Marine Applications and Design of High-Efficiency Small-Scale Gas Turbines

Abstract

In today’s era of heightened environmental awareness, industries and means of transport are under increasing pressure to minimize their ecological footprint. In particular, small-scale power plants for the marine sector pose environmental challenges due to their pollutant emissions. One promising technology to address this purpose is represented by small-scale gas turbines. In this work, the design of a radial turbine and a centrifugal compressor for a 5 MW engine to be employed onboard ships is developed. After a one-dimensional design, the project involves the aerodynamic and structural design optimization of the two machines using fluid dynamic and structural simulation software. The final configuration obtained by the optimization process and its performance are analyzed, demonstrating that the use of a radial architecture for the construction of a 5 MW small gas-turbine assembly for marine propulsion is feasible. Both the compressor and the turbine optimization procedures led to final values of polytropic efficiencies that were three percentage points larger than the first-guess design machine values, simultaneously allowing for reductions in stress usage factors by more than 38% and 32% for the compressor and the turbine, respectively.

Keywords

• ship propulsion emissions
• small gas turbines
• LNG
• 1D modelling
• 3D turbomachinery design
• MDO