Experimental study of the possibility of reducing the resistance and unevenness of output field of velocities in flat diffuser channels with large opening angles

In modern combined cycle gas turbines (CCGT), when designing the reducers from the output diffuser of a gas turbine to a boiler-utilizer, wide-angle diffusers are used, in which practically from the input a flow separation and transition to jet stream regime occurs. In such channels, the energy loss in the field of velocities sharply rise and the field of velocities in the output from them is characterized by considerable unevenness that worsens the heat transfer process in the first by motion tube bundles of the boiler-utilizer. The results of experimental research of the method for reducing the energy loss and alignment of the field of velocities at the output from a flat asymmetrical diffuser channel with one deflecting wall with the opening angle of 40° by means of placing inside the channel the flat plate parallel to the deflecting wall are presented in the paper. It is revealed that, at this placement of the plate in the channel, it has a chance to reduce the energy loss by 20%, considerably align the output field of velocities, and decrease the dynamic loads on the walls in the output cross-section. The studied method of resistance reduction and alignment of the fields of velocities in the flat diffuser channels was used for optimization of the reducer from the output diffuser of the gas turbine to the boiler-utilizer of CCGT of PGU-450T type of Kaliningrad Thermal Power Plant-2. The obtained results are evidence that the configuration of the reducer installed in the PGU-450T of Kaliningrad Thermal Power Plant-2 is not optimal. It follows also from the obtained data that working-off the reducer should be necessarily conducted by the test results of the channel consisting of the model of reducer with the model of boiler-utilizer installed behind it. Application of the method of alignment of output field of velocities and reducing the resistance in the wide-angle diffusers investigated in the work made it possible—when using the known model of diffusion reducer for PGU-450T, which is bad from the standpoint of aerodynamics— to reduce the value of the coefficient of the total loss by almost 20% as compared with the model of real reducer of PGU-450T.