Session: 05-05: Combustion Measurements 2

Submission Number: 176581

Fast Detection of Hydrogen Leaks in Gas Turbine Package 

Fuel gas leak is a scenario to be mitigated during the design development of a gas turbines package, since it is installed inside an acoustic enclosure. The leakage could be potentially originated by any connection of the fuel gas supply line and the simultaneous presence of hot gas turbine casing within the same confined volume makes necessary to implement several preventive measures. Special assessment is required when hydrogen is used as fuel due to its properties such as large flammability range and low ignition energy. Main adopted measures are the dilution through a ventilation flow and the use of a detection system, which shall demonstrate several characteristics, such as accuracy, reliability and fast response. Since in case of gas detection an emergency shut down is triggered, the response time is really a crucial factor for hydrogen applications due to its high reactivity if compared with conventional natural gas. For all these reasons, ultrasound gas detectors would be devices very suitable to be used in gas turbine packages, but some design challenges shall be solved. Ultrasound gas detectors are regularly employed in open environment, while there is no evidence of this application in gas turbine enclosures. This work describes some tests carried out to evaluate the performance of these sensors operating in a real scale package. Ultrasound gas detectors have been installed in several locations inside the enclosure and tested at different load conditions. Hydrogen leaks have been simulated using helium as surrogate to verify gas detectors behaviour. Additional tests have been executed to verify if ultrasound gas detectors are able to distinguish different gas blends. Promising results achieved from th e s e test s are presented in this work.

Presenting Author: Viola Sorrentino Baker Hughes

Presenting Author Biography: Currently Senior Instrumentation Engineer at Baker Hughes. I am responsible for instrumentation activities on the product line of the NovaLT engines designed and manufactured by Baker Hughes.

Authors:

Viola Sorrentino Baker Hughes
Riccardo Viti Baker Hughes
Giovanni Tonno Baker Hughes
Stefano Minotti Baker Hughes