Advancements of Gas Turbine Engines and Materials

Author

Benjamin John Temple, Southern Illinois University CarbondaleFollow

Date of Award

9-1-2020

Degree Name

Master of Science

Department

Mechanical Engineering

First Advisor

Don, Jarlen

Abstract

This thesis starts out with a brief description of gas turbine engines and information on railroad locomotives being the gas-turbine electric locomotives with some comparison of the diesel-electric locomotives in the introduction. Section 1.1 is the research problem looking at the older gas turbine electric locomotives in the 1950’s that ran on the rail and the problems they suffered. In section 1.2 titled the purpose of the study takes a look at newer gas turbine locomotives that were being consider or has been built with improvements since the 1950’s. The objective of the study being section 1.3 looks at the advantages of new gas turbines engines. Section 1.4 titled the research questions discusses better materials and methods of gas turbine engines. Chapter 2 is the literature review looking at the fuel oil specifications being number 4, number 5, and number 6. This chapter also talks about the used of distillates, types of distillates, composition of distillates, specifications for distillates, residual fuel oil and fuel oil quality dealing with the firing of gas turbine engines. Section 2.3 of chapter 2 being titled power generation looks at power plant gas-turbine engines and the power they produce. Chapter 3, titled the proposed methodology looks at setting up an experiment using a gas-turbine engine and a diesel-electric engine to compare the advantages of along with the disadvantages. Section 3.1 is titled data collected, within this section is discussion on the data collected from the experiment and improvements that could be made to the gas turbine engines. The end of chapter 3, section 3.2 titled data analyzing, talks about possible the results collected, calculations done, improvements made and rerunning another experiment with the improvements made. Chapter 4 discuss the types of materials using in building the compressor and turbine blades. Last, but not least is chapter 5 which discusses the actual experiment using the gas turbine simulator for aircrafts and how to apply it to the railroad locomotives. After the conclusion which discusses the results, is the appendix a being gas tables, appendix b being trial run 1 and appendix c being trial run 2.