Power plants – Combustion products used as motive fluid – With safety device
Reexamination Certificate
1999-02-22
2001-01-16
Freay, Charles G. (Department: 3746)
Power plants
Combustion products used as motive fluid
With safety device
C060S039300, C060S039530
Reexamination Certificate
active
06173564
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to power generation apparatus and especially to large, land-based gas turbines such as are employed in industry and by utilities for power generation purposes, and more particularly relates to the use of a power augmentation technology on such turbines as has been described in related, commonly-assigned and copending U.S. patent applications designated by Ser. No. 08/645,781 (filed May 14, 1996, now U.S. Pat. No. 5,930,990, Ser. No. 08/715,675 (filed Sept. 18, 1996, now U.S. Pat. No. 5,867,977) and Ser. No. 08/837,192 (filed Apr. 14, 1997), with the last such application substantially corresponding to an application filed under the Patent Cooperation Treaty as PCT/US97/08757 and published on Nov. 20, 1997 as WO 97/43530.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
As thoroughly discussed in the aforementioned, related applications, all of which are now incorporated herein by reference, one of the principal control (and potentially operations-limiting) issues associated with the referenced power augmentation technology—for present purposes, this technology will be termed “wet compression” power augmentation technology—is the issue of deformation of the gas turbine housing that can occur with an uneven distribution of an added vaporizable liquid (preferably being water) in the gas turbine and corresponding uneven thermal expansion/contraction effects on the turbine housing.
The concern with such deformation, of course, is that the degree of deformation will be large enough to cause a stall or a rub of compressor blades, for example, against the turbine housing, and to potentially cause a turbine wreck altogether.
In the incorporated applications, a laser monitoring system is described for monitoring the deformation effects and characteristics of subsequent nebulized water mass flow increments, as these are added by means of one or more racks of spray nozzles positioned upstream of the compressor inlet.
SUMMARY OF THE PRESENT INVENTION
The present invention represents a refinement or improvement of the monitoring system and process concepts described in the incorporated applications, however, in defining a thermal isolation ring for isolating those potentially destructive movements of a gas turbine housing that are associated with the use of wet compression power augmentation technology and more particularly, with an uneven distribution of water (or some other added high latent heat of vaporization liquid) in the gas turbine and corresponding uneven thermal expansion/contraction effects on the turbine housing, from any confounding deformations or movements of the turbine housing that may be observed but which are not indicative of a risk of a turbine rub or wreck.
In this regard, for example, it has been observed that in bringing wet compression power augmentation increments on-line in certain newer-design industrial gas turbines, the turbine housing will very often undergo a progressive (in the direction of mass flow through the turbine) circumferential expansion as additional mass flow increments are input to the turbine. Absent the thermal isolation ring refinement of the present invention, this expansion of the housing could well be misinterpreted as the sort of deformation that would threaten a compressor rub or potentially a turbine wreck, or could effectively mask an undesired deformation associated with an uneven delivery of liquid to the compressor.
REFERENCES:
patent: 4934137 (1990-06-01), MacKay
patent: 5026154 (1991-06-01), Deason
patent: 5365787 (1994-11-01), Hernandez et al.
patent: 5982478 (1999-11-01), Ainsworth et al.
Freay Charles G.
The Dow Chemical Company
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