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air=PG
_ m LHV
PG
100 (2)
Enthalpy (h) used in the equation was calculated for the air/PG
mixture with A/F ratio of 4 since the PCC has a totally premixed
combustion.
Fig. 10 shows the system emissions with pressurized PG fuel.
Low CO emissions in the range of 0e15 ppm were measured
throughout the experiments. However, CO emissions elevation up
to 114 ppmwas noticed during PG pressure reduction from0.1 MPa
down to 0.05 MPa due to ame uctuation. On the other hand, NOx
emissions were high at elevated temperatures reaching up to
300 ppmsince water injectionwas not employed during these tests
to cool down the combustor.
Fig. 7. Particle sizing for the collected particles in the cyclone separator.
Fig. 8. Temperature prole for the system at the gasier outlet, vortex ow meter,
compressor outlet and PCC inlet. Fig. 9. Temperature prole inside the PCC for high pressure PG operation.
K.A. Al-attab, Z.A. Zainal / Applied Thermal Engineering 70 (2014) 61e70 67
4.4. MGT and HRU performance
For single-stage MGT design, the compressor speed remains
constant at the generators rated speed. Thus, MGT efciency drops
signicantly at low loads, unlike the case for two-stage design.
Therefore, for this system, the compressor speed varies with output
load, i.e. MGT operation pressure depends on the output load
demand.
The two-stage turbine has two separate shafts running at
different speeds. The rst-stage is smaller in size and the full tur-
bine power is consumed by the compressor. The compressor power
is calculated from the general power Equation (3):
Compressor power _ m$C
p
DT (3)
For the rst and second stage turbine power calculations, tem-
perature difference was not used due to higher measuring error
caused by temperature drop in the turbine air-fan cooled casing.
Instead, high sensitivity differential pressure gauges were used to
measure pressure drop through the turbine. Equation (4) is used to
calculate turbine power:
Turbine power _ m$Dh (4)
Enthalpy at TIT temperature was calculated for the combustion
product with A/F ratio of 4 fromthe gas property tables for each gas
contained in the ue gases. Using pressure ratio, the turbine outlet
enthalpy was also determined from the gas property tables.
The calculated turbine power was found to be greater than that
for the compressor, indicating mechanical and power losses.
Therefore, the rst-stage MGT efciency is calculated from Equa-
tion (5):
h
1 st stage MGT
Compressor power=Turbine power 100:
(5)
First-stage MGT efciency along with turbine and compressor
calculated powers are shown in Fig. 11 for different PGefuel oper-
ation pressures.
Second-stage MGT efciency is calculated from Equation (6):
h
2 nd stage MGT
Electrical output power=Turbine power
100
(6)
For 200e300 W electrical power output, only one of the two
gasier blowers was operated to provide 0.05 MPa PG pressure.
Operating the two blowers at partial load with slight opening of the
bypass valve between the blowers can generate about 500 W
electrical output at 0.08 MPa PG pressure. Full load blowers can
generate 0.9e1.0 kW
e
at 0.1e0.11 MPa PG pressure. Second-stage
MGT efciency for different PG operating pressures is shown in
Fig. 12. The efciency trend line tends to increase linearly as can be
noticed from the graph. This is because friction losses for the tur-
bine, speed reduction pulley unit and low speed are almost con-
stant at the same operation speed.
HRU efciency is calculated from Equation (7):
h
HRU
Hot air thermal power=Flue gas thermal power
100
(7)
For the heat recovery unit, the two-pass design can operate
smoothly at PG gauge pressure of 0.05 MPa. However, at higher PG
Fig. 11. 1st stage MGT power and efciency for PG operation.
Fig. 12. 2nd stage MGT power and efciency for PG operation.
Fig. 10. System emissions with the pressurized PG fuel.
Fig. 13. One-pass HRU power and efciency.
K.A. Al-attab, Z.A. Zainal / Applied Thermal Engineering 70 (2014) 61e70 68
pressures the ame become less stable and tends to blowout due to
high back pressure of the HRU. Thus, one-pass HRU was tested and
the ame was more stable with a drop in hot air temperature and
HRU efciency from 260
C to 200
C and 86%e75% respectively.
Fig. 13 shows the one-pass HRU power and efciency during a full
output power operation.
As mentioned earlier, the PG pressure has a signicant contri-
bution to the output power. However, due to the gasier air blower
limitations, using two blowers in series doubles PGpressure, but PG
ow rate remains almost constant as with single blower. Thus, PG
specic fuel consumption (SFC) at high pressure is much lower than
low PG pressure operation. This is because fuel consumption at
high pressure is only slightly higher compared to lower PG pressure
but the output power is boosted by the effect of PG pressure. Fig. 14
shows SFC for the system thermal output (hot air production) as
well as for the total systemoutput including electrical output. It can
be noticed from the plots that inclusion of electrical output does
not enhance the SFC signicantly. However, the electrical output is
only required to achieve a self sustaining unit without the
requirement for external power source for the operation.
The required A/F ratio for the current PG compositions to
complete combustion is about 1.03 at stoichiometric conditions.
Increasing PG pressure accelerates the rst-stage MGT compressor
to drawmore air. Air inlet valve was kept partially open throughout
all the tests to avoid drawing excessive amounts of air that can
affect the combustion stability and drop TIT. Equivalence ratio (see
Equation (1)) increases with increase in PG pressure since the
increment in PG ow is less than air. The effect of PG operating
pressure on (ER) and system hot air production power is shown in
Fig. 15.
For large gas turbine power stations, gas fuel is usually provided
through high pressure pipe lines from gas compression stations for
mass production, whereas, for small scale systems, the cost of PG
production and compression is quite high. However, in the case of
mass PG production and compression, the CHP system overall ef-
ciency can reach up to 60% for this small scale. Pressurized gasier
efciency (with the compression equipment power requirement)
will drop the system efciency down to 50% as shown in Fig. 16.
The experiments were repeated four times for the experimental
error analysis. Experimental error was calculated in the form of:
1 SD (n 4). Table 2 shows the experimental error for: equiva-
lence ratio, compressor power, 1st stage turbine power, 2nd stage
turbine power, electrical power output, 1st stage MGT efciency,
2nd stage MGT efciency, SFC for thermal output, SFC for total
output, system efciency and system efciency with the gasier
and compression equipments.
The variations in result between two experiments at the same
condition are caused mainly by the following:
The difference in PG quality, moisture content and ow rate at
the same pressure. PG quality and moisture content differences
were minimized by reloading same type and amount of wood
before each ow PG pressure range test to minimize the dif-
ferences between drying, pyrolysis and gasication zone sizes.
PG ow rate depends mainly on the amount of blockage and
ow resistance inside the gasier. Periodic cleaning for the
gasier grid can minimize PG ow variations.
Human error in reading the analog pressure gauges. Different
scale range gauges were used for the different parts of the sys-
tem to achieve better measurement and reading accuracy.
The high changes in ambient temperature. Around 8.3% output
power drop was reported [40] as a result of 20 F (11
C) ambient
temperature elevation for industrial power turbines. Thus, all
experiments were performed at similar ambient temperature.
5. Conclusion
Implementing pressurized combustion and MGT technology for
small-scale hot air production has enhanced efciency and reduced
Fig. 14. Specic fuel consumption for the system.
Fig. 15. System hot air thermal power and operation equivalence ratio.
Fig. 16. System efciency with and without the gasier and compression equipments.
Table 2
Experimental error values for the system.
Error PG gauge pressure
0.5 0.8 1.0
Equivalence ratio 0.09 0.13 0.85
Compressor power (kW) 0.09 0.25 0.42
1st stage turbine power (kW) 0.26 0.31 0.54
2nd stage turbine power (kW) 0.17 0.19 0.28
Electrical power output (kWe) 0.06 0.00 0.13
1st stage MGT efciency (%) 5.60 2.17 5.41
2nd stage MGT efciency (%) 6.00 4.77 4.79
SFC for thermal output (kg/kW h) 0.11 0.04 0.04
SFC for total output (kg/kW h) 0.10 0.04 0.04
System efciency (%) 2.69 1.61 2.19
System efciency with the gasier (%) 2.58 1.30 1.78
K.A. Al-attab, Z.A. Zainal / Applied Thermal Engineering 70 (2014) 61e70 69
emissions signicantly compared to conventional atmospheric
biomass combustors. The two-stage MGT showed stable operation
with pressurized PG fuel without any auxiliary fossil fuel to support
combustion. Using pressurized downdraft gasier with MGT
instead of uidized bed gasier can reduce the gas cleaning cost.
However, long-term MGT operation is needed to study PG com-
bustion effect on turbine blades.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the Universiti Sains Malaysia
research grant program (RU-PGRS) (RU-PGRS 1001/8041012) and
Research-University Grant (RU-Grant) (1001/Pmekanik/814159) for
the nancial support.
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