Enhancement of combined cycle performance using transpiration cooling of gas turbine blades with steam

Gas/steam combined cycle is synergetic combination of Brayton cycle based topping cycle and Rankine cycle based bottoming cycle, which have capability of operating independently too. Combined cycle performance depends on the constituent cycles and it can be reasonably improved by enhancing gas cycle performance using gas turbine blade cooling. Amongst different cooling techniques the transpiration cooling offers effective utilization of coolant as compared to film cooling because of better shrouding of blade surface as the coolant is discharged from entire blade surface. The present work deals with evaluation of performance enhancement of combined cycle by using steam transpiration cooling of gas turbine blades. The combined cycle performance parameters e.g. overall efficiency and specific power output etc. have been compared for air transpiration cooling and steam transpiration cooling. The results revealed that for the specified conditions the steam is superior coolant in comparison to air and the combined cycle performance can be enhanced by applying transpiration cooling in gas turbine blades with steam as coolant. With a turbine inlet temperature of 1800 K and compressor pressure ratio of 23, the combined cycle efficiency with steam transpiration cooling of gas turbine blades is higher by 1.94 percent approximately as compared to the efficiency of combined cycle with air transpiration cooling of gas turbine blades.