JSC Power Machines working on methane-hydrogen technologies

JSC Power Machines and Samara National Research University announced a joint design bureau for the development of technologies for the first domestic gas turbine unit using methane-hydrogen fuel.

For JSC Power Machines, the development of cooperation with scientific partners is one of the priorities of the strategy for developing new products, said Alexander Ivanovsky, general designer for the company.

“We bring our experience, production and full-scale testing facilities to the partnership,” Ivanovsky said. “Samara University provides access to a unique experimental base and research and development experience. I am sure that such cooperation is not only a guarantee of the development of its participants but also contributes to the country’s technological leadership.”

The main focus of the new design bureau will be the development of combustion chambers for power gas turbine units operating on alternative fuels with a high hydrogen content, said Sergey Matveev, head of the new Hydrogen SM design bureau. This is a new direction in the energy sector of Russia, there are no similar domestic installations yet. The first project of the new design bureau will be the development of a combustion chamber for a promising gas turbine unit GTE-65V with a capacity of 65 MW. It will use a methane-hydrogen mixture as fuel, which will increase the turbine’s power and reduce the number of harmful emissions into the atmosphere.

During the development of the combustion chamber for the GTE-65V, the design bureau specialists will have to optimize its design, determine the most effective component of the fuel mixture, solve the problem of acoustic pulsations arising from the combustion of hydrogen fuel, and also propose measures to minimize nitrogen oxide emissions NOx.

Specialists of KB Hydrogen SM will use a unique experimental bench base of Samara University to test the combustion of methane-hydrogen mixtures, as well as validate the calculation methods of combustion processes, based on the results of which a new combustion chamber will be designed. A model combustion chamber will be manufactured in the laboratory of additive technologies of the university. It is planned to start experiments on the combustion of methane-hydrogen mixtures in February 2021.

The development of design documentation for a prototype of a full-scale combustion chamber is expected to be completed in 2023, after which the prototype combustion chamber will be manufactured and tested at the Power Machines’ full-scale test bench. The tests are scheduled to be completed by the end of 2024.