SBIR-STTR Award

Turbo Energy Systems and Tierney Turbines are teamed together to develop a new generation of gas turbines. The initial engine will operate with low N0x and C0 emissions while burning nitrogen-containing California heavy crude oil in cogeneration applications. The turbine's design is a radical departure from conventional gas turbine concepts in that the turbine incorporates large external combustors for both the primary and reheat burners. The large combustor size and design permits ease and flexibility in incorporating new combustion technology. The team proposes to develop an ultra low N0x combustor that would be fired on "clean" fuels, primarily natural gas. Once developed, the combustor concept would be generally applicable to a broad range of gas turbine engines. The new combustor is based on recent work in England and Japan which has demonstrated N0x emissions below 2 ppm simultaneous with good combustion stability. This technology will be adapted to gas turbines for the first time in this project. The proposed concept departs significantly from conventional gas turbine combustor design. Indeed it appears that many elements of convential gas turbine combustor design must be abandoned to achieve ultra low N0x emissions simultaneous with broad combustor stability. Phase I of the proposed program will complete preliminary design, conduct modeling and undertake analysis using computational tools such as COM3D and PROF, and will then construct and test a full-size combustor in an existing atmospheric test rig. In Phase II the experiments, analysis, and optimization of combustor design will continue and be followed by the construction of a prototype combustor that will be installed, tested, and evaluated in the Turbo Energy TT-1250 industrial gas turbine. Ultimately the technology should be suitable for retrofit to existing TT-1250 and other gas turbine engines.