GAS TURBINES

Introduction
Gas turbines are compact and lighter power producing machines. The power to weight ratio is very
high in this type of turbines because of light weight. So these are well suited for air craft
propulsion, marine propulsion and power plants.
The fuels used in gas turbines are basically natural gas in power plants. But depending on the
application other fuels can also be used such as distillate fuel oil; propane; gases produced from
landfills, sewage treatment plants, and animal waste and syngas obtained by gasification of coal.
This fuel flexibility also adds advantage to the gas turbines.
Gas turbine power plants operates on either Open cycle or Closed cycle. Below fig shows both

Open cycle gas turbine: This type of gas turbines consists of compressor, combustion chamber
and turbine. The compressor and turbine both are mounted on a single shaft. In this type of cylce
the atmospheric air is continiously taken into the compressor and it is compressed to very high
pressures. The compressed air then enters into the combustion chamber, where air is mixed with the
fuel and combustion occurs. The combstion products expands in turbine to produce useful power.
The products from turbine directly delivered into atmosphere again. There ends the cycle.
Closed cycle gas turbine: This type of gas turbines contains compressor, boiler, turbine and
condensor. In this type of cycle at the time of design we will fill with working fluid. This fluid will
undergo various processes in the components of system and generates power. The working fluid
after getting compressed in compressor enters into the heat exchanger where it receives heat input
from the external sources and high pressure, high temperature working fluid expands in turbine to
produce net power. The expanded working fluid enters into the condensor where it rejects heat to
surroundings and enters into compressor and cycle continues.
In both types of turbines part of power produced in turbine is used to run the compressor.

Analysis of gas turbines

Open cycle gas turbine: To analyze the open cycle gas turbines some ideal conditions need to be
assumed. This anlysis is called air standard analysis of gas turbines.
Working fluid that is air behaves like an ideal gas.
The combustion process is replaced by an external heat addition.
The exhaust process is replaced by an external heat rejection process.
The reason behind idealization is to avoid complexities in analysis. This gas turbines works on the
basis of Brayton cycle. The ideal cycle is called Air standard Brayron cycle.
Prior to dealing with air standard Brayton cycle lets apply SFEE to each component of system.
QW =m(h
2h1)+ KE + PE
For turbine and compressor we assume that adiabatic that is Q = 0, for heat exchangers W = 0 and
for all components kinetic and potential energies are negligible. So
for compressor W c = m(
h2h1 ) It is negative because work done on the system.
For turbine
W T =m(h
1h2) It is positive, work produced by the system.
For Boiler
Qinput =m(h
2h 1) It is positive, heat addition to the system
For condensor
Q output =m(h
2h 1) It is negative, heat rejected to the system
For any cycle thermal efficiency is defined as ratio to the network produced in the cycle to the heat
input to the cycle.
W W c
= T
Qinput
Back work ratio is defined as the ratio to the work input to the compressor to the work produced by
the turbine.
WC
BWR =
WT
The Brayton cycle consists of