Gas Turbine Power Boosting: Evaporative Cooling

It is well known that gas turbines performance depend on ambient conditions. In particular, power production decreases when ambient temperature increases. It is possible to restore standard performance while running at critical temperatures using a power boosting technique such as evaporative cooling. The present paper deals with analysis of gas turbines power boosting by means of an evaporative cooling technique. In order to study the impact of the technique on gas turbine performance, a mathematical model of a General Electric MS6001FA gas turbine has been implemented using GateCycle software. The mathematical model was calibrated and tested using real gas turbine data for different running conditions. Test results show that the model is able to simulate engine behavior in all considered conditions with low errors. Parametric analysis in function of ambient conditions at maximum load was carried out. It was imposed a specific value of artificial air humidity using real ambient temperature and pressure. Thus, performance analysis of gas turbine running was carried out.