Aerodynamic limits air injection for heavy-duty gas turbine: compressor aerodynamic limits for power augmentation and ramp-up capabilities

Improved operational flexibility of gas turbines can play a major role in stabilising the electric power grid, by backing up intermittent renewable power. Gas turbines offer on-demand power and fast dispatch of power that is vital when renewable power reduces. This has brought about increasing demand to improve the ramp-up rate of gas turbines. One approach is through the injection of compressed air from energy storage or an auxiliary compressor. This method is the focus of the present work, which shows for the first time, the implications and limits of compressor air injection in a high-fidelity Computational Fluid Dynamics model (CFD). The 3D multi-stage model of the compressor was developed in ANSYS CFX v19.2, while the boundary conditions related to the injection cases have been obtained from a corresponding 0D engine model. The upper limits to air injection determine how much air can be injected into the engine, providing indicative values of power augmentation and ramp-up rate capabilities. These have been previously addressed by the authors using 0D models that do not consider the compressor aerodynamics in great detail. The CFD study has shown that for power augmentation, 16% of compressed air (based on compressor exit) is allowed based on the onset of stall. It also shows that increasing air injection amplifies losses, blockage factor and absolute velocity angle. Also, about 30% of the blade span from the hub is dominated by a rise in the total pressure loss coefficient, except the outlet guide vane for which separation occurs at the tip. For the ramp-up rate analysis, up to 10% air injection is shown to be sustainable. The work shows that the improvements in the 0D analytical engine model are plausible, in addition to demonstrating similar limits at different ambient temperatures.