Hypersonic and high-enthalpy wind tunnels have been a challenge in ground testing facilities in aerospace research for decades. In regard to performance requirements, theories and methods for designing hypersonic flow nozzles at high enthalpy conditions are quite difficult, but very interesting topics, especially when dissociation of air molecules take place in test-gas reservoirs. In this chapter, fundamental theories and important methods for nozzle design are reviewed with the emphasis on two-dimensional axisymmetric nozzles for hypersonic high-enthalpy wind tunnels, including the method of characteristics, the graphic design method, the Sivells method, the theory for boundary layer correction, and computational fluid dynamics (CFD)-based design optimization methods. They were proposed based on several physical issues covering the expansion wave generation and reflection, boundary layer development, and real-gas effects of hypersonic flows. Difficulties arising from applications of these methods in high-enthalpy nozzle design are discussed in detail and state-of-the-art of nozzle design technologies that have been reached over decades are summarized with some brief comments.

Based on detonation-driven shock tunnels, key issues that play important roles in extending the test time are introduced in this chapter, and the corresponding solutions are proposed, evaluated, and discussed in detail, including the tailored-interface condition, the shock–boundary-layer interaction at the end of the driven section, and the precursor shock damping in the vacuum tank. The research work on these issues was carried out to find out the flow physics and application methods to improve the high-enthalpy shock tunnel for meeting the test time requirement for supersonic combustion and scramjet engine experiments. With application of the aforementioned theories and methods to the high-enthalpy shock tunnel, a large-scale detonation-driven hypersonic flight-duplicated shock tunnel (the JF-12 shock tunnel) was successfully developed, which can provide test times of more than 100 microseconds and is capable of duplicating hypersonic flight conditions for Mach numbers of 5–9 at altitudes of 25–50 km.

The detonation-driven shock tunnel is one of three important classes of hypersonic and high-enthalpy ground testing facilities that are based on the shock-heated principle. The theory and methods for developing the detonation-driven shock tunnels aiming at hypervelocity flow generation are summarized in this chapter. At first, the primary concepts for detonation drivers are presented to demonstrate their unique advantages for aerodynamic ground-based testing. The difficult problems arising from the development of hypervelocity shock tunnels for simulating flight conditions are identified and discussed in detail to address critical issues underlying the high-enthalpy shock tunnel design. Then, three kinds of detonation-driven shock tunnels are introduced, and their key techniques and performances are reviewed and discussed in detail. Finally, some experiments are summarized to demonstrate the capability of the detonation-driven hypersonic shock tunnel and the importance of the measurement techniques for hypersonic and high-temperature flow experiments. Both are the frontiers of high-enthalpy flow research for developing hypersonic vehicles.

In order to introduce hypersonic ground testing facilities, background information in hypersonics is presented to show to readers what we want to do, where we have been, and where we are going to go. These will provide with a good indication of the research needs that are called as hypersonic vehicle ground testing. It is of fundamental importance that a vehicle design must be carefully evaluated in ground test facilities before flight testing can proceed. Indeed, the development of hypersonic vehicles is related to the capability development of hypersonic ground testing facilities.

Hydrogen as a carbon-free fuel is amenable to utilization in all heat engines, including gas turbines and reciprocating internal combustion engines, which are the most efficient technologies for electric power generation from fossil fuels. Alas, H2 is not an energy resource. It is an energy carrier. Prior to its use as a fuel, it must be produced, stored and/or transported. There are significant problems associated with all three phases of the hydrogen fuel chain. Those aspects will be discussed qualitatively and quantitatively in the remainder of the present chapter.

From the perspective of the current book, nuclear reactors are boilers. They either act as steam boilers for Rankine steam cycle power plants (conventional deployment) or as heat exchangers to increase the temperature of the power cycle’s working fluid. As far as the second variant is concerned, it has not progressed from paper to practice. The power cycle in question is a closed cycle gas turbine. There are several candidates for the working fluid in such a cycle with supercritical CO2 being a prime candidate. This chapter covers the application of gas/steam turbine technology to nuclear power and other possibilities such as methane pyrolysis.

This chapter summarizes the views of the author about what must be done in order to have a realistic shot at meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement to curb excessive GHG emissions.

This chapter covers the essential features of key equipment encountered in electric power generation systems, gas and steam turbines, heat exchange systems receiving into and discarding heat from those systems, and other lesser equipment.

A gas turbine engine is a device that is designed to convert the thermal energy of a fuel into some form of useful power, such as mechanical (or shaft) power or a high-speed thrust of a jet. The engine consists, basically, of a gas generator and a power conversion section, as shown in Figures 1.1 and 1.2.

The focus in this chapter is on the optimal integration of concentrated solar power (CSP) and the gas turbine combined cycle (GTCC) via the bottoming cycle of the latter in an integrated solar combined cycle (ISCC) framework, which can be considered as a currently available (if not truly mature) technology.

In this chapter, we will get familiar with a unique performance gauge, which is not process dependent, but is rather state dependent, by definition. In other words, the newly defined, so-called “polytropic” efficiency is independent of the size of a turbomachine (in terms of the total-to-total pressure ratio). In addition, we will have a means of computing the overall efficiency of several stages, sharing the same total-to-total magnitudes of pressure ratio and efficiency, without having to resort to the thermodynamics of each individual stage. The point is made that adding more stages to a multistage turbomachine will have drastic, but totally opposite, effects on turbines as contrasted to compressors. We will prove through this exercise that adding more turbine stages enhances the performance of the final turbine configuration. The effect in compressors, on the other hand, is that of performance deterioration.

Consider the simplest nonafterburning, single-spool turbojet engine, which is schematically shown in Figure 12.1. Assuming a viable (i.e., stable compressor) operation mode, there are obvious constrains relating the gas-generator components to one another. These generally enforce the uniformity of shaft speed, as well as ensure the mass and energy conservation principles (Figure 12.2).

In this chapter, the focus is on post-combustion CO2 capture (PCC) from the heat recovery steam generator (HRSG) stack gas in a gas turbine combined cycle (GTCC) power plant. The reason for that is simple: GTCC with advanced class gas turbines and post-combustion capture represents the most cost-effective technology for carbon-free electric power generation from fossil fuels. The chapter includes detailed description of the PCC system, key equipment, and the operability of the system.

Utilization of axial-flow compressor stages (Figure 9.1) in gas turbine engines is a relatively recent development. The history of this compressor type began after an era when centrifugal compressors were dominant (Figure 9.2). It was later confirmed, on an experimental basis, that axial-flow compressors can run much more efficiently. Earlier attempts to build multistage axial-flow compressors entailed running multistage axial-flow turbines in the reverse direction. As presented in Chapter 4, a compressor-stage reaction, in this case, will be negative, a situation that has its own performance degradation effect. Today, carefully designed axial-flow compressor stages can very well have efficiencies in excess of 80%. A good part of this advancement is owing to the standardization of thoughtfully devised compressor-cascade blading rules.

This chapter covers the basic principles, concepts, and tools governing the operation of the equipment and systems described in Chapter 3. The operation of those systems in off-design conditions, steady as well as unsteady (transient), are described using basic formulae and charts.

In this chapter, a turbomachinery-related nondimensional groupings of geometric dimensions and thermodynamic properties will be derived.