The GT24 and GT26 are the latest in a series of gas turbines from ABB. The GT24 is a 60 Hz, 183 MW turbine, while the GT26 is its (scaled) 50 Hz equivalent, producing 265 MW. They feature a 22 stage controlled diffusion aerofoil compressor, two combustors separated by a single stage high pressure turbine with a four stage low pressure (LP) turbine following the second combustor. This arrangement permits very high efficiencies while avoiding high temperatures and the need to use new, expensive materials.
The first GT24 was delivered to Jersey Central Power and Light, Gilbert, New Jersey, USA, at the end of 1995 and achieved baseload operation in May 1996. The engine was highly instrumented with some 1200 measurement points to evaluate component performance. Subsequently, a through-flow datamatch to the design point data was made for the LP turbine and is compared to a full 3D multistage analysis in this paper. The 3D analysis accounts for all the cooling and leakage flows that enter the turbine flowpath and maintains a steady flow calculation by means of interface planes between each blade row that remove any circumferential non-uniformity from the computational flow field. To complement this aerodynamic analysis, some heat transfer results from the ABB GT26 test facility in Birr, Switzerland are also shown.
The paper demonstrates how component technology for the first stage was verified at four universities and research centers concurrently with the design process. This experimental data supplemented the existing databases and engendered confidence in the overall aero/thermal design approach.
