IDGTE Paper 582

Founded in 1913 as Diesel Engine Users Association

The Institution of Diesel and Gas Turbine Engineers, Bedford Heights, Manton Lane, Bedford MK41 7PH

Tel +44 (0)1234 214340 Fax +44 (0)1234 355493 Email: [email protected] www.idgte.org

PREPRINT - SUBJECT TO REVISION PUBLICATION 582

the independent technical forum for power generation

The History of the Industrial Gas Turbine

(Part 1 The First Fifty Years 1940-1990)

By

Ronald J Hunt CEng FIMechE FIDGTE

Thermal Power Consultant

Power + Energy Associates

Morpeth, United Kingdom

IDGTE as a body is not responsible for statements expressed in any of its publications.

Copyright by the Institution of Diesel and Gas Turbine Engineers.

This publication is copyright under the Berne Convention and the International

Copyright Convention. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private

study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act 1956,

no part may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any

form or by any means, electronic, electrical, chemical, mechanical,

photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the

copyright owners.

Enquiries should be addressed to: The Director General, IDGTE, Bedford Heights,

Manton Lane, Bedford MK41 7PH.

Reserved by the Author

The publishers are not responsible for any statement made in this publication.

Data, discussion and conclusions developed by authors are for information only

and are not intended for use without independent substantiating investigation

on the part of potential users.

For discussion at a General Meeting to be held at IDGTE, The Great Northern Hotel, Peterborough PE1 1QL

at 14.00 hours on Thursday 20 January 2011

Ronald Hunt - 1 - Printed: 14/01/2011 Morpeth United Kingdom Paper 582 Version 2

The History of the Industrial Gas Turbine (Part 1 The First Fifty Years 1940-1990) Ronald J Hunt CEng FIMechE FIDGTE Thermal Power Consultant Power + Energy Associates Morpeth, United Kingdom

Preamble This account of the history of the industrial gas turbine documents the history of the development of gas turbines for land based, locomotive and marine applications. A key part of this history is the tabulation of the manufacturers and models produced by year since 1940. The aircraft engine is excluded from the scope of this work and only referred to in relation to the development of industrial machines. It has not been possible, up to the time of publication, to include every company who were active in the development of industrial gas turbine however the research work is continuing and it is planned to add to this history in due course. This paper (Part 1) deals with the first fifty years of development of the industrial gas turbine from 1940 to 1990. It is planned that a second paper (Part 2) will be presented later in 2011 covering the period 1990 onwards. The author recognises that whilst there are already a number of individual historical accounts concerning the development of the industrial gas turbine it hoped that this work will add a broader and more comprehensive perspective to the subject. One published book [53] makes the comment that this is a subject with as many opinions on who to credit developments to as there are engineering historians. This author endeavours to give a fair opinion on the credits due and to give due recognition. Acknowledgement and thanks are given to all the companies referred to for their permission to publish the material. Sincere thanks and appreciation is given to the many individual contributors for this work and all who have made significant efforts to support the work and given of their time to provide the data and reference material making this historical account possible. Special thanks are given to Steve Reed for his support and the extensive research he has carried out. In addition thanks are given to the numerous librarians and archivists who responded to so many enquiries and provided papers and documents on the subject. A list of acknowledgements is attached. The author wishes to thank the Council and Officers of the Institution of Diesel and Gas Turbine Engineers (IDGTE) for their support, encouragement and assistance in preparing this history especially members of the IDGTE gas turbine committee and the IDGTE heritage committee. In preparing this historical review every effort has been made to report the performance ratings at the time the various models were introduced. It is recognised that all turbine manufacturers are continuously improving gas turbine products in line with ever changing market dynamics therefore the purpose of the history is to illustrate the development history of gas turbines in general and not current ratings. Updates will be included in a later edition (Part 2). Note. This shortened version of the history has been prepared for presentation at the meeting of IDGTE to be held in Peterborough on 20 January 2011 and publishing in the IDGTE Journal The Power Engineer. It is planned that the full account of the history with extensive tables an specifications, including fully detailed contributions by the contributors, will be published in a book in due course.


List of Contributors The Author is indebted to all the following Contributors who have generously contributed papers, information, documents, books, photographs, and especially for sharing their experience and knowledge to make this history what is hoped will prove to be a useful and worthwhile work.

John Marshall Anglesey, North Wales, United Kingdom Proteus Generating Set

John Baker Austin Memories Austin Gas Turbines

Richard Flatman Bedford, United Kingdom W.H. Allen Gas turbines

John Kitchenman Bedford, United Kingdom W.H. Allen & RAE(B)

Ivan Dean Burnley, Lancashire Lucas Aerospace

Prof. Riti Singh Cranfield, Bedfordshire, United Kingdom Cranfield University

Prof. Peri Pilidus Cranfield, Bedfordshire, United Kingdom Cranfield University

Alan Young Clydebank, Scotland, United Kingdom John Brown Gas Turbines

Eric Neal Derby, United Kingdom Rolls Royce Trust

Graham Reynolds Ansty, Coventry, United Kingdom Rolls Royce Industrial Gas Turbines

David Taylor Ansty, Coventry, United Kingdom Rolls Royce Industrial Gas Turbines

Simon Newman Bristol, United Kingdom Rolls Royce marine Gas Turbines

Trevor Wick Filey, Yorkshire, United Kingdom Metrovick Gas Turbines

Brian Tucker Hampshire, United Kingdom RAE(B) Bedford

Mike Dobson Bedford, United Kingdom RAE(B) Bedford

Frank Carchedi Lincoln, United Kingdom Ruston/ Siemens Gas turbines

Terry Raddings Lincoln, United Kingdom General Electric Gas turbines

Richard Willows Newton Abbot, Devon, United Kingdom Centrax Gas turbines

John Bolter Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom C.A. Parsons Gas turbines

Ian Burdon Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom Merz and McLellan

Alan Jarvis Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom Merz and McLellan

Alain Foote Rugby, Warwickshire, United Kingdom English Electric Gas turbines

Steve Reed Whetstone, United Kingdom Ruston/ English Electric

Paul Evans Tanygroes, Ceredigion, Wales Museum of Internal Fire

Willibald Fischer Erlangen, Germany Siemens Gas turbines

Volker Leiste Erlangen, Germany Siemens Gas turbines

Klaas Krijnen Rotterdam, Holland Steamship Rotterdam Foundation

Tore Naess Kongsberg, Norway Kongsberg Gas turbines

Tom L. Lazet San Diego, California, USA Solar Gas turbines

Gerry McQuiggan Florida, USA Westinghouse Gas turbines

Akio Suzuki Tokyo, Japan Secretary to ISO Committee

1. Introduction to the Industrial Gas Turbine

It is clear that in the 19th Century the concept of the gas turbine became known to many engineers and the efforts of all the pioneers are well documented. In the early part of the 20th Century several trials took place. Early on it was recognised that this was a technological concept with huge potential being limited only by the state of art of associated technologies and the materials available at that time. By the late 1930s the concept of the gas turbine had been around for decades with articles already having being published and patents applied for up to 50 years ahead of the realisation of the goal. Experimental gas turbines had been around in various forms since the early 1900s and in a following chapter the efforts of the Pioneers is given the credit that they deserve. The question of who came first is also addressed. The early efforts to make the gas turbine work often resulted in disappointment as the poor efficiencies initially achieved meant that there was little incentive to take the idea further.


There was certainly no shortage of vision in the early 1900s, however, as is exampled by Captain H. Riall Sankey1 who, in his outstanding lecture on Heat Engines given to the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in November 1917 [1], predicted the future role of the gas turbine. Sankey could see the continued dominance and development of the steam turbine for some time to come, which at that time had already reached 45MW. In his discussion about the future of power generation he says steam turbines will hold the field for the large units . until a satisfactory gas turbine has evolved. He also mentions that during the past 15 years (that is 1902-1917) a few experimental turbines have been produced but so far there has been no progress. On reflection what was in itself something really quite amazing was the effort of the British Government in the early 1940s to promote the development of the gas turbine. This effort was applied in so many fields, industrial as well as the aircraft industry. It was at this time that, Harold Roxbee Cox entered into the picture in his government role in charge of the Gas Turbine Collaboration Committee and then Chief Scientific Officer. The government effectively created a race and pulled into the fold all the established engineering companies pushing this with great determination. There is no doubt that it is Brown Boveri in Switzerland with their 4,000kW Neuchatel machine that is credited as being the first practical industrial gas turbine. The first industrial gas turbine to run in the United Kingdom however was the 500 bhp experimental machine of C A Parsons, which ran in 1945 [5].

2. The Work of the Pioneers

Tribute is given to all those pioneers for their true dedication to the development of the industrial gas turbine and working tirelessly to achieve success. There must have been so many disappointments through all the trials and efforts but perseverance eventually bore fruits. Figure 1 illustrates the influence of the pioneers on the development of the industrial gas turbine with key dates.

Figure 1 The History of The Industrial Gas Turbine The Pioneers

1 Inventor of the Sankey Diagram (1905)


The claim to the invention of the gas turbine is something that has to date never been resolved. The idea was certainly set out by John Barber in the late 18th century (1791) then incredibly during the following 148 years so many attempts were made to solve the challenge. In this time a number of other patents were lodged and experimental machines were constructed with varying degrees of success. Some of the problems encountered were due to the availability of suitable materials at the time, compressor technology and the construction of compressors of adequate efficiency. In truth then the achievement of the practical industrial gas turbine is due to the work of many contributors. Brief summary biographies of each of the pioneers on this roll of honour are below. 1 John Barber (17341801) British He was born in Nottinghamshire and moved to Warwickshire in the 1760s to manage collieries in the Nuneaton area. He patented several inventions the most remarkable being one in 1791 A Method of Rising Inflammable Air for the Purposes of Procuring Motion. This is the patent of a gas turbine. 2 John Dumbell British He is credited with patenting a device in 1808 having a series of vanes, or fliers, within a cylinder, like the sails of a windmill, causing them to rotate together with the shaft to which they were fixed. [3] [41][71] 3 Bresson French In Paris in 1837 Bresson had the idea to heat and compress air then deliver this to a combustion chamber and to mix this with fuel gas and then burnt. The combustion products were to be used to drive a wheel like a water wheel. [41] 4 Franz Stolze (1836-1910) German Dr. Stolze took out a patent for gas turbine engine in 1872. This engine used a multi-stage reaction turbine and a multistage axial flow compressor. He called this a Fire Turbine. Tests were made in Berlin and trials were carried out between 1900 and 1904 but no success. [2] 5 Sir Charles Algernon Parsons (1854 1931) - British Whilst he is best known for the invention of the steam turbine and founding C A Parsons& Co Ltd of Newcastle upon Tyne in 1884, along with his celebrated steam turbine patents, Parsons patented his idea for the gas turbine, which he called a Multiple Motor. In addition to steam turbines, by the early 1900s, Parsons was designing and manufacturing industrial compressors. 6 Rene Armengaud and Charles Lemale - French In 1903 they built and successfully tested the first of several experimental gas turbines with internally water cooled disks and blades. [50] 7 Dr. Holzwarth In 1905 Dr Holzwarth proposed an explosion (constant volume) turbine. A prototype was built and experiments were carried out between 1909 and 1913 [2]. This worked without a compressor. Several of these turbines were built but not put into commercial use. 8 Matthew Henry Phineas Riall Sankey (1853-1925) - Irish He was an Irish engineer from County Cork who invented the Sankey Diagram. He became President of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers and was able to recognise the future role of the gas turbine as early as 1917.


9 Charles Gordon Curtis (1860-1953) - American Born in Boston, Massachusetts he patented the first US gas turbine in 1899. Among his other achievements was the Curtis steam turbine of 1896. He sold the rights to the turbine to GE in 1901. 10 Prof. Aurel Boleslav Stodola (18591942) - Swiss He was Slovak by birth and he was a pioneer in thermodynamics and its applications. His published book in 1903 had an appendix on gas turbines. He was invited by Brown Boveri to commission and test the worlds first industrial gas turbine at Neuchtel in 1940. 11 Charles Brown (1863-1924) British/ Swiss Charles Brown was co-founder of the Brown Boveri Company in 1891 in Baden, Switzerland. He was born in Winterthur and his father was a British engineer who founded the SLM Swiss Locomotive and Machine Works. 12 Walter Boveri (1865-1924) German/ Swiss Walter Boveri was co-founder of the Brown Boveri Company in 1891 in Baden, Switzerland. He was born in Bamberg, Bavaria and died in Baden, Switzerland. 13 Aegidius Elling (18611949) Norwegian Norwegian inventor considered in some quarters to be the father of the gas turbine. In 1903 he designed and constructed the first constant pressure gas turbine. His first machine had an output of 11hp and the second 44hp. [40] 14 Auguste Camille Rateau (18631930) French He is associated with the work of Lemale and Armengaud and designed the compressor for their gas turbine. His work was largely on compressors and founded Rateau Industries. 15 Sanford Alexander Moss (1872 1946) American After graduation he joined GE where he carried out research into compressor design. Due to the low overall efficiencies achieved at the time GE ended his work on gas turbines in 1907. [40] 16 Jakob Ackeret (1898-1981) Swiss He worked at Escher Wyss AG in Zurich as Chief Engineer of Hydraulics and was considered as an expert on gas turbines; known for his research on axial flow compressors, airfoil theory, aerodynamics and high-speed propulsion problems. He is recognised as a pioneer of modern aerodynamics. [58] 17 Sir Harold Roxbee Cox (19021997) British He was a British aeronautical engineer who became chief scientific officer for the British Government. In 1944 he became both chairman and managing director of the then nationalised Power Jets. Power Jets was restyled again in 1946 as the National Gas Turbine Establishment with Roxbee Cox as its director. 18 Alan Howard (19051966) American He worked for the GE Company in Schenectady, NY and the steam turbine activities of the company. He is considered as the key figure in GE efforts to develop the gas turbine as he was appointed to a wartime committee part of the general wartime effort to develop gas turbines for military aircraft propulsion. 19 Basil Wood (19051992) British He worked with the consulting firm of Merz and McLellan. He was highly respected as an engineer and regarded as an expert in all matters relating to gas turbines. For many years he edited the gas turbine section of Kemps Yearbook. In 1970 he became President of the Diesel Engine Users Association (IDGTE).


20 Air Commodore Sir Frank Whittle (19071996) British Known as the inventor of the Jet Engine, he was a British Royal Air Force (RAF) engineer officer who shared credit with Germany's Dr. Hans Von Ohain for independently inventing the jet engine. Whittle is hailed as the father of jet propulsion and the contribution he made to the development of the industrial gas turbine was significant, 21 Geoffrey Bertram Robert Feilden (19172004) British Bob Feilden worked with Power Jets. After that he moved to Ruston & Hornsby in Lincoln to produce the first Ruston type TA gas turbine. Later in life he was the author of a widely acclaimed work on engineering design for which he is highly regarded. 22 Dr. Waheeb Rizk (1921-2009) He was born in Cairo and was educated in Cairo and then Cambridge University. After graduating he carried out research. He joined the English Electric Company in 1954, to become a founder member of the mechanical engineering laboratory at Whetstone, Leicester and in 1957 was made chief engineer of the gas turbine division. 23 Prof. Dr. Rudolf Friedrich (1909-1998) German Rudolf Friedrich was employed by Siemens from 1948 1964. He was Chief Technical Officer for gas turbines at Siemens-Schuckert Works in Mlheim /Ruhr. From 1964 1976 he was full professor for turbine technology at Karlsruhe technical university. He has been given the nickname Mr. Siemens-Gas Turbine by his colleagues. 24 Andrew T. Bowden ( -1968) British Graduated at Herriot-Watt, Edinburgh and went on to gain a PhD on the characteristics of solid injection. He became Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering in Western Australia. In 1939 he returned to the UK where he became Assistant Director of Tank Design at the Ministry of Supply and after the war he joined C A Parsons as Chief Research Engineer setting set up the Gas Turbine Department and recruiting a team of engineers. In 1955 he became Research Director. 25 Dr. Claude Seippel (1900-1986) Swiss He was employed by Brown Boveri and in 1939 the person in charge of conceptual design for the Neuchatel gas turbine plant. Some sources refer to Prof. Stodola as the Neuchatel designer however the evidence suggests that Dr. Sieppel should have the credit. Brown Boveri honoured him by naming their research centre at Daetwill, Baden after him. 26 John Lamb (1890-1958) British He was a pioneer marine engineer who was Chief Engineer of the Anglo Saxon Petroleum company [48]. In 1951 he arranged for one of the diesel-electric engines on the tanker Auris to be replaced by a gas turbine. He then carried out sea going trials with this ship and presented the results to the Institute of Marine Engineers in October 1953 [10] [48].

3. Technology Developments

3.1 Landmark Technical Papers

The development of the industrial gas turbine has come about as a result of the development of a large number of technologies and research into materials enabling the improvement in operating conditions. These have been described over the years in a number of landmark technical papers, a few of which are mentioned below and others in the references. Refer to Figure 2. In February 1939 Dr. Adolf Meyer from Brown Boveri presented his outstanding paper on The Combustion Gas Turbine: Its History, Developments and Prospects [2] to the Institution of Mechanical


Engineers in London. This presentation coincided with the introduction of the first practical industrial gas turbine by that company in 1939. In June 1948 at a meeting of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in London A.T. Bowden and J.L. Jefferson of C A Parsons presented their paper on the Design and Operation of the Parsons Experimental Gas Turbine [5]. The Parsons paper presents a detailed, no holds barred account of the gas turbine experimental work carried out at the Heaton Works of C.A. Parson in Newcastle upon Tyne.

Figure 2 The Six Ages of Development

Over the years the Institution of Diesel and Gas Turbine Engineers (IDGTE) 2 has presented many milestone papers on the design, development and application of the gas turbine. The first was given by Mr. R.J. Welsh of the English Electric Company, presented in London in November 1948. Then in 1954 E.A. Kerez of Brown Boveri presented his paper on the Benzau Power Station. In 1951, at the time of The Festival of Britain, a document was published by Power Jets (Research and Development) called the The Story of the British Gas Turbine. An account was presented by the British National Committee at the World Power Conference in Rio de Janeiro in 1954[13]. This started with the work of John Barber and Charles Parsons and describes British gas turbine developments in power generation, traction, automotive engines and aircraft engines. Around 1965, as mentioned in the paper of Dr. Seippel [15], there appeared to have been a serious debate at that time as to whether the industrial gas turbine was economically viable. At the same time it was recognised that the climb in gas turbine outputs had been spectacular. Dr. Seippel introduced the combined gas-steam cycles concept and this was immediately met by doubts as to the viability of such schemes.

2 Formerly the Diesel Engine Users Association (DEUA).


3.2 Cycles and Configurations

From the start of the development of the gas turbine researchers have considered whether to adopt either the open cycle or closed cycle, the primary proponents of the closed cycle being the Swiss. The advantages seen for the closed cycle were no need for compressor intake filtration and reduced gas path dimensions due to the higher working pressures. The capability of the closed cycle to burn otherwise unsuitable fuels was another big incentive. The disadvantages turned out to be the cost of building these complex plants, limitations on the gas circuit materials resulting in lower turbine inlet temperatures and lower efficiencies. The two alternatives were the closed cycle air cycle and the closed cycle helium cycle. In collaboration with others, Escher Wyss pioneered the closed cycle, built 24 of these with varying success, and mostly for combined power and district heating applications. A significant merit of the closed cycle was claimed to be that the load was varied by altering the pressure in the closed circuit whilst maintaining the turbine inlet temperature at the full load value, so giving almost full load efficiency over the load range. Early developers made every possible effort to improve efficiency and to make the gas turbine economically viable and they looked into inter-cooling, exhaust heat recovery and recuperation. The configurations considered were:

(1) Open Cycle Single Shaft without Exhaust Heat Recuperation (2) Open Cycle Two Shafts without Exhaust Heat Recuperation (3) Open Cycle Single Shaft with Exhaust Heat Recuperation (4) Open Cycle Two Shafts with Exhaust Heat Recuperation (5) Open Cycle Single Shaft with Exhaust Heat Recuperation and Inter-cooling (6) Open Cycle Two Shaft with Exhaust Heat Recuperation and Inter-cooling (7) Open Cycle Three Shaft with Exhaust Heat Recuperation and Inter-cooling (8) Closed Cycle Air - CLAGT (9) Closed Cycle Helium CLHGT (10) Combined Cycle Steam and Gas Turbines - CCGT

The efforts of those promoting closed cycle plants to compete against open cycle lasted only till about 1975 and then finally it was the merging of different companies that sealed to fate of the closed cycle. By that time CCGT was already getting well established and higher operating conditions for the open cycle meant that the goal of beating the conventional cycle would follow the CCGT route. In the meanwhile everyone was striving to improve both compressor and turbine efficiencies and to increase turbine inlet temperatures and pressure ratios. After a period of about 10-15 years (1940-1955), the general industry trend for industrial gas turbine configurations has been to move to simple single shaft options without inter-cooling. On the other hand, in the aero engine world, the trend has been towards inter-cooled and multiple shaft arrangements with separate power turbines. This trend is also seen in the aero-derivatives that are currently on the market.

3.3 Unit Outputs

All who have studied the development of the gas turbine will know that starting from only 4,000kW in 1939 the output of the industrial gas turbine has grown in size phenomenally to around 250,000kW by the late 1990s and to over 300,000kW presently. In the 60 year period, 1939-1999, the simple cycle output of the industrial gas turbine has increased 60 fold as shown by Figure 3. There are of course two groups of companies one being the small machine group all of whom are targeting the small industrial market the size of these units being dictated by use. The other is the large


machines group who continue to seek to dominate the market for thermal power generation and take over from conventional cycles as Riall Sankey had predicted in 1917.

3.4 Operational Conditions

It has been known from the earliest experiments that higher efficiency was linked to the achievable turbine inlet temperatures. There is evidence of considerable discussion amongst the pioneers about the inlet temperature that could be achieved safely with the available heat resisting steels at the time. This led to many ingenious and complicated schemes for cooling of the hot gas path components initially with water passages. It was always going to be a combination of materials, thermal barrier coatings and cooling technologies that would push the gas turbine forward and enable higher and higher inlet temperatures to be achieved.

Figure 3 Technology Trends Unit Outputs

A review of the achieved turbine inlet temperatures from this historical research is shown in Figure 4. Two additional lines have been added from the book by Meherwan Boyce [47]. Aero engine data shows that, whilst the industrial gas turbine inlet temperatures have been consistently well below those of aero engines convergence is taking place. When the Neuchatel gas turbine power plant was put into service in 1940 the operational conditions for the gas turbine cycle included a turbine inlet temperature of 550C and pressure ratio of 4.2:1. In his 1939 paper Dr Meyer was comparing inlet conditions of 538C (1000F), 649C (1200F) and 816C (1500F). He stated that 1000F (538C) was absolutely safe for uncooled blades made of the available heat resisting steel. Then he went on to say that he could foresee the prospect of the gas turbine inlet temperature being increased to 816C(1500F). As seen in Figure 4 this came about within 20 years. It was not until the late 1950s that turbine inlet temperatures for industrial gas turbines exceeded the 816C (1500F) level. It was Siemens who broke away from the trend in 1957. The whole field has continued to steadily increase inlet temperatures by roughly about 100C for every 10 years. By the late 1990s turbine inlet temperatures of approximately 1300C were being achieved.


HISTORY OF THE INDUSTRIAL GAS TURBINE

TURBINE INLET TEMPERATURE TREND

550

760816

899

10681124

1316

500

600

700

800

900

1000

1100

1200

1300

1400

1500

1600

1700

1800

1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

YEAR

TUR

BIN

E IN

LET

TEM

PER

ATU

RE

DEG

C

History Research Data Boyce Aero Boyce Industrial

Aero Engines

Industrial Gas Turbine Research

Boyce data - extracted from

Gas Turbine Engineering Handbook 3rd Edition

Figure 4 Technology Trends Temperature

3.5 Pressure Ratio

Pressure ratios of the gas turbine compressor have increased by about 2 units each decade from 1940 however since about 1985 there appears to be a convergence as all machines large and small fall in the same band. The actual progress of gas turbine compressor pressure ratios for industrial machines is illustrated in Figure 5.


COMPRESSOR PRESSURE RATIO

4.25.0

6.5

9.4

14.0

15.7

30.0

0.0

5.0

10.0

15.0

20.0

25.0

30.0

35.0

1940

1950

1960

1970

1980

1990

2000

YEAR

CO

MP

RES

SOR

PR

ESSU

RE

RA

TIO

Figure 5 Technology Trends Pressure Ratio

Aero-engines operate at a higher pressure ratio than industrial gas turbines and in the aircraft engine field, modern turbofan engines operate as high as 44:1. Consequently, those aero-derivative gas turbines that have been modified for land based power generation applications also operate with similarly high pressure ratios.


3.6 Thermal Efficiencies

The Neuchatel power plant achieved a noteworthy compressor efficiency of 88%, turbine efficiency of 89% and a thermal efficiency of 17.4 (18.6) %. Associated with the increase in turbine inlet temperatures the corresponding overall cycle efficiency was foreseen in 1939 to rise from 18% to 26%. The achievement of 26% overall efficiency took about 20 years and the step by step increase actually achieved is illustrated in Figure 6. At the time of the emergence of the industrial gas turbine in 1939 the thermal efficiency was 17-18 % and this was being compared with steam cycle efficiencies of 25-26 % of that day. As we well know, over the following years the steam cycle thermal efficiency continued to improve always keeping ahead of the simple cycle gas turbine until around 2000 when advanced class gas turbines became operational. This race between the gas turbine and the conventional steam cycle efficiency was effectively halted in the 1960s when the combined gas turbine steam turbine cycle started pushing plant thermal efficiencies over 40% and beyond.


OVERALL THERMAL EFFICIENCY (SC)

17.4

24.025.8

27.3

31.5

34.4

38.6

0.0

5.0

10.0

15.0

20.0

25.0

30.0

35.0

40.0

45.0

1940

1950

1960

1970

1980

1990

2000

YEAR

OV

ERA

LL T

HER

MA

L EF

FIC

IEN

CY

(SC

) %

Figure 6 Technology Trends Thermal Efficiency

3.7 Materials and Cooling

Owing to the complexity of the Metallurgy and Materials Sciences it is only possible to touch briefly in this historical review on the impact that these have had on gas turbine technology and in particular on higher firing temperatures. As with the steam turbine, the gas turbine stage 1 blade (bucket) has to withstand the highest temperatures, stresses in the turbine, and is therefore considered to be the limiting component. Progress is illustrated in Figure 7. In the early 1940s high grade heat-resisting steels were not available so steel temperatures were limited to 1050F (566C) for continuous running. Advances in materials accounted for the majority of the firing temperature increase until air cooling was introduced in the 1970s. These increases enabled increased firing temperatures, increased output and improved thermal efficiency. During the early 1950s the National Gas Turbine Establishment (NGTE) was carrying out experiments into the air cooling of gas turbine blades (buckets). This shows that the present day methods of air cooling were being developed in 1953.


Figure 7 Technology Trends Material Limits

In the 1951 paper on the Ruston 750kW gas turbine [9] it is mentioned that air cooling of turbine discs had been employed. In addition to the limit on the material capability metal temperatures above 870oC have resulted in the need to apply thermal barrier coatings due to hot corrosion effects.

3.8 Emissions

Over the years Gas Turbine emissions have gradually become more important and in particular NOX. The United Kingdom and the EU had no statutory requirements for gas turbines until the early 1990s.

Figure 8 Technology Trends Emissions

It is Tokyo and California that seem to have been leading the trend for lower and lower permissible limits. As seen from Figure 8 in 1970 a value of 75 ppmv was considered acceptable, by 1980 this had been reduced to 50 ppmv for California and 15 ppmv for Tokyo. By 1990 everyone was asking for 15 ppmv or better. Reference Fig 5 [36]


4. Gas Turbine Applications and Fuels

Although the prime area of interest in the gas turbine in the early years was aircraft engines and land based power generation, almost immediately the industrial gas turbine had become a reality the applications being exploited seemed limitless. Economics drove engineers to look at a wide range of fuels and many different applications and alternative fuels were being trialled. In addition to direct power generation the applications for the industrial gas turbine in 1940 immediately included Locomotive Engines, Blast Furnace Blowers, Marine Propulsion, Road Vehicle Engines and Mechanical Drives.

Motor Car 125hp

Railway Locomotive 1,800kW Aircraft Carrier 72,000kW

50hp Turbine Bluebird Car 3,320kW 375,000kW Gas Turbine

4.1 Marine Propulsion

In 1947 a Metrovick F2 axial-flow jet engine, known as the Beryl engine, was installed in the MGB2009 to become the worlds first ever gas turbine propelled sea going vessel.

1951 The first ever merchant vessel to be fitted with a gas turbine propulsion system was the Anglo Saxon Petroleum Company Tanker Auris 12,000 tons d.w with a BTH 1200hp gas turbine

1953 Rolls-Royce designed the RM60 gas turbine rated at 4,000kW; which was installed in the British naval vessel HMS Grey Goose. The worlds first ever solely gas turbine propelled ship

1956 A GE FS3 gas turbine of 6000hp (4,500kW) was installed in the US Maritime Administration vessel, the John Sargent, to become the first US vessel to be gas turbine powered

1958 Three Bristol Proteus engines were employed in a fast patrol boat. HMS Brave Borderer starts sea trials fitted with the Rolls-Royce Proteus GT

1967 The British Royal navy decided to use gas turbine propulsion for all future warships

1969 The first GE LM2500 aero derivative enters service with US Navy

1968 A Bristol Siddeley Olympus was installed in the RN vessel HMS Exmouth

1980 All propulsion power for the HMS Invincible, HMS Illustrious and HMS Ark Royal aircraft carriers provided by four Olympus engines on each ship, providing 72,000kW total shaft power


The 1967 decision of the Royal Navy to only use gas turbines for propulsion was quite a milestone in itself. Today all gas turbine manufacturers have marine variants of their gas turbines and aero derivatives have now found a real place in marine propulsion. About 7% of the gas turbine market is for marine applications.

4.2 Road Vehicle Engines

The application of gas turbines to road vehicles was a real quest in the late 1940s and 1950s. First off the mark was Centrax who designed and manufactured a 160hp engine in 1948 for use as a truck engine. The Rover Company became famous for producing the Rover gas turbine car. The Rover gas turbine car JET1 with 100bhp was first demonstrated to the public in March 1950 achieving a speed of 85 mph. The updated version with an engine of 230 bhp went on to achieve a speed of 152 mph. This certainly gained public attention. [74] Work was started by Austin on the gas turbine in 1952 and their first unit ran in 1954 using a Rolls-Royce Merlin supercharger as a compressor. Leyland, the successor of Austin, developed a gas turbine powered truck. A specially designed Parsons 1000hp (746kW) gas turbine was installed in the Conqueror tank in 1954. In 1956 Donald Campbells Bluebird was powered by a Bristol Siddeley Proteus engine rated at 3,320kW. The initial test in the USA did not succeed but during a new attempt in 1964 the car reached 429mph during tests at Lake Eyre, Australia.

4.3 Locomotive Engines

A very early start was made on applying the gas turbine to railway locomotive use. There was considerable progress made, however eventually the ultimate fate of gas turbine powered locomotives was to be sealed as soon as the price of fuel oil became too high.

COUNTRY MANUFACTURER YEAR INTRODUCED

YEAR WITHDRAWN

MODEL ENGINE POWER KW

FUEL

SWISS FEDERAL RAILWAYS BROWN BOVERI & CO 1941 GTEL 1620

BRITISH RAILWAYS BROWN BOVERI & CO 1949 BR18000 1840

(GREAT WESTERN RAIL) METROVICK 1951 BR18100 2200 FUEL OIL

(NORTH BRITISH) C A PARSONS 1952 1959

COAL

ENGLISH ELECTRIC 1961 GT3 EM-27

BRITISH LEYLAND APT-E

FRANCE ALSTHOM TGV-GT

UNITED STATES GENERAL ELECTRIC 1950 1969 GE RESIDUAL

UNION PACIFIC WESTINGHOUSE 1950 1953 WH 1500*2

CANADA PLANNED 2002 NA (Jet train)

RUSSIA 2006 I/S GEM-10 1000 LNG

2007 I/S GT1-001 8300 LNG

Table 1 Gas Turbine Powered Locomotives In 1939 Brown Boveri was already well advanced with the design of gas turbine powered locomotives and their first gas turbine powered locomotive at 1,620kW was delivered in 1941. In the UK the first was the BR18000 1,800kW unit from Brown Boveri for the Great Western Railway, delivered in 1949. In 1951 Metrovick built the BR18100 2,200kW engine based on an aircraft engine. Then in 1961 English Electric built the GT3 locomotive with an EM27 engine. The last to be built in the UK was the British Rail APT-E prototype using a British Leyland gas turbine.


Both Westinghouse and GE developed gas turbine locomotives. In 1951 the Union Pacific Railroad had a GE FS3 gas turbine powered locomotive rated at 8,500hp (6,300kW). They succeeded with a large fleet of gas turbine locomotives; operated by Union Pacific, these running successfully from 1950 to 1969. In July 1952 C A Parsons received an order from the Ministry of Fuel & Power to design and construct a prototype coal burning gas turbine locomotive for the North British Railway. This locomotive was to be ready for trials in 1954 and was a joint contract with the North British Locomotive Company of Glasgow, it was to run on British Rail. The testing of the gas turbine unit mounted on the loco frame was carried out at Parsons' Heaton Works, Newcastle. After trials the project closed down in March 1959. [37] The first version of the TGV in France was TGV 001 gas turbine electric (GTEL) built by Alsthom and first commissioned in 1969. The TGV rail trials were carried out from 1972-1978 and the gas turbine powered unit achieved a record 318 km/h (200 mph) on 8 December 1972. Only one gas turbine set was built. In Russia from 1959 to 1970 there were two 2,600kW gas turbine powered locomotives under test. Then in 2006 Russia introduced a 1,000kW LNG fired GTEL and in 2007 an 8,300kW GTEL. Today these are the only gas turbine locomotives in service.

4.4 Power Station Standby and Peak Lopping

In the early 1960s a severe Grid disturbance led to electricity black-outs over the south east of England. This, together with the predicted load growth at the time, made it necessary for the Central Electricity Generating Board (CEGB) to install quick starting gas turbines suitable for peaking duties. This is described in the paper by R.G Henbest delivered to DUEA (IDGTE) in 1970 [46]. A new application for gas turbines was found in 1962 when CEGB decided to install fast start gas turbines using aero engines as gas generators and free power turbines. The gas generators used were the Bristol Siddeley Olympus and Rolls Royce Avon engines. The first installation tested was a single Olympus engine installed at Hams Hall power station in 1964. Following this trial a major programme of installation got under way. A few were built with Pratt & Whitney FT8 engines. There were three main contractors at the time these being AEI, Bristol Siddeley and English Electric/ GEC. The configurations adopted were: AEI 4 Avon + PT 55MW Peak (40MW Base) AEI 1 Avon + PT 14MW Peak (10MW Base) BS 4 Olympus + PT 70MW Peak ( MW Base) BS 1 Olympus + PT 17.5MW Peak ( MW Base) EE 4 Avon + 2PT 56MW Peak (40MW Base) EE 2 Avon + PT 28MW Peak (20MW Base) EE 1 Avon + PT 13.5MW Peak (10MW Base) It was not all plain sailing for these peak load sets. Initially the aero engines were installed as designed then it was found that the new operational conditions faced by operating these engines in a land based power station environment showed up unforeseen problems.

4.5 Mechanical Drive

Whilst a large part of industrial gas turbine development activity has been directed to power generation and marine applications, from the earliest days gas turbines have been used for mechanical drive. In 1946 Solar Turbines produced 35kW portable gas turbine driven pump for the US Navy, this was used for fire fighting duties. The 1949 the 2,170bhp (2022kW) Air Bleed unit of C A Parsons was in fact a gas turbine driven compressor. Rover gas turbines were manufactured for a variety of stationary


applications including emergency pumps. The Austin engine was put on the market in 1961 as an independent prime mover and pump drive. Today about 30% of the gas turbine market is for mechanical drive applications.

4.6 Total Energy Combined Heat and Power Cogeneration

In the 1960s Total Energy became popular. Today this is better known as Combined Heat and Power (CHP) and in some parts of the World as Cogeneration. These schemes usually mean the combined production of electricity and heat for process or other uses. Today Cogeneration has been extended to mean the combined production of electricity and heat or cooling; and occasionally Trigeneration. As long ago as 1956 Ruston installed a turbine in a combined heat and power scheme in a large shopping complex in Little Rock, Arkansas, USA. Over the years the application of gas turbines to combined heat and power/ cogeneration has grown enormously. Wherever there is a significant demand for heat (or cooling) the appropriate CHP/ Cogen is applied and a large number of these are gas turbine based.

4.7 Combined Cycle

A combined cycle power plant is a plant that produces electricity from gas and steam turbines. The gas turbine drives an electrical generator and the exhaust gas energy from the gas turbine is used to generate steam in a heat recovery steam generator (HRSG) which then produces electricity from a steam turbine. The advent of the combined gas and steam cycle (CCGT) has enabled the gas turbine to leap to prominence as a primary power generator. The combined cycle was foreseen by Dr. Meyer in his 1939 paper and lots of applications were found to recover gas turbine exhaust heat. It was not however until around 1965 that CCGT became a serious contender. The beginnings of combined cycle are described in the 1970 paper of Basil Wood [19]. 1960 BBC - Korneuburg, Austria 75MW (2+1 configuration) 1963 Horsehoe Lake, Oklahoma 1965 Siemens Hohe Wand Austria 12.8MW 1968 GE - Wolverine Cooperative 21MW (1+1 configuration) 1979 Siemens Bang Pakong Thailand 250MW (2+1 configuration) Since 1968 onwards the CCGT cycle has made steady progress and together with CCGT the gas turbine has overtaken the conventional cycle reaching unbelievably high cycle thermal efficiencies. In the UK the first CCGT was the Roosecote Station in Cumbria commissioned in 1991 producing 224,000kW with a thermal efficiency of 49%.

4.8 The Educational Units

A large number of small gas turbines have been produced for educational purposes. These were sold in significant numbers to colleges and universities around the world. Between 1955 and 1965 the Rover Company manufactured more than 250 small gas turbines (60hp) for educational establishments. In addition to colleges and universities around the UK they were sent to 40 countries worldwide from Australia to Uruguay.

4.9 Gas Turbine Fuel Options

Light oil and diesel started as the preferred fuels however from very early in the life of the gas turbine economics were pushing the need to burn a wide range of fuels. All of the following have been tried with varying success. What has changed since of course is the availability of natural gas.


4.9.1 Heavy Oil / Crude

In trials of the 1940s gas oil was used and heavier grades of fuel oil, some resulting in serious ash deposition [5]. Since then various other liquid fuels including heavy oil, crude, Naptha and others have been used extensively in gas turbines incurring penalties on maintenance intervals and costs. The oil producing states of the Middle East pushed the use of Crude Oil for direct burning in gas turbines and from the 1970s this became quite normal however the cost of maintaining such turbines was high due to corrosion and deposition. Degradation of output performance could be up to 15%. Fuel treatment was found to be an effective means of handling these fuels but again at a cost. It is generally agreed that not all gas turbines are suitable for burning heavy oils and crude.

4.9.2 Coal

By 1939 work was already under way testing gas turbines with coal. One paper stated that an experimental gas turbine set had been run on pulverised fuel for many months at the Brown Boveri testing plant. In the UK during the 1950s a great deal of effort was employed on gas turbine coal burning trials; these being reported by C A Parsons, Ruston, Metrovick and others. In Canada the government awarded a contract to McGill University in 1950 to construct an experimental coal burning locomotive. In 1961 Union Pacific in the USA made trials with UP80 an experimental coal burning gas turbine (GTEL) locomotive. These were not successful. The Escher Wyss closed cycle was much more successful in burning coal in conjunction with the gas turbine. These closed cycle plants burning coal were built in Germany, Russia and the UK from 1950 1963. In 1999 the US DOE (Office of Industrial Technologies Energy Efficiency) promoted a Coal-Fired Air Turbine (CAT) Cycle Plant to deliver more than 40% efficiency, currently at the feasibility study stage. The process that does overcome the difficulty of burning coal in gas turbines is Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC). IGCC is already well proven, converting coal into a clean gas (known as Syngas) and able to achieve better than 45% efficiency.

4.9.3 Peat

In the days before the dilemma on the depletion of Peat resources it was foreseen that Peat could be used for power generation. The concept was promoted by the British Government for the North of Scotland Hydro Electric Board. The process required the Peat to be milled and then passed to the combustors on the gas turbine. The first open cycle gas turbine to run on Peat was built by Ruston & Hornsby [9] in 1949. A test facility was constructed in Lincoln and tests carried out in 1952 and 1953. The systems were developed to the extent that a full scale trial in Scotland was envisaged. At the same time John Brown, developed a gas turbine using Escher Wyss closed cycle technology and carried out trials in their works in 1950. They went on to install two peat burning plants in Scotland, one at Altnabreac and the other Dundee. Work was stopped on the peat plants around 1960 due to the relative cost of producing electricity from Peat being significantly higher than conventional methods.

4.9.4 Blast Furnace Gas

Gas turbines have been successfully modified to burn blast furnace gas (BFG). This was known to be possible during the 1930s. Blast furnace gas has major drawbacks for gas turbines as it is of low calorific value resulting in huge gas volumes and contains significant amounts of dust. In 1955 a Westinghouse W201 machine was modified as a blast furnace gas blower and fired on blast furnace gas. There were 30 BFG fired gas turbines reported to be installed in Europe from 1950 to 1965.


In 1958 MHI supplied their first BFG fired gas turbine, this was an 850kW machine fro Nippon Steel. Since then and up to 2004 MHI has been really successful in this field supplying another 12 BFG fired gas turbines, the sizes increasing to 180,000kW [45].

4.9.5 Natural Gas

Natural gas is widely considered as a clean fuel, easy to burn and good for gas turbines. Until the early 1980s natural gas was not available for power generation. The exception to this was the Middle East where oil producing states had huge quantities of residual gas to burn. Until the gas turbine came along this gas was just disposed of by burning by flare. A memorable sight of the Gulf in the late 1970s was the large number of flares burning across the Middle East. At that time even the gas turbine power plants of the Middle East were either distillate or Crude fired. The oil crisis of 1973 became the driver for the petroleum industry to develop new oil fields and the result of this was natural gas becoming available in sufficient quantities to burn in gas turbines. In the beginning the supply of natural gas was largely on an interruptible basis hence every power generation gas turbine needed to be dual fired and have a back up fuel supply. This gradually changed as natural gas was discovered in bigger quantities and the oil companies began recovering residual gas and creating gas grids to deliver the gas to power plants. Slowly the need for oil as a standby fuel has diminished and many gas turbines now rely solely on the natural gas grid.

5. British Industrial Gas Turbine Companies

By far the largest group of companies and organisations active in the field of the industrial gas turbine during the period 1940-1990 were British. The book The Industrial Gas Turbine by Dr E.C. Roberson, published in 1951[6], has twelve British manufacturers listed as already active in industrial gas turbine manufacture. The research for this publication has shown that in the 1950s there were in fact 18 British companies directly involved in the design and manufacture of the industrial gas turbine. A code is introduced here to assist with the cataloguing and listing of all the gas turbine manufacturing companies. The full list of the companies of all nationalities and reference codes is provided in Table 4. A1 W.H. Allen The W.H. Allen Company was based in Bedford, United Kingdom and members of the W.H. Allen heritage group have kindly contributed to this history by providing information, tables and technical papers. In 1947, in cooperation with Bristol Aero Engines, Allens produced a 1,000kW set. This set was designed for the Admiralty as a marine auxiliary unit and had a separate power turbine. They also produced a 150kW gas turbine driven alternator designed for emergency standby and peaking purposes [13]. It was the Admiralty that persuaded Allens to set up its own Gas Turbine department. This team was under the leadership of Arthur Pope, a former member of the Power Jets team, then working for the Bristol Aeroplane Company under Roy Fedden. A Design Consultancy Agreement was concluded with Bristol and almost immediately a contract from the Admiralty to develop a:

1,000kW gas turbine generator set for base load operation Design work on the Allen 1,000kW engine commenced early in 1948 and the unit was successfully run at full speed and power early in 1951. As conceived, the unit had an axial compressor of 4.25/1 pressure ratio driven by a 2 stage turbine; tubular combustion chambers disposed symmetrically around the engine; an annular two-pass cross-flow heat exchanger and a separate single stage power turbine. The engine layout was determined largely by the Admiralty space requirements.


Due to changes in Warship design only one example was ever built. The engine was run initially at Bedford and then mainly at NGTE (Pyestock) where it accumulated some 4000 hrs running. Most of this was satisfactory with the exception of the heat exchanger. It was found that this needed greater flexibility to accommodate thermal expansion and a more corrosion resistant tube material.

Admiralty Emergency Generator of 125KW This simple engine was designed for short term use, low cost and bulk being more important than low fuel consumption. This engine had a centrifugal compressor and radial turbine machined from a common forging. A single large combustion chamber was mounted vertically above the turbine volute. Output to the epicyclic gear was taken from the compressor end. The rotor configuration emerged from a series of studies, which indicated that large amounts of cooling air would be required to cool a conventional separate turbine disc. Later work included:

500kW Marine Auxiliary Generator During the early 1950s, following the satisfactory running of the 1,000kW set and the review of Admiralty policy, a 500kW base load set was required for a weight of about 2 tons and a thermal efficiency of not less than 20%. This challenging specification resulted in a design study considering three configurations in some detail. These were an Intercooled Compound Engine with Alternator on HP spool, an Intercooled Compound Engine with Heat Exchanger and a Single Shaft Core + Free Power Turbine + Heat Exchanger. The selected compound intercooled engine had two spools. The prototype engine was installed in HMS Llandaff, a new diesel powered Frigate. Production Engines were installed in the County Class Destroyers, and in the Tribal Class Frigates. The Tribal Class Frigates totalled seven in all and these were commissioned between November 1961 and April 1967. Due to the lack of ships to protect home waters, whilst the Falklands Task Force was in the South Atlantic at least three of the Tribals were taken off the reserve list and refitted in some haste in 1981/2. Three of the Tribal class were sold to Indonesia in 1986 following an extensive refit at Vosper Thorneycroft's yard.

350kW Marine Auxiliary Generator The 350kW machine was introduced in 1956 as a marine auxiliary set. One of these units was installed on the cruise ship S.S. Rotterdam in 1959 where it remained until 2007. The S.S. Rotterdam had been moored for a number of years in Freetown, Barbados. The ship was eventually purchased by the Steamship Rotterdam Foundation and brought back to Holland for restoration as a floating museum. Initially is was thought that the Allen gas turbine was still on board S.S. Rotterdam however during this research a message was received from the Foundation sincerely regretting that the engine had been scrapped. From the summer of 2002 until the summer of 2006 the foundation had corresponded with the Roll-Royce Heritage Trust. All concerned were fully aware of the uniqueness of the engine, and had tried to keep her on board as a part of the museum. Unfortunately this contact did not lead to the rescue of the engine and in 2007 the engine was removed from the ship and subsequently was scrapped. According to Michael Lane's History of Queen's Engineering Works, the numbers of Allen Gas Turbines produced were no more than about 35 sets in all. The Gas Turbine department was finally run down in 1964 on completion of the generating sets for the County Class Destroyers. As a result of a merger in 1968 W.H. Allen became part of Amalgamated Power Engineering (APE) and in 1981 the APE group was taken over by Northern Engineering Industries (NEI). Finally in 1989 Rolls-Royce


acquired the NEI group. The Bedford works were closed in the year 2000 bringing to an end 106 years of manufacturing on the site. A5 Associated Electrical Industries In 1926 Associated Electrical Industries (AEI) was created as a holding company. They bought out both BTH and Metropolitan Vickers in 1928 and increased the size of the Rugby sites. The gas turbine story of AEI is therefore told here primarily under the names of Metrovick and BTH. In 1945, under the names Metrovick and BTH, AEI entered the field of using gas turbines for electricity generation. In the 1960s AEI licensed a number of companies to manufacture Marine gas turbines to their design including Harland and Wolff, Thorneycroft, White, and Yarrow in the UK; also Franco Tosi and Reggiana in Italy, and Werkspoor in Holland. AEI were a main contractor to CEGB for the peak lopping gas turbines using aero engines as gas generators. Between 1964 and 1980 AEI installed 13 of these units totalling 445MW installed capacity for the CEGB. AEI also supplied a further 42 units totalling 1050MW to other countries. The total worldwide for this type of installation by AEI came to 55 units produced with 1450 MW capacity. AEI was bought by GEC in 1967 and in 1968 the gas turbine business was merged into English Electric to form GEC Alsthom. A6 Austin Motor Company The Austin Motor Company was based in Longbridge, United Kingdom. The team working on gas turbines was led by Dr. John Weaving and started work in 1952. They built the Austin Gas Turbine Car and a significant number of small gas turbines for auxiliary power generation and pumping duties. Work was started by Austin on the gas turbine in April 1952 and the first unit ran in 1954 using a Rolls-Royce Merlin supercharger as a compressor. Austin went on to build the Austin 250 hp gas turbine engine and that went onto the market in 1961. After several years of turbine development a good product was being produced, it was marketed in the USA as a total energy package incorporated into the AMF Beaird Maxim heat recovery boiler. Between 1962 and 1969 Austin manufactured over 70 gas turbines all but one being the 250hp rated machine. Most of these were sold in the UK however a few went to other countries including Algeria, Australia, Canada, Burma, Finland, Holland, Iran, Libya, Norway and the USA. A 300hp model was also introduced in 1967, however, due to the complexity of manufacture resulting in high production costs, producing these machines was not a profitable venture therefore after about nine years a decision was made to stop production. The Austin Motor Company and the Nuffield Organisation (Morris, MG, Riley and Wolseley) merged to form the British Motor Corporation (BMC) in 1952 and then in 1968 was it became part of British Leyland. B1 Bristol Siddeley Bristol Siddeley was formed in 1959 as the result of the merger of Bristol Aero Engines with Armstrong Siddeley Motors. The technical office of the Bristol Siddeley Power Division Ansty set up in 1963 and headed was by Roxbee Cox. The two BS engines that have had a major impact on the industrial gas turbine field are the Proteus and the Olympus. The Proteus engine was first introduced in 1946 and it became the power plant of the Britannia aircraft. A version of the engine (3,320kW) was used in 1960-64 to power the Bluebird, Donald Campbell's land


speed record car. The bluebird had a drive shaft at each end of the engine, each connected to a separate axle. This engine was also used in 1968 on the Mountbatten class cross-channel hovercraft, which had four "Marine Proteus" engines (3,000kW) in the rear of the craft. Another use of the Proteus was for remotely operated power generation of the South West of England in what were called "Pocket Power Stations". The first two Pocket power stations were installed at Princetown, Dartmoor in December 1959 and at the Bristol Siddeley Patchway site. A further four sets were commissioned between 1960 and 1965, they were also called "The Robot Power Stations". It has been commented that the running hours for the Proteus hovercraft engines were quite significant, however, for the industrial units the running hours were quite modest as their duty was not as base load generators but as emergency supply/standby units. Although the fleet of engines is now considerably reduced, particularly with the closure of the Hoverspeed operation in Dover some years ago, Proteus engines still form a vital strategic role at the Nuclear power stations and will retain an operational duty to the end of this decade. BS decided to contract and build number of Olympus and Proteus powered stations in various configurations in the next few years. The Olympus engine was first introduced in 1950 and is probably most well known as the Concorde engine. This engine was installed by the Royal Navy in the Frigate HMS Exmouth in a re-fit completed in 1968. Then in 1980/ 85 they were used as the most impressive marine power plant being the engines for the HMS Invincible, HMS Illustrious and HMS Ark Royal aircraft carriers each ship being powered by four Olympus engines. The TM3B engines used on the aircraft carriers provide 97,000shp on two shafts, this being 18,000kW each engine or 72,000kW total shaft power. At that time BS had a demonstrator Olympus generation set in one of the bays in Hams Hall "A" power station. Originally rated at 15MW it was uprated to 17.5MW in 1964. The unit was based on an aero Olympus 201 (the 202 went into the Vulcan) and had a heavy industrial style, two-stage power turbine. Between 1962 and 1969 a significant number of the Olympus engines were installed in power stations as standby generating turbine sets for use in peak lopping. Bristol Siddeley acted as main contractor on most of the Olympus plants. The sets were rated at 17.5MW as individual units or 70MW as multiple units. The power stations with Olympus engines included Croydon, Rye House, Hams Hall, Tilbury, Ferrybridge, Ratcliffe, Aberthaw, Fawley, Ironbridge, Eggborough and Townhill [20]. The first of these was at Hams Hall in 1965. In 1966 Bristol Siddeley was bought by Rolls-Royce however they have continued to develop and market Bristol-designed engines. Between 1964 and 1980 BS/ RR supplied the UKs CEGB with 32 units totalling 875MW installed capacity. B2 British Thomson Houston (BTH) British Thomson Houston, from 1928 part of AEI and based in Rugby, United Kingdom played a significant role in the development of the Whittle engine. The 1937 Power Jets first prototype jet engine was built and tested at the BTH factory at Rugby. BTH had a major role in developing it. The first ever merchant vessel to be fitted with a gas turbine propulsion system was the Anglo Saxon Petroleum Company Tanker GTV Auris 12,000 tons d.w. fitted with a BTH 1200hp gas turbine generating set for electrical propulsion in 1951. In 1951 the owner replaced one of four diesel engines with a 1200hp gas turbine. The first Atlantic crossing solely under the power of a marine gas turbine was made with this British Thomson Houston gas turbine in March 1952 [10]. In 1954 BTH manufactured two of the 2,000/ 2,500kW class machines for Nairobi South Power Station in Kenya. These were single line sets with the turbine driving the compressor and the alternator, via speed


reducing gears. It had a single combustion chamber mounted vertically at the side of the set and bolted to the bottom half of the casing. In 1961 HMS Ashanti was fitted with AEI gas turbine for main propulsion. Finally BTH, as part of AEI, was bought by GEC in 1967 and in 1968 the gas turbine business was merged into English Electric to form GEC Alsthom. B4 Brush Electrical Engineering The Brush Electrical Company is based in Loughborough, United Kingdom. The original company was established in Lambeth, London and in 1889 the works moved from Lambeth to Loughborough. In 1970 it became part of Hawker Siddeley Power Engineering. Little information has been found about Brush gas turbines other than in 1954 they made a 2000/ 2,500kW class gas turbine. The Brush machine was designed to run at either 3000 or 3600 rpm, being directly coupled to an alternator and was installed at Ashford Common in Middlesex. [7][14] B5 Budworth Turbines David Dutton Budworth was an ex Rover design engineer who established his business in Harwich, Essex in 1947 producing small aero gas turbines and in 1952 he started building small industrial gas turbines. The Budworth 50 HP industrial gas turbine was packaged and marketed very successfully as an instructional unit. These were sold to educational establishments, universities and technical colleges worldwide. This is claimed as a great achievement for such a relatively small company. There were three different machines produced by Budworth, the Brill 50hp, the Puffin 180hp and the Blowfly 300hp. Between 1966 and 1971 there were 100 of these small gas turbines produced. Most of them were the 50hp version supplied to educational establishments around the world. David Budworth died as a result of a flying accident on Oct 25th 1974 and in 1975 the company was acquired by Noel Penny and incorporated into his small aero engine turbine business. Noel Penny was also a former designer at Rover. That company stopped trading in the late 1980s. C1 Centrax Gas Turbines Centrax Limited is a privately-owned company based in Newton Abbot, Devon in the South West of England, a company founded in 1946 by Richard H Barr OBE and Geoffrey R White. Towards the end of the Second World War, Richard Barr who had worked for Frank Whittle on his Power Jets team went into the design and production of a small 250 hp aero turbine as he saw the market for industrial turbines for road transport or possibly for industrial power generation. In 1947/8 he began manufacturing a 160hp industrial gas turbine designed for use in an automotive environment, potentially for road transport. The engine was exhibited as an example of the application of gas turbines to industry at the British Trade Fair in London in 1948. Richard Barr turned to the area he had become very skilled at blade-making, and as a result he was able get contracts to make blades for companies such as Napier, Ruston, Allen and then later Armstrong Siddeley and others. Because of the huge demand for blades in the new industry of jet engines the business took off and the Blades Division was created. Centrax grew from 3 people to 600 people in 4 years specifically making blades. After this early success, Centrax began manufacturing a series of gas turbines mainly for industrial roles, such as powering emergency standby generator sets. The most successful gas turbine at this time was the CS600-2, designed in the 1960s. It was a single-shaft, constant speed unit designed for operation in


arduous conditions. The Centrax industrial turbines became successful in many areas of industry including providing back-up power for many banks and other companies using the early computers of the 60s and 70s. The CS600 engine was introduced by Centrax in 1962 with a rating of 600hp (450kW). This was then uprated to 730hp (545kW) in 1962 then 914hp (680kW) in 1963 and 1,010hp (750kW) in 1964. Centrax continues to manufacture gas turbines in Newton Abbott, Devon today. The current models produced are the KB3 (2,700kW), KB5 (3,950kW) and KB7 (5,330kW) being based on the Rolls Royce 501 engine. Since 2007 they have had a licence to package the Rolls Royce Industrial Trent 60. C2 C A Parsons & Co The C A Parsons Company was founded by Charles Algernon Parsons in 1889 and based in Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom. Until it was taken over by Rolls Royce in 1989 it had been in existence for 100 years manufacturing turbines, compressors and other machinery. A new history of the Parsons gas turbine activity has been specially written for this history project by John Bolter, formerly the Chief Turbine Engineer and Engineering Director of C A Parsons in Newcastle upon Tyne. The paper of John Bolter is to be published separately. The involvement of Charles Parsons in the gas turbine story began with his patent of 1884 where he described the principles of his multiple motor turbine. From 1937 to 1942 the Parsons Company worked on various designs for an industrial gas turbine with a rating of 500 bhp. The results of this work were presented to the IMechE in London during February 1948 and published in June 1948. [5] The contribution of Parsons to the development of the gas turbine is summarised as follows:

In 1945 the first Parson's gas turbine was completed and experiments carried out at the Heaton works of C A Parsons. The design of this machine had started in 1938.

In 1948 a 15,000kW gas turbine was ordered for the British Electricity Authority (BEA) at Dunston Power Station, near Newcastle. It was commissioned in 1955. This was a three shaft machine with reheat, inter-cooling, heat exchanger, a pressure ratio of 8:1 and overall thermal efficiency of 27.66%.

In 1948 a 10,000kW gas turbine was produced for the NGTE at Pyestock. This machine, which was commissioned in 1951, had inter-cooling, a pressure ratio of 5.5:1 and an overall thermal efficiency of 27.2%.

In 1949 a 2,170bhp (2022kW) Air Bleed gas turbine was ordered for the NGTE at Pyestock. This machine was commissioned in 1956 and had a pressure ratio of 4.05:1. It did not have any heat exchangers and the output from the unit was in the form of compressed air.

In 1950 a 2,500kW class gas turbine was developed as an advanced design with separate compressor and work turbines. The turbine was directly coupled to the alternator at 3000rpm with or without a heat exchanger. One machine was installed in Heaton works in 1954 and a second produced for Singapore and installed at the Pasir Panjang power station.

In 1952 at the request of the UK Government Parsons also developed a coal fired gas turbine locomotive in conjunction with the North British Locomotive Company. This unit had a rating of 1800hp [37].

In 1954 the first use of a gas turbine in an armoured fighting vehicle was when a unit specifically developed for tanks by Parsons was installed and trialled in a British Conqueror tank

By 1959 the company decided not to continue with the small gas turbine market. They did prepare designs for a 30,000kW unit with a nine stage compressor and a three stage turbine. This gas turbine did not materialise.


In 1977 C A Parsons became part of Northern Engineering Industries (NEI) and in 1989 part of Rolls-Royce. Then in 1997 the power generation division of Siemens acquired the business. Siemens continues manufacture of generator spindles at the much-reduced 'Parsons Works' in Heaton, Newcastle upon Tyne, although the Parsons name itself is no longer used as a trade name. E2 English Electric Company The English Electric Company was formed in 1918 and it took over the company Willans and Robinson of Rugby and the Willans Works. The company gas turbine activities were based initially based at the Willans Works in Rugby and later moved to Whetstone, Leicestershire, United Kingdom. In 1951 English Electric was already devoting considerable effort into the production of gas turbines with a range from 2,000kW to 20,000kW being manufactured at the Rugby works. In 1954 a 2,000/ 2,500kW class gas turbine with axial / centrifugal compressor was developed. The first of these went to Ashford Common. A 20,000kW unit was designed for central power station use and differed from other machines at the time by having no heat exchanger and the thermal efficiency improved by using a higher pressure ratio. [13] Between 1956 and 1964 there were 26 industrial (heavy duty) gas turbines manufactured by English Electric. A number went to Iraq for oil pumping duty. In 1960 one 2,750hp (2,000kW) unit was used in an EE locomotive. The two largest industrial gas turbine operating in the UK at that time were the 20,000kW machines for RAE Bedford installed in 1955. These were of the twin shaft type with heat exchangers and installed for power generation to drive the blowers at the RAE Bedford aircraft research facility. Refer to Chapter 10. E3 English Electric Gas Turbine Department Whetstone In 1955 the English Electric part of the gas turbine story moved from Rugby to Whetstone about 20 miles north. The Whetstone gas turbine facility had been established in 1942 by Power jets as a jet engine factory and was the site where most of the Whittle engine testing was carried out. This site also became a research centre for the gas turbine division of GEC. We are especially privileged to have a first hand account of the work done at Whetstone from Steve Reed, who was employed at Lincoln and Whetstone, and has contributed to much of this history. Included in the achievements of English Electric were:

1960 First gas turbine generating station in Indonesia (3 x 2,000kW) Shell Indonesia

1961 First gas turbine generating station in India (3 x 2,000kW) Oil-India Private-Ltd

1964 First large gas turbine set employing multiple aero gas generators enters service at Earley, Reading England a 56,000kW unit with two twin jet power turbines to drive a single generator

1967 First gas turbine generating station in South Africa (2 x 22,200kW) City of Johannesburg EE/ GEC were a main contractor to the CEGB for the peak lopping gas turbines using Avon aero engines as gas generators. Between 1964 and 1980 the UKs CEGB installed 63 of the EE/ GEC units totalling 2260MW installed capacity. EE/ GEC supplied a further 21 units totalling 405MW to other countries. The total worldwide for this type of installation by EE/ GEC came to 84 units produced with 2665 MW capacity. The record of gas turbines produced in Rugby and Whetstone by English Electric and subsequently GEC/ Alsthom shows that in total some 595 machines were produced for UK and overseas installation including power generation, mechanical drive and off-shore applications. In 2003, at the time of the sale of the Alstom small gas turbine business, this was designated as the Alstom Power Technology Centre with manufacturing being carried out in Lincoln.


E2 General Electric Company (GEC) UK The Fraser and Chalmers Company had been started in the USA by two young men from Scotland who formed a company in London around 1890 at Erith, Kent. The British company expanded into steam plant, milling machinery and general engineering. Fraser and Chalmers factory was bought by the General Electric Company (GEC). An earlier link to Alsthom has been discovered being a licence agreement between Fraser and Chalmers and Rateau. In 1965 GEC sold out their turbo generator business to C A Parsons as part of a rationalisation in the turbine industry required by CEGB. In 1967 GEC acquired AEI then after acquiring AEI, in 1968 GEC itself was merged with English Electric and the gas turbine business, based at Whetstone, Leicester became known as GEC Gas Turbines Limited. J1 John Brown & Co/ John Brown Engineering The John Brown Company (JBE) was based in Clydebank, Scotland. In 1948 John Brown entered the field of gas turbines with an experimental machine based on a Pametrada design. At the same time they had entered into a licence agreement with Esher-Wyss of Switzerland allowing them to market and to produce the Esher-Wyss closed cycle design gas turbine. This relationship lasted until 1962 when they temporarily abandoned gas turbine manufacture. The initial phase of John Browns gas turbine business was most interesting as they built closed cycle gas turbines to run on Peat. This work on closed cycle systems is closely linked to that of Escher Wyss of Switzerland. This work was carried out for NOSHEB and the Scottish Peat committee throughout the late 1940s and early 1950s. There was also a 12,500kW closed cycle machine installed in the Carolina Port power station in Dundee and a 7,000kW closed cycle machine installed in the Foleshill Coventry gas works. There was a pause in the manufacture of gas turbines on Clydebank as in 1962, due to the difficulties experienced in Scotland, the manufacture of gas turbines stopped. In 1965 JBE resumed gas turbine manufacture under a new licence arrangement with GE, USA. The GE manufacturing licence resulted in some 552 GE machines being produced by John Brown in Clydebank until it came to an end in 1999 when GE bought back the gas turbine business. Initially the agreement with GE was for John Brown Engineering to manufacture Frame 3 and Frame 5 gas turbines for a period of 7 years. This was later extended by 10 years and finally lasted 34 years. This arrangement allowed JBE to manufacture GE turbines for both exportation to the USA (called re-imports) and to other markets. The first GE machines left Clydebank in 1967 and between 1967 and 1999 JBE supplied 90 -MS3002, 2 - MS5001 and 45 - MS5002 gas turbines for mechanical drive applications. In the same period the company manufactured 4 - MS3002, 265 - MS5001, 1 - MS5002, 92 - MS6001, 4 - MS7001, and 49 - MS9001 gas turbines for power generation. In total 552 GE gas turbines were manufactured at Clydebank. In 1999 the gas turbine business of John Brown Engineering was sold to GE and manufacturing of turbines on Clydebank ceased after 51 years. L1 Joseph Lucas (Gas Turbine Equipment) The Joseph Lucas Company, in addition to their aero engine work, has had quite an involvement in the development of the industrial gas turbine starting from 1940. A company named Joseph Lucas (Gas turbine Equipment) designed combustion chambers for gas turbines. In the 1948 paper of C A Parsons [5] it is mentioned that a Lucas combustion chamber had been included in the trials.


L2 British Leyland Gas turbines In 1968 the Leyland Motor Company absorbed both Austin and Rover gas turbines to form the British Leyland Gas Turbine Company. The leading design engineer was Noel Penny, formerly at Rover. Leyland continued production of the Austin 250hp engine until 1969. The Rover design was much more successful and the manufacture of the Rover designed gas turbines continued until 1973. British Leyland introduced their gas turbine powered truck at Earls Court in 1968 this had a 350/ 400hp engine. This was followed by the gas turbine for the British Rail high speed train (APT-E) which went on trial in 1972. In 1973 British Leyland stopped the production of gas turbines mainly because diesel engines were coming on stream producing more power by the adoption of turbo charging, and were also more economical. After this Noel Penny decided to establish his own company and this would have been around 1973-74. M1 Metropolitan Vickers (Metrovick) Metropolitan Vickers, part of AEI was based at Trafford Park in Manchester, United Kingdom. This was known as the Barton Dock Road site. Metrovick started work on gas turbines around 1947 and one of the gas turbine team in Trafford Park was Frank Harris. We are especially privileged to have a first hand account of the work done in those early days from Trevor Wick who was also employed in the gas turbine department. The first British axial-flow jet engine was the Metrovick F2 known as the Beryl engine. This engine was followed by the Sapphire design. MV was eventually persuaded to hand over the Beryl/Sapphire design to Armstrong Siddeley. In 1947 a Metrovick gas turbine installation in the MGB2009 became the worlds first ever gas turbine propelled ship. The worlds first gas turbine ship was powered by a Metropolitan Vickers engine. This Royal Navy vessel went to sea in July 1947 and was designated Motor Gun Boat 2009. The turbine, rated at 2500hp, was named the Gatric. [7] A Metrovic gas turbine of 1948 was the first ever generating set to run in parallel with the British National Grid System. This was a Turbo Jet engine driving a power turbine for a 2,000kW generating set and known as the E.G.T.P. In 1952 Metrovick supplied a 15,000kW gas turbine, which was installed in Trafford power station becoming the first to enter service for the BEA. This being one of two similar gas turbines ordered at the time, the other being from C A Parsons. This unit differed as it was a two shaft arrangement; one driving the HP compressor and the other the LP compressor and the alternator, the HP shaft ran at a higher speed. In 1952 Metrovick developed a 3000 hp version of their gas turbine for locomotive traction and this was put into service by British Railways in April 1952 using fuel oil. This unit, intended for overseas railways, had considerably more power than developed by current locomotives in use in the UK at the time. In 1954 a 2,000/ 2,500kW class gas turbine was developed and the first one was installed at the Metropolitan Water Board Ashford Common pumping station. Another machine, slightly lower output, was procured by a British Oil Company and sent to Venezuela. This Metrovick gas turbine department worked independently until 1958 when they were amalgamated with the BTH team in Rugby as AEI eventually becoming part of GEC Gas Turbines.


P1 Power Jets The Power Jets Company was formed in 1936 by Frank Whittle. The company was incorporated and Whittle received permission from the Air Ministry to serve as honorary chief engineer and technical consultant for five years. Whittle then went to BTH at Rugby and contracted them to build a "WU" (Whittle Unit), his first experimental jet engine. The WU engine was built in Rugby and fired for the first time on 12 April 1937 at the nearby Power Jets facility in Lutterworth, Leicestershire. They then moved to a new site at Whetstone. In 1944 Power Jets was nationalised and after that they became a government owned consulting group. R2 Rolls-Royce From the 1940s until the 1960s R-R and its original absorbed companies did not get into industrial power generation. It was left to English Electric, Ruston and AEI to develop industrial machines as it was not R-R area of expertise. In 1953 Rolls Royce developed the RM60 gas turbine for the marine application with an output of 6000 hp. The machine was a lightweight compound unit built from aero engine technology. The RM60 was for the Royal Navy HMS Grey Goose, which had 2 x RM60 engines [13]. No more were built. RR consists of a number aero engine companies that, as a result of political motivation were absorbed into BS and RR in 1960. Then in 1966 RR absorbed BS. RR however had an entirely different approach to industrial gas turbines. They sold only gas generators to main contractors such as AEI, English Electric, GEC and Stal Laval. When RR took over BS, Ansty became the Industrial and Marine Division and main contracting was dropped except for marine work for the MoD. Rolls Royce had become involved in rail propulsion on at least two occasions, one with the M45 (a joint RR/SNECMA engine) at the time of the TGV. The other occasion was when BR had problems with the Rover engines in their high speed train. These two ventures were not pursued. RR industrialised the largest version of the Avon, the Mk 533, to become the Industrial Avon Mk 1533. The first unit was installed in 1964 into gas pipeline duty by TransCanada at their Caron Station, producing around 10 MW. Most of the power generation Avons were sold to the CEGB through the previous mentioned main contract companies when it decided to overcome the grid weakness exposed by the east Kent blackout in the early 1960s. There were many of these sold outside of UK by GEC. During the following 40 years or so the Avon has been uprated several times, but mostly for the oil and gas industry rather than power generation. The CEGB Avons were all Mk 1533B and matched to an equivalent final nozzle diameter of 24.5 inches. Sales to CEGB ran from 1963 to 1967. The RR 501 industrial gas turbine has a rating of 5,000kW. The RB211 engine was originally developed for the TriStar and entered service in 1972. It is a three shaft design. During 1974 the industrial version of the RB211 was launched but with the oil & gas industry in mind. These units have also been used for power generation and are rated 25,000 to 44,000kW. The RB211 is still being uprated and new models are being marketed. The Trent 800 is a three shaft engine that first went into service in the Boeing 777 and first ran in August 1990. The Industrial Trent Gas Turbine is a derivative of this engine and is designed for power generation and mechanical drive. It delivers up to 64,000kW of electricity at 42% efficiency. The Marine Trent is a derivative of the Trent 800, with gearbox, that produces 36,000kW for maritime applications. It will power the Royal Navy's next generation of aircraft carriers.


The WR-21 is a development introduced in the 1990s. This is an I

Documents

IDGTE Paper 582