General Electric Company

Simon Ralph Sanderson

Anthony John Dean

Michael John Bowman

Jeffrey Scott Goldmeer

Andrei Colibaba-Evulet

Keith Robert McManus

Paolo Graziosi

A low emission turbine includes a reverse flow can-type combustor that generally includes a primary and secondary fuel delivery system that can be independently controlled to produce low CO, UHC, and NOx emissions at design set point and at conditions other than design set point. The reverse flow can-type combustor generally includes an annularly arranged array of swirler and mixer assemblies within the combustor, wherein each swirler and mixer in the array includes a primary and secondary fuel delivery system that can be independently controlled. Also disclosed herein is a can-type combustor that includes fluid passageways that perpendicularly impinge the outer surface of a heat shield. Processes for operating the can-type combustors are also disclosed.

Method and apparatus for reducing gas turbine engine emissions

A fuel cell module includes at least one fuel cell stack comprising a number of fuel cell units. An inlet is configured to receive an oxidant flow for supplying the fuel cell stack. An outlet is configured to exhaust an exhaust oxidant flow generated by the fuel cell stack. A recirculation path is configured to convey at least about thirty percent (30%) of the exhaust oxidant flow from the outlet to the inlet as a recirculated exhaust flow, for combination with the new oxidant flow to form the oxidant flow to the fuel cell stack.

Power generation method

A fuel nozzle device suitable for use in a gas turbine engine or the like is provided. The fuel nozzle device includes a fuel line and a plurality of gas orifices disposed at a downstream end of the fuel line, the plurality of gas orifices operable for injecting fuel into an air stream. The acoustic resistance of each of the plurality of gas orifices is chosen to match the acoustic impedance of the fuel line such that the maximum acoustic energy may be transferred between the fuel nozzle device and the combustor, thus enhancing the ability of the fuel nozzle device to control the combustion dynamics of the gas turbine engine system. A fuel injection resonator assembly suitable for use in a gas turbine engine or the like is also provided. The fuel injection resonator assembly includes a plurality of orifices separated by a variable length tube. The area ratio of the plurality of orifices may be adjusted using an automated valve system or the like to modify and/or control the relative flow resistance of the plurality of orifices. The resulting fuel injection resonator assembly acts as a tunable acoustic waveguide operable for delivering fuel to the combustor.

Acoustic impedance-matched fuel nozzle device and tunable fuel injection resonator assembly

A flow control device for a combustor is provided in which the flow control device comprises a shroud having a first end and a second end wherein the second end is coupled to the combustor. The shroud is disposed to receive a primary fluid and disposed to direct the primary fluid into the combustor. In addition, the shroud further comprises a plurality of ports disposed therein wherein the ports are oriented to extract a portion of a flow from a flow path of the primary fluid so as to control a flow rate of the primary fluid through the shroud.

Flow control device for a combustor

In one embodiment of the present invention, an apparatus for characterizing an acoustic impedance of an engineering component acoustically coupled to an acoustic waveguide includes: a pressure measurement apparatus adapted to be moved and to be disposed to measure pressure signals, the pressure signals being measured at respective ones of a plurality of predetermined locations along the acoustic waveguide; an exciter adapted to excite the acoustic waveguide with an excitation signal; a data collection module adapted to incorporate the pressure signals from the pressure measurement apparatus into a pressure signal set; a transform module adapted to transform the pressure signal set to a frequency domain set; a wave shape identifier adapted to identify a plurality of wave shape parameters from the frequency domain set; and a statistical computer adapted to compute from the frequency domain set a statistical measure for the wave shape parameters, the statistical measure being selected from the group consisting of residual variance, correlation coefficient, F-statistic, p-statistic, and confidence interval.

Method and apparatus for characterizing an acoustic impedance

A method for characterizing the parameters of a normally occurring turbine exhaust gas temperature profile is provided. From that characterization the characteristics of a filter function to eliminate or significantly reduce the strength of aliased signals from that normally occurring pattern are established. Sensors to provide filtering functions for that purpose include a distributed gradient thermocouple system and a resistance thermometer system. Examples of such sensor systems are disclosed. The method and related sensors improve the detection limits associated with exhaust gas temperature profiles used to monitor, diagnose, and control gas turbines.

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Clifton Park, NY, United States of America

Simon Ralph Sanderson