Invited Speaker Abstracts
PLENARY LECTURES
Yasuhiro Kinoshita (Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Ltd.)
The interest in reduction of CO2 emission from aircraft has been increasing for the global green sky in the future carbon neutral society. ICAO Member States adopted a collective long-term global aspirational goal (LTAG) of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. Japanese Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism has launched a public-private council for aiming of reduction of CO2 emissions from aviation sector.
Hydrogen is one of the promising candidate for a fuel of the future net-zero carbon aircraft. Because hydrogen does not generate CO2, when it burned. However, there are many difficult challenges, when it uses in the aircraft. The innovative core-technologies that are necessary for the realization of hydrogen aircraft have been developing in Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Ltd. under the Green Innovation Fund of NEDO (New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization). Hydrogen engine, liquid hydrogen distribution system, liquid hydrogen tank and aircraft concept are the subject of this research, and each topic will be mentioned in the plenary session.
Prof. Toshinori Watanabe (The University of Tokyo)
Towards the global environmental goal of carbon neutrality by 2050, the research and development activities are vigorously carried out all over the world. In Japan, the heavyindustries have been executing cutting-edge technology development of hydrogen gasturbines, ammonium gas turbines, and related technologies for realizing green gasturbine systems. The development of fast start-up and flexible gas turbine technologieshave also been performed as a government project for introducing huge amount ofrenewable energy in the near future. In the field of aircraft propulsion, the industries, universities and JAXA are actively progressing cooperative research of aero-propulsion electrification. The hydrogen propulsion and the hybrid propulsion are also current enthusiastic targets of research activity. The fundamental knowledge of academia is thought critically essential for the topics concerning hydrogen utility. Recently, the Japanese government started powerful support for green technology activities in the frameworks of Green Innovation Program and Green Transformation Initiative. In the lecture, the current R&D activities in Japan toward green energy era are introduced from the academic point of view. The historically significant developments of domestic gas turbines are briefly reviewed as well. It is hoped to establish a global cooperation which is extremely important for all these activities.
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Mr. Krishnakumar PG (GE Gas Power)
The power sector’s journey to decarbonize, often referred to as the Energy Transition, is characterized by rapid deployment of renewable energy resources and a rapid reduction in coal, the most carbon-intensive power generation source. Based on our extensive analysis and experience across the breadth of the global power industry, GE Vernova believes that the accelerated and strategic deployment of renewables and gas power can change the near-term trajectory for climate change, enabling substantive reductions in emissions quickly, while in parallel continuing to advance the technologies for near zero carbon power generation. Part of this deployment of gas power may involve the use of hydrogen as a fuel in order to reduce CO2 emissions.
There are two ways to systematically approach the task of turning high efficiency gas generation into a zero or near zero carbon resource: pre and post-combustion. Pre-combustion refers to the systems and processes upstream of the gas turbine and post-combustion refers to systems and processes downstream of the gas turbine. The most common approach today to tackle pre-combustion decarbonization is simple: to change the fuel, and the most talked about fuel(s) for decarbonization of the power sector is hydrogen and ammonia. GE Vernova is a world leader in gas turbine fuel flexibility, including more than 100 gas turbines that have (or continue to) operate on fuels that contain hydrogen. This fleet has accumulated more than 8 million operating hours and produced more than 530 Terawatt-hours of electricity. It includes a group of more than 30 gas turbines that have operated on fuels with at least 50% (by volume) hydrogen. These units have accumulated more than 2.5 million operating hours, giving GE a unique perspective on the challenges of using hydrogen as a gas turbine fuel.
For post-combustion decarbonization, there is a tool chest of different technologies that can remove CO2 from the flue gases with the most common being in a process referred to as carbon capture. The general concept of carbon capture involves introducing a specialized chemical which has an affinity to carbon into the plant exhaust stack. Once the CO2 and the chemical bond, the compound is taken to a separate vessel and separated into its constituents. The resulting pure CO2 is taken to a compression tank and is ready for transportation. This CO2 is then transported to either a geologic formation deep underground for permanent storage, or re-used in industrial processes, thus completing the process of Carbon Capture and Utilization or Sequestration (CCUS).
It’s important to note that pre and post combustion decarbonization approaches can be employed on existing installed gas turbines as a retrofit or included in the design of a new power plant, avoiding the potential “lock-in” of CO2 emissions for the entire life of the power plant.
Dr. Mark Hardy (Rolls-Royce)
There is increasing pressure on the aviation industry to prioritise investment in green technologies that firstly produce reductions in CO 2 emissions, and secondly, reduce noise [1]. Modern gas turbines, notably high bypass ratio turbofan aircraft engines are continuously evolving to provide improved efficiencies for reducing fuel consumption and consequently, CO 2 emissions [2, 3]. This presentation will focus on new advanced material and manufacturing technologies that enable efficiency improvements across a wide range of components for current and future large civil engines. One critical aspect is the use of high temperature materials and coatings for improvements in thermal efficiency. However, higher temperature operation, particularly for fast climb cycles can have adverse effects of component durability. The balance between efficiency and durability will be discussed with reference to intelligent cooling systems, robust component design and a full understanding of material behaviour. Other efficiency improvements will be highlighted such as those gained from advanced component manufacture, improved factory efficiency and a greater emphasis on sustainability through reduced material usage, improved material manufacturing yields, waste elimination, material recycling and component repair. Finally, a view of future green technologies for powering aviation will be shown.
[References]
- https://www.nats.aero/news/aviation-index-2020/
- European Aeronautics: A Vision for 2020, European Commission, 2001.
- Flightpath 2050 Europe’s vision for aviation, European Commission, 2011. doi:10.2777/50266
KEYNOTE LECTURES
Prof. Damian Vogt (University of Stuttgart)
The field of aeromechanics includes phenomena that may lead to vibrations of turbomachinery components, foremost turbomachinery blades. Whereas low-amplitude vibrations can be tolerated, vibrations occurring at high amplitude may lead to failure due to material overload or fatigue, making them intolerable. When designing turbomachinery components, optimization is commonly performed to meet various objectives such as performance, operating margin, fuel flexibility or costs, to name a few. Aeromechanical phenomena usually necessitate complex simulations and/or testing, making it challenging to include in an optimization process. This keynote lecture will first provide a brief introduction into turbomachinery aeromechanics, showcasing highlights from recent numerical and experimental research. Thereafter, light is shed onto the potential that an optimization of turbomachinery components may give when specifically including aeromechanics as an additional optimization objective.
Prof. Richard Sandberg (The University of Melbourne)
CFD predictions are becoming increasingly important in the design of turbomachinery components because correlation-based methods are unable to further improve efficiency and laboratory experiments with the required fidelity are prohibitively expensive. First-principles based simulations are most accurate and have the potential to elucidate mechanisms that can be exploited for further efficiency gains. Their excessive computational cost, however, preclude their use in a design context and therefore modelling is required. Unfortunately, the inaccuracies introduced by RANS- or URANS-based CFD modelling approaches can limit the impact CFD can have on technology development. This presentation will present state-of-the-art high-fidelity simulations of blades and stages, including cases with fully resolved realistic roughness, and show how physical insight relevant to designers has been extracted. The talk will also introduce some of the inherent turbulence modelling errors and how those can be addressed with a novel machine-learning approach that can use both high-fidelity or sparse experimental data. It will be shown that closure models developed using the gene-expression programming approach, which are interpretable and easily implementable into CFD solvers, outperform traditional models both for the cases they were trained on and for cases not seen before.
Dr. Kyoko Kawagishi (National Institute for Materials Science)
In order to improve the efficiency of gas turbine engines, increase of turbine inlet temperature is most effective. Ni-base superalloys are applied to the high-pressure turbine blades and discs because of their excellent characteristics in high temperature mechanical properties and environmental properties, and increase of the temperature capability of superalloys is still necessary. National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS) has been developing world-leading Ni-base superalloys for the turbine blades and discs. In this presentation, the development of advanced single-crystal superalloys with the world’s highest temperature capability and low-cost corrosion-resistant superalloys using “Alloy Design Program” are reported. Several trials for practical application of these alloys, such as research on “direct complete recycling” technology are also introduced.
Prof. Agustin Valera-Medina (Cardiff University)
A hydrogen economy has been the focus of researchers and developers over decades. However, the complexity of moving and storing hydrogen has always been a major obstacle to deploy the concept. Therefore, other materials can be employed to improve handling whilst reducing cost over long distances and long storage periods. Ammonia, a molecule with high hydrogen content, can be used to store and distribute hydrogen easily, as the molecule has been employed for more than 150 years for fertilizing purposes. Being a carbon-free chemical, ammonia (NH3) has the potential to support a hydrogen transition thus decarbonising transport, power and industries. Further, using ammonia directly can reduce costs and cycle inefficiencies. However, the complexity of using ammonia for power generation relays on the appropriate use of the chemical to reach high power outputs combined with low emission profiles. Gas turbines are currently under scrutiny for the direct use of ammonia as a fuel. Expertise on the subject is increasing and several micro Gas Turbines and small size units (~2MW) are being tested to progress in the utilization of the chemical in an efficient, stable and low polluting manner. However, progress comes with several challenges. Therefore, this session presents some global research that has taken place to understand the features of ammonia blends for powering gas turbine systems whilst addressing challenges at various power scales for units that will support the transition to carbon-free fueling in the power sector.
Dr. Dale Van Zante (NASA)
The Sustainable Flight National Partnership (SFNP) was launched in the President’s 2022 budget and is intended to accelerate the maturation of the most promising yet high risk aircraft and engine technologies in the 2020s to enable 2030s in-service impact with significant reduction in fuel consumption and emissions up to 30% lower than the highest performing aircraft in service as of December 2021 and contribute to meeting the goal of net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2050 as articulated in the 2021 U.S. Aviation Climate Action Plan. The Advanced Air Transport Technology Project (AATT) is part of the NASA research portfolio that supports SFNP goals. AATT conducts research to identify and mature promising technologies that will enable cleaner, quieter subsonic transport airplanes to meet national and international sustainable aviation goals including lower environmental impact, increased efficiency, and reduced noise around community airports. The primary AATT research themes that support SFNP are Electrified Aircraft Propulsion (EAP), Transonic Truss-Braced Wing (TTBW) and Advanced Propulsors. An overview of progress towards the SFNP goals will be presented.