Houston, Texas 44th Turbomachinery Conference September 14th, 2015 – Frontline Aerospace announces a new bolt-on compressor retrofit technology for the Rolls-Royce (Allison) 501K that improves heat rate, increases power output and lowers emissions. See us at booth 2544.
“Gas turbine compression has been neglected,” said Ryan Wood, Frontline’s CEO. “The OEMs do a good job of compressor efficiency design and optimization of performance and maintenance, but a re-think of how compression is designed is too far outside the box,” he said.
IsoCool™ is Frontline’s patent pending product for gas turbine compressors. “IsoCool™ stands for isothermal compression—something that is impossible to truly achieve—but by removing heat, stage by stage, from the compressor via water cooling the stator vanes and adding heat fins to increase air side surface area, the work required to compress air can be dramatically reduced,” Wood said.
“By implementing compressor air cooling in this way, significant reductions in heat rate and increases in shaft power can be achieved without the need for anything more than swapping compressor cases and minor system changes. IsoCool™ adds flexibility for the operator. At certain times the focus can be on lower heat rates (fuel expense), and at others higher power output depending on the application. This is big: conservatively, 10% heat rate improvements and 15% power improvements, plus lower emissions” Wood said.
Specifically, at the 44th Turbomachinery conference Frontline is introducing our IsoCool™ product for the Rolls-Royce 501K family of gas turbines. Often used in natural gas pumping (compressor drive), power generation and industrial applications, the 501K is a mature gas turbine design with a more than 1500 Rolls-Royce Allison 501K gas turbines in service worldwide for land based applications. Additionally, there are about and 6,000 flying gas turbines (T56) primarily on the C130 Hercules transport aircraft. The current rating of the 501-K, depending on model varies 4 to 8 megawatts.
Frontline has already demonstrated IsoCool™ for the much smaller Rolls-Royce Model 250 C20B helicopter gas turbine (420 shp) with excellent performance results.
Frontline Aerospace, Inc. is an advanced manufacturing company based near Denver, CO focusing on breakthrough energy efficiency and aviation concepts.
Meet Frontline’s CEO and chief engineer Ryan Wood at the Turbomachinery conference, booth 2544.
