In cooperation with Samara University, Power Machines will develop russia's first gas turbine plant powered by methane-hydrogen mixture

JSC "Power machines" and Samara National Research University named after Academician S. P. Korolev have set up a joint Design Bureau (DB) called "Hydrogen SM". This new DB will be engaged in developing the technologies for the first domestic gas turbine plant powered by methane-hydrogen fuel.   The Scientific and Technical Council of "Hydrogen SM" Design Bureau is headed by Alexander Ivanovsky, the General Designer of JSC "Power Machines".

"For our company, the development of collaboration with our scientific partners represents one of the priorities in the strategy aimed at the development of new products", Alexander Ivanovsky, General Designer of JSC "Power Machines", said. "We bring our experience, our production capabilities, and our field-testing facilities into this partnership, while Samara University provides access to their unique experimental facilities and research and development experience. I am sure that such collaboration is not only the key factor for the development of the participants, but it also contributes to the technological leadership of our country."

"The main focus of this new Design Bureau will be the development of combustion chambers for power gas turbine units operating on alternative fuels with high hydrogen content", - Sergey Matveev, head of "Hydrogen SM" Design Bureau said. "This is a new area of focus in the Russian energy sector, as such domestic turbine plants do not yet exist. The first project of this new Design Bureau will be the development of a combustion chamber for the high-potential GTE-65V gas turbine plant with a capacity of 65 MW. This turbine plant will use a methane-hydrogen mixture as the fuel, which will allow us to increase the turbine capacity (power) while reducing the volume of harmful emissions into the atmosphere."

In the process of development of the combustion chamber for GTE-65V, the Design Bureau specialists will have to optimize its design to determine the most effective composition of the fuel mixture and to address the problem of acoustic pulsations occurring during the combustion of hydrogen fuel, while also proposing measures aimed at maximizing the reduction of NOx emissions.

The specialists of "Hydrogen SM" Design Bureau will use the unique experimental bench facilities of Samara University for refining the combustion processes of methane-hydrogen mixtures and will also perform validation of the computation methods of the combustion processes. Based on the results of these processes, a new combustion chamber will be designed. A prototype of the combustion chamber will be manufactured in the Laboratory of Additive Manufacturing Technologies of the University. The experiments on the combustion of methane-hydrogen mixtures are scheduled to begin as early as February of 2021.

Development of the design documentation for the prototype of the full-scale combustion chamber is expected to be completed in 2023; after that, the experimental combustion chamber will be manufactured and tested at the full-scale test site of Power Machines. The tests are scheduled to be completed by the end of year 2024.