International Harvester Company

Solar Turbines Inc.

Other

Thomas E Duffy

Alan H Campbell

John P Archibald

William A Compton

Jack R Shekleton

Richard T LeCren

David A Rohy

O Leon Lindsey

Manfred I Seegall

A once-through high pressure steam generator and reheater configured to eliminate the majority of components limiting cyclical life of fast start conventional HRSGs. Two remaining problematic components in conventional designs the final superheater and reheater tubes overheat while their headers remain colder in fast starts. In this inventive HRSG the critical components are arranged and started by a method that limits these damaging temperature differentials. At ignition when exhaust gas surges into a wet superheater steam flow starts minutes before conventional systems. This early steam flow cools the tubes while heating the headers, thereby reducing life damaging stresses. Steam temperature is controlled through the start and warms the rest of the plant earlier without attemperators with their problematic thermal stress history. Faster starts than conventional result without damaging fatigue life depletion with this low cost innovation.

Heat recovery steam generator and method for fast starting combined cycles

A once-through steam generator or boiler of simple modular construction that utilizes vertical heat transfer tubes, intended primarily for heat recovery in combined cycles. It utilizes a novel method of assembly and operation that make it particularly effective for large combined cycles. Circuit assemblies with a once-through flow path are the key building blocks used to assemble boilers to fit any size gas turbine. They are individually bench fabricated in a horizontal plane. The boiler is manufactured by sequentially stacking individual circuit assemblies in parallel thereby building a circuit module. During the stacking process the inlet and outlet of each circuit assembly are connected to headers to allow the modules to be erected into a heat transfer bundle. For large boilers several transportable circuit modules are interconnected in the field to complete a once-through boiler. Through the use of jumper tubes and a novel maintenance space integrated in the boiler, interconnection of modules in the field is simplified at installation and repair made easy. A novel method of dewatering and drying vertical tube boilers is incorporated. The dewatering method uses stored energy to reverse the flow of water and steam in the boiler thus forcing water out of the tubes. This operating method is important in preventing corrosion of carbon steel tubes, thereby permitting the practical application of carbon steel tubes to vertical tube once-through steam generators.

Circuit assembly for once-through steam generators

Control systems (or controllers) for once through, unfired steam generators (or boilers) which control a single parameter--the feedwater flow to the boiler--in accord with an energy or enthalpy balance between the hot gases supplied to the boiler and the steam generated in it. These control systems have a predictive mode of feedwater control and, optionally, an operator selectable, feedback mode to compensate for drifts in the predictive mode. Other corrections may also be made, and predictive and corrective flow splits can be provided to obtain maximum efficiency when the control system is utilized to regulate the operation of a dual pressure boiler.

Steam generator control systems

A compact, unfired, staggered tube, once-through steam generator or boiler of simple construction intended primarily for combined cycle power plants in which the thermal energy utilized to generate steam is obtained from the exhaust gases of a gas turbine engine. The boiler provides steam at two different pressure levels, which maximizes recovery of thermal energy; and all wettable components in the steam/water loop are fabricated of corrosion resistant materials. This eliminates the need for controlling the pH of the feedwater and the need for chemically controlling its dissolved oxygen content, thereby reducing maintenance and operating costs and making automatic, unattended, remotely controlled operation of the boiler practical as well as eliminating the need for blowing down the boiler and minimizing requirements for make-up water. The boiler can be operated dry to remove gas side fouling; and feedwater flow rates can be directly controlled. Orifice-generated pressure drops at the inlets of the boiler tubes which are relatively large compared to the pressure drop in the rest of each tube eliminate the flow instability that is characteristic of once-through boilers.

Combined cycle power plant

Steam generators and combined cycle power plants employing the same

Methods of and apparatus for providing refrigeration, heating and air conditioning which use metallic hydrides for thermal energy storage and upgrading.

Methods of and apparatus for energy storage and utilization

Temperature measuring apparatus of the photometric type having a fiber optics device for conducting radiation to a signal producing detector. Provision is made for a purging fluid at the opposite end of the fiber optics device to keep foreign matter from accumulating.

Radiation pyrometers with purging fluid

A burner for Rankine cycle engines which includes a combustor of the rotating atomizer type and a control system therefor which keeps the ratio of fuel and air supplied to the combustor at an optimum over a wide range of operation to maximize efficiency and minimize the emission of pollutants from the combustor.

Growing community of inventors

San Diego, CA, United States of America

Thomas E Duffy