFD analysis.…”

Algorithm development for aerodynamic preliminary design of multi-stage axial compressors

“…Di erent industrial axial compressors have applied these methods and pro les in their preliminary or nal design. The axial compressors of M7A-03 8MW gas turbine [6], LM25001 General Electric gas turbine [7], and KHI 20MW gas turbine [8] are some examples.…”

“…The meanline and streamline methods (conventional methods) have good accuracy if suitable loss and angles correlations are used. Nowadays, the CFD and conventional simulators are simultaneously employed in the axial compressor design [8]. The preliminary design optimization, which is done by the CFD simulator, is extremely time consuming (from one day to one week, depending on the used computational hardware); therefore, the development and modi cation of the meanline or streamline methods, due to their low computation time, are still ongoing [11,12].…”