University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Gas Turbine Related In-House Experience and Expertise Within the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering
The Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst has considerable experience and expertise in the gas turbine area. These are identified by faculty members below.
Professor Shantikumar Nair
Professor Nair's research area is in the mechanical behavior of monolithic materials and composites. Through the support of United Technologies Research Center on a DOE-based program Nair has conducted research on gas turbine materials issues to increase the efficiency of turbine engines for propulsion and energy generation applications. In particular Nair has been focusing on Environmental Barrier Coatings (EBCs) for ceramics used in turbine engines. His experience on this program has been in the development of test methodologies and the mechanical characterization of ceramics and their coatings to understand their behavior at elevated temperatures. As part of this program Nair developed a unique compression test that is capable of characterizing the ambient and elevated temperature adhesion or cohesion of coatings to the substrate. The test is applicable to both ceramic EBCs as well as to TBCs.
Research conducted by Dr. Nair in the turbine materials areas has been published in two papers at the Cocoa Beach Meeting on advanced ceramics and at the upcoming ADME turbo expo to be held at Amsterdam in June 2002. Dr. Nair's research laboratory is equipped with several instron test facilities with capability for elevated temperature testing.
Professor David Schmidt
Professor Schmidt studies atomization processes, which are critical to the performance and stability of gas turbine combustors. The atomizer provides the fuel, which must mix and disperse in the combustor. It the atomizer does not perform well, a gas turbine engine can suffer instability and poor emissions.
In past work, Professor Schmidt developed the Linearized Atomization Sheet Instability (LISA) model for pressure-swirl and airblast atomizers. Professor Schmidt worked with Pratt and Whitney and the United Technologies Research Center to validate this model against experimental data. Professor Schmidt also works on new numerical methods for spray simulations. His new No Time Counter droplet collision algorithm is a significant improvement on the older, direct method.
Professor Schmidt has recently been awarded the Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Prize to simulate the droplet formation process. The grant is for $300.000 over three years. This work will enable design of advanced atomizers that will allow better control over fuel/air mixing in gas turbine combustors. This technology will assist in the development of high-efficiency designs that do not compromise NOx emissions. Professor Schmidt's modeling developments will also provide opportunities for designing active combustion controls that manipulate fuel injection.
Professor Steven de Bruyn Kops
Professor de Bruyn Kops is a fluid dynamicist who studies turbulent mixing and combustion. He has worked on modeling premixed and non-premixed combustion such as that which occurs in gas turbine combustors. Funded under the Advanced Gas Turbine Systems Research Program (principal investigator—P.C. Malte, University of Washington ), he conducted advanced numerical simulations of the Staged Prevaporizer-Premixer, a device that enables the premixed combustion of liquid fuels in gas turbine engines. Some of that work will be presented at the ASME Turbo Expo 2002, June 3-6, Amsterdam .
Professor Larry Ambs
Ambs has been working on the problem of reducing the gas temperature after the combustor of a gas turbine by design of dilution systems supported by predictive models for the penetration and mixing characteristics of single and multiple jets injected into the cross flow. Ambs has also spent a considerable amount of research on the optimization of water recovery systems to recuperate the injected steam from the exhaust of gas turbines. Steam injection in gas turbines has been used for many years to increase the power output as well as the efficiency of the system and, more recently, to reduce the formation of NOx during the combustion. Computer models he has developed at the University of Massachusetts to optimize water recovery systems will be published and presented at the upcoming ASME turbo expo in Amsterdam , June 2002, the IJPGC Conference in Phoenix , AZ , and also at the ECOS 2002 in Berlin, Germany. |