ANALYTICAL COMPARATIVE STUDY OF GAS TURBINE BLADE MATERIALS USED IN MARINE APPLICATIONS USING FEA TECHNIQUES

Abstract

The turbine blades are responsible for extracting energy from the high temperature gas produced by the combustor. Operating the gas turbine blade at high temperatures would provide better efficiency and maximum work output. These turbine blades are required to withstand large centrifugal forces, elevated temperatures and are operated in aggressive environments. To survive in this difficult environment, turbine blades often made from exotic materials. A key limiting factor in gas turbine engines is the performance of the materials available for the hot section of the engine especially the gas turbine blades. In this paper, three materials such as Nimonic alloy, Super alloy and titanium aluminium have been considered for the purpose of performance analysis. The turbine blade under evaluation belongs to the first stage rotor blade of a two -stage gas turbine. The turbine blade data was obtained using CMM and its 3D solid model is created by using CATIA V5R21software. The turbine blade is analyzed for its thermal and structural performance due to the loading condition and the temperature gradients using ANSYS 14.0 software. The stresses induced in the turbine blade made up of super alloy and Nimonic 80A alloy are well within the safe limits. Finally, it could be concluded that the super alloy which is being used in manufacturing of the turbine blade of marine gas turbine engine as the best suitable material.