By Terrence Murray
GE’s newest HArriet 9HA gas turbine can generate up to 600 megawatts of electricity in a combined cycle power plant, the equivalent amount needed to supply an American city (approximately 600,000 U.S. homes). To do so efficiently, however, the turbine must withstand infernal internal temperatures topping 2,600 degrees Fahrenheit.
Over the long term, the heat causes wear that is impossible to see without a virtual model of the turbine operating at full capacity. To get a peek inside, GE started working with Cascade Technologies, maker of powerful simulation software that can model complex heat flows.
Frank Ham, Cascade president and CEO, says his software is the equivalent of a modern-day digital microscope. “Seeing details they were not aware of helps engineers better understand why gas turbine designs work the way they do, and GE gains critical knowledge as to how they can improve them,” Ham says.
Cascade developed powerful software to model turbulent combustion. The program allows the company to monitor and track pollutants like CO, CO2 and NOx. GIF credits: Cascade Technologies
Cascade is a spin-off from the Center for Turbulence Research at Stanford University. Its software gives GE engineers a virtual peek inside HArriet (see below) - the world’s largest and most efficient gas turbine - and assist them with building the next generation of machines.
The software can run on some of the world’s most powerful computers, including supercomputers operated by U.S. national labs. It is able to handle petabytes of data, roughly four times the amount of information held by the U.S. Library of Congress. (GE Aviation is also using supercomputers to design more efficient jet engines.)
The software allows engineers to simulate multiple-step combustion processes inside a turbine and other complex scenarios at the microsecond level. The team can use the results to make changes and improvements to new turbine designs up to ten times faster over the course of a typical two-year product development process. That means more robust, efficient and cleaner turbines, delivered faster, says John Lammas, vice president of power generation engineering at GE Power & Water.
Says Cascade’s Ham: “By providing information that goes into design decisions, we can help improve efficiency, lower emissions and increase durability in future products.”
