Performance Analysis and Optimization of Micro-turbine Combustion Chamber by Numerical Simulation

A study was conducted to investigate performance of a GTCP85-180 gas micro-turbine. It was concluded that hot compartment defects are significant in numbers. Due to the long time performance¡ this engine has many limitations; ignoring these limitations will cause severe damages to the hot compartment of the engine. Using numerical method which has both sufficient accuracy and low cost in comparison to experimental tests¡ temperature distribution and output temperature for this micro-turbine were computed. Afterward¡ by proposing a new geometry for the combustion chamber and conducting new simulation¡ a better performance was achieved. Changes in cooling holes and diluting holes configuration resulted in smoother temperature profile near the wall boundary and also output of the combustion chamber. This smoother temperature resulted in the reduction of the defects in combustion chamber and turbine blades. By comparing the temperature profile of both geometries it is evident that the proposed geometry has fewer temperature peaks in compare to the original one and it also has a smoother temperature distribution. According to the fact that mean output temperature of the original combustion chamber and proposed chamber is 950K and 1000k respectively¡ it is concluded that by using the proposed geometry¡ thermal efficiency is improved by 8 percent.