The History and Future Direction of Combustion Turbine Technology

The History and Future Direction of Combustion Turbine Technology

Anonymous

College

Current Trends & Applications

Dr *****

February 21, 2014

Summary

Since the introduction of the combustion turbine (CT), manufacturers and their engineers have strived to improve their efficiency and output by constantly improving the existing technology while introducing new innovations. The improvement of CT technology follows a path which reveals some trends that, when viewed along with some of the drivers of those trends, may serve to guide future innovations in the field. Public and political forces are driving power production technology in a direction which places CT technology in a prime position to overtake all other fossil fuel generation technology, while at the same time helping to steer the direction of future innovations.

Historical trends

From the early days of CT technology, the decision whether to adopt open cycle or closed cycle type technology was a topic of debate amongst engineers and manufacturers (Hunt, 2011). Closed cycle technology had some clear advantages in that it required no intake filtration and gas path dimensions were reduced due to higher working pressures. The ability to burn otherwise unsuitable fuels was also a big incentive presented by closed cycle technology (Hunt, 2011). The disadvantage to the closed cycle CT, however, was the high cost of building these complex plants and limitations on gas circuit materials which resulted in lower inlet temperatures and lower efficiencies. The potential advantages led early innovators to develop ways to minimize the disadvantages through improved technology. These technologies, most still in use today, included inter-cooling, exhaust heat recovery and recuperation on CT's. The quest to make closed cycle more efficient than open cycle continued to drive technology improvements until around 1975 by which time the concept of the combined cycle plant was well established (Hunt,...