EAGER: Integration of Heat Pipes in Gas Turbines using Artificial Intelligence and Additive Manufacturing

燃气轮机为几乎所有现代飞机提供动力，并从天然气中产生约21%的美国电力。然而，涡轮机的效率和可靠性的主要损失是由涡轮机产生的大量余热引起的。目前的空气冷却技术在消除这种多余的热量方面取得的成功有限。该项目使用了一种称为热管的先进冷却技术，它可以比空气冷却散发更多的热量。使用该技术将显著提高燃气轮机的燃料消耗、效率和可靠性，从而显著节省成本。该项目涉及将叶片或叶片内部构造为热管，并将其延伸到相邻的散热器中，从而通过热管将入射热传递到散热器。 由于热管工作流体的相的内部变化，这种设计提供了极高的传热速率和沿叶片沿着均匀的温度。 此外，该技术消除了叶片前缘和后缘的热点，并通过防止热疲劳裂纹来增加叶片寿命。 还存在不需要来自压缩机的引气的可能性，从而消除了由压缩机排出空气的转向导致的发动机性能损失。 结合空气冷却与径向旋转热管也被认为是一个更好的冷却方法。所提出的热管是一种创新的冷却系统，包括非传统的几何形状，蒸发，冷凝，蒸汽流动和液体/蒸汽的相互作用。在高离心力和高加速度作用下，液态金属工作流体的传热和两相流动的这些复杂的传输过程都是耦合的。利用人工智能和增材制造技术对集成燃气涡轮机热管叶片和叶片进行了详细的设计分析。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Gas turbines power almost all modern aircraft and generate about 21% of the electricity used in the United States from natural gas. However, major losses of efficiency and reliability in turbines are caused by the tremendous amount of excess heat that turbines create. Current air-cooling technology has limited success in getting rid of this excess heat. This project uses an advanced cooling technology called heat pipes, which can dissipate significantly greater amounts of heat than air cooling. Using this technology will significantly improve fuel consumption, efficiency and reliability of gas turbines resulting in significant cost savings. The project involves constructing the vane or blade interior as a heat pipe and extending it into an adjacent heat sink, thus transferring incident heat through the heat pipe to the heat sink. This design provides an extremely high heat transfer rate and a uniform temperature along the vane due to the internal changes of the phase of the heat pipe working fluid. Furthermore, this technology eliminates hot spots at the vane leading and trailing edges and increases the vane life by preventing thermal fatigue cracking. There is also the possibility of requiring no bleed air from the compressor, eliminating engine performance losses resulting from the diversion of compressor discharge air. Combined air cooling with radially rotating heat pipes is also considered for a better cooling method. The proposed heat pipe is an innovative cooling system that includes non-conventional geometries, evaporation, condensation, vapor flow, and interaction of the liquid/vapor. These complex transport processes of heat transfer and two-phase flow of a liquid metal working fluid under high centrifugal forces and accelerations are all coupled. A detailed design analysis of integrated gas turbine heat pipe vanes and blades is made using artificial intelligence and additive manufacturing.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.