Combustion transition duct providing stage 1 tangential turning for turbine engines
AssigneeSiemens Energy, Inc.
InventorsEduardo Bancalari, Jody Wilson, David A. Little, Joseph Fadok
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A transition duct for routing a gas flow from a combustor to the first stage of a turbine section in a combustion turbine engine has an internal passage from an inlet to an outlet that is offset from the inlet in the longitudinal, radial and tangential directions. The offset outlet and the curved internal passage discharge the gas flow toward the first stage blade array at an angle in the tangential direction relative to the longitudinal direction. This angled discharge can be presented directly to the blades, thus avoiding the need for first stage vanes and the associated costs and complexity.
Claims18
A combustion turbine subsystem, comprising:
- a first stage blade array having a plurality of blades extending in a radial direction from a rotor assembly for rotation in a circumferential direction about an axis of the rotor assembly, said axis of the rotor assembly defining an longitudinal direction and said circumferential direction including a tangential direction component;
- a plurality of combustors located longitudinally upstream of the first stage blade array, each of said combustors being located radially outboard of the first stage blade array;
- each combustor exhausting a gas flow in a direction having at least a longitudinally downstream component;
- a plurality of transition duct bodies, each having an internal passage extending between an inlet and an outlet, wherein the outlet of each transition duct body is circumferentially aligned with the inlet of an adjacent one of the transition duct bodies, each transition duct body being located between a respective combustor and the first stage blade away to receive the gas flow exhausted by the respective combustor into the internal passage through the inlet, said outlet discharging said gas flow from the internal passage toward said first stage blade array, wherein the outlet is longitudinally, tangentially and radially offset from the inlet and the internal passage is curved toward the offset outlet so that the gas flow discharges from the outlet at a discharge angle between the longitudinal direction and the tangential direction, the internal passage of each duct being free of vanes;
- and
- a first stage housing defining an annular flow channel between the outlets of the transition duct bodies and the first stage blade array, wherein the annular channel is free of flow turning vanes, whereby the gas flow discharged from the outlet of each transition duct body flows to the first stage blade array without passing any flow turning vanes.
A transition duct system for routing a gas flow in a combustion turbine subsystem that includes a first stage blade array having a plurality of blades extending in a radial direction from a rotor assembly for rotation in a circumferential direction about an axis of the rotor assembly, said axis of the rotor assembly defining an longitudinal direction and said circumferential direction including a tangential direction component, and a plurality of combustors located longitudinally upstream of the first stage blade array and located radially outboard of the first stage blade array, each combustor exhausting a gas flow in a direction having at least a longitudinally downstream component, said combustion turbine subsystem comprising:
- a plurality of transition duct bodies, each having an internal passage extending between an inlet and an outlet, wherein the outlet of each transition duct body is circumferentially aligned with the inlet of an adjacent one of the transition duct bodies, each transition duct body being located between a respective combustor and a first stage blade away to receive the gas flow exhausted by the respective combustor into the internal passage through the inlet, said outlet discharging said gas flow from the internal passage toward said first stage blade array, wherein the outlet is longitudinally, tangentially and radially offset from the inlet and the internal passage is curved toward the offset outlet so that the gas flow discharges from the outlet at a discharge angle between the longitudinal direction and the tangential direction, the internal passage of each duct being free of vanes;
- and
- a generally annular flow channel between the outlets of the transition duct bodies and the first stage blade array, wherein the annular flow channel is free of flow turning vanes, whereby the gas flow discharged from the outlet of each transition duct body flows to the first stage blade away without passing any flow turning vanes.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.