Activities in industry, power generation and transportation often employ burning fossil fuels which generates greenhouse gases that contributes to global warming and climate change. Climate change presents a global systemic risk to society. It threatens the basic elements of life for all people: access to water, food production, health, use of land, and physical and natural capital. Global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have been increasing continuously and are expected to reach an all-time high of 37.1 billion tonnes of CO~2~ in 2018. The Environmental Outlook Baseline scenario envisages that without more ambitious policies than those in force today, GHG emissions will increase by another 50% by 2050, primarily driven by a projected 70% growth in CO~2~ emissions from energy use. The EU has agreed on a “2050 low carbon economy” roadmap that aims to target 60% cut in greenhouse gas emission by 2040 (from 1990 levels. For that reason, in order to reduce or at least optimize the emissions from all sources, designers, scholars, researchers, operators and users have been putting a lot of efforts into finding solutions, developing new technologies and methods. One of the reasonable contributors to the GHG are the power generation and the aviation industries. Natural gas fired gas turbines produce about 21% of world\`s total electricity demand and electricity production sector is responsible around 25% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Aviation is responsible for about 2% of GHG emissions which is dominated by gas turbine engines (turbofan, turboprop, turbojet etc.). In order to estimate emissions of a gas turbine engine, a detailed cycle analysis is needed. The cycle analysis is the total of thermodynamic calculations performed for every component of the engine e.g. compressor, combustor, turbine, nozzle etc. The cycle analysis results include the total pressure and temperature values at every engine station, engine performance values such as shaft power output, specific fuel consumption, fuel flow rate etc. Then, exhaust emissions of engine can be calculated from those values. In this study, Global Warming Potential (GWP) calculations of a 43 MW class gas turbine engine have been performed using exhaust emission predictions. Global warming potential values were calculated for a range of selected design parameters such as the power turbine isentropic efficiency, high-pressure turbine isentropic efficiency, high pressure turbine isentropic efficiency, turbine inlet temperature, compressor pressure ratio, compressor efficiency, turbine efficiency etc. Those design input parameters were changed ± 5% from an assumed baseline to investigate their effects on the total GWP values due to emissions of CO~2~, H~2~O and NO~x~. The results presented a good guide on the selection of design input parameters in order to cut the emissions down from the design perspective of gas turbine engines. A range of reductions in GWP between 0.5% to 6 % were estimated by the calculations in this study.


Global Warming Potential Estimations of a Gas Turbine Engine and Effect of Selected Design Parameters

Division / Sponsors: 
Aerospace, Bioengineering, Applied Mechanics, Design Engineering Division, Advanced Energy Systems, Manufacturing Engineering Division, Noise Control and Acoustics, Nondestructive Evaluation, Diagnosis, and Prognosis (NDPD), Nuclear Engineering Division, Process Industries Division, Fluids Engineering, Heat Transfer, Materials, Microelectromechanical Systems, Safety Engineering and Risk Analysis, Computers & Information in Engineering


Paper Proceedings: https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/IMECE/IMECE2020/volume/84478

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