Method for operating a gas turbine engine, power supplying device for conducting such method and aircraft using such method
AssigneeAirbus SAS
InventorsSebastien Remy, Jean Botti
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A power supply device or system for aeronautics, having a hydrocarbon supply for supplying an engine with hydrocarbon fuel and a hydrogen supply having a fuel reformer for producing hydrogen from hydrocarbon fuel from said hydrocarbon supply. The hydrogen supply is connected to a hydrogen-powered fuel cell for producing electric power and to a hydrogen injecting system for injection of hydrogen into a combustion chamber of the engine. Further, the invention relates to an aircraft having an engine that can be supplied by that power supplying device or system, and to a method for operating said engine.
Claims8
An Aircraft having a power supply device, the aircraft comprising:
- a controller of the aircraft;
- at least one gas turbine engine having a compressor joined to a turbine by a core rotor;
- a combustion device that is arranged between the compressor and the turbine to receive compressed air from the compressor and a hydrocarbon fuel to produce combustion gases discharged to the turbine;
- a hydrogen injection arrangement that is configured to inject hydrogen into the combustion device, wherein
- the engine is operable in a power range having at least one of a low power condition and a high power condition,
- the power supply device is configured to supply the fuel to the combustion device during the low power and high power conditions,
- the controller is configured to control the hydrogen injection arrangement in response to a power level of the at least one gas turbine engine,
- the hydrogen injection arrangement includes at least one valve that is configured to at least boot and stop the hydrogen supply to said combustion device,
- the controller is further configured to detect the low power condition and the high power condition, and is further configured, in response to a detected low power condition to inject hydrogen into the combustion device at least during the low power condition,
- the at least one valve is configured to regulate a mass flow of hydrogen to be injected into the combustion device,
- the controller is configured to detect a decrease in turbine output power and to control the at least one valve, in response to the detected decrease in the turbine output power, to increase the mass flow of hydrogen to the combustion device when the output power of the turbine is reduced,
- the controller is further configured to detect a change from the low power condition to the high power condition and to control the at least one valve in response to this detection to thereby stop injection of the hydrogen into the combustion device, and
- the controller is further configured to detect a change from the high power condition to the low power condition and to control the at least one valve in response to the detected change from the high power condition to the low power condition to boot injection of hydrogen.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.