Applied Energy 87 (2010) 1207–1216

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Applied Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apenergy

Evaluation of water injection effect on compressor and engine performance

and operability
I. Roumeliotis *, K. Mathioudakis
Laboratory of Thermal Turbomachines, National Technical University of Athens, Iroon Polytechniou 9, Athens 15773, Greece

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Gas turbine performance enhancement technologies such as inlet fogging, combustor water/steam injec-
Received 21 January 2009 tion and overspray are being employed by users in recent years without fully evaluating their effect on
Received in revised form 27 April 2009 gas turbine performance and operability. The water injection techniques can significantly affect the
Accepted 28 April 2009
engine operating point thus a careful analysis should precede the application of performance enhance-
Available online 24 May 2009
ment devices, especially when the devices are retrofitted to old engines or engines operating at extreme
conditions. The present paper examines the most widespread techniques that implement water injection
Keywords:
by using in-house models that can reproduce the effects of water injection on the gas turbine and com-
Gas turbine
Water injection
pressor off-design operation. The results are analyzed with respect to both performance augmentation
Steam injection and engine operability in order to give further insight on gas turbine operation with water injection.
Overspray The behaviour of the gas turbine is interpreted while the risks on engine integrity due to water injection
Wet compression are identified.
Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction mance augmentation such as in the case of the GE LM5000 as de-

Deregulation in power generation market combined with the
significant variation in fuel prices and the need for flexibility con-
cerning the power generation has forced the power producers to
explore new technologies for power generation enhancement.
The increasing use of gas turbines in the power generation industry
created an additional incentive for further improvement of their
performance. In the last years several techniques have been pro-
posed for gas turbine power and efficiency augmentation with
the use of water. The effect of these technologies on the opera-
tional integrity of the gas turbine is often overlooked by the users
as it is seldom referenced and analyzed on technical papers. None-
theless these techniques when installed as add-ons on existing gas
turbines can significantly affect the compressor stability. Apart
from the change on the engine operability the effect that the user
will experience is gas turbine dependant. The magnitude of the
performance gain depends thus on the particular gas turbine char-
acteristic and its control. The scope of this paper is to analyze the
effect of the most widespread water injection techniques to the en-
gine operability and to address issues of interest for the gas turbine
users by using well established models along with knowledge
available in the bibliography.
Steam or water injection into the combustion chamber has been
proposed and extensively used for NOx reduction [1] and perfor-
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +30 2107721633; fax: +30 2107721658.
E-mail addresses: jroume@ltt.ntua.gr, jroume@central.ntua.gr (I. Roumeliotis).
scribed by Burnham et al. [2]. More complex evaporative gas
turbine cycles have been proposed in recent years such as the
RWI cycle and the HAT cycle while a throughout review of these
cycles has been undertaken by Jonsson and Yan [3]. In most cases
this kind of cycles are modelled using simple thermodynamic mod-
els [4] without taking into consideration the effect of steam/water
injection on gas turbine off – design performance and operability,
although the shift of the surge margin has been recognized as a
problem for the engine integrity by Jonsson and Yan [3].
The fact that gas turbine output and efficiency drop during high
ambient temperature periods, when demand usually increases, has
led to the broad application of inlet air cooling. For the treatment of
the gas turbine inlet air several techniques are used such as
absorption chillers, mechanical chillers using freon as refrigerant
and the evaporative cooling. These options are discussed thor-
oughly by Ondryas et al. [5]. In recent years as the spraying tech-
nologies evolve, direct inlet air cooling with water injection has
found a broad application as discussed by Jonsson and Yan [3] in
both open cycle [6] and combined cycle [7] configurations. As inlet
air cooling is easily installed and of low cost [8,9] its application is
increasing on existing engines. GE had incorporated inlet cooling
and intercooling between the compressors using water injection
to the twin spool engine LM6000 [10]. In these applications the
spraying quantity is limited so there is no carry over of droplets
in the compressor. In analyzing inlet air cooling either design point
thermodynamic analysis is used [11], or commercial software typ-
ically scaled with respect only to the design point is used [6]. As

0306-2619/$ - see front matter Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.apenergy.2009.04.039
1208 I. Roumeliotis, K. Mathioudakis / Applied Energy 87 (2010) 1207–1216
Nomenclature
CDP compressor discharge pressure
CDT compressor discharge temperature
Dd droplet diameter
EGT exhaust gas temperature
far fuel to air ratio, by mass
Load gas turbine Power
m mass flow
N rotational speed
p pressure
RH relative humidity
SM surge margin
T temperature
TIT turbine inlet temperature
the off-design operation of the gas turbines is not fully repre-
sented, the results do not reproduce the specific gas turbine behav-
iour for the whole compressor inlet temperature (CIT) range and
although a general guideline can be deducted the effect of inlet
air cooling is not fully modelled.
In order to fully examine the effect of water injection for inlet
air cooling and for NOx reduction the off – design operation of
the gas turbine should be modelled. For this purpose a generic per-
formance/adaptive model (TEACHES) was developed by the re-
search group of the authors (LTT/NTUA) capable of modelling the
off – design operation of different engine configuration with and
without water injection [12,13]. This model will be used in this pa-
per in order to examine various aspects of gas turbine off-design
operation with water injection.
Another technique that implements water injection for gas tur-
bine performance augmentation is overspray. Overspray of water
inside the compressor is a technique proposed since the late
1940s, early 1950s by NACA, for the augmentation of aircraft thrust
starting with the work of Trout [14], while in the early 1960s Hill
[15] presented a rigorous thermodynamic analysis of wet compres-
sion analyzing the possible gain on compression work. The level of
spraying technology at the time along with the fact that other tech-
niques were used for the engine performance augmentation re-
sulted in abandoning the wet compression idea. Wet
compression was proposed again in 1997 by Utamura et al. [16]
by presenting measurements from a 130 MW engine. The results
indicated that overspray can produce a significant gain on both
power and engine efficiency. Utamura et al. [17] presented addi-
tional results in 1999 from a F9E engine that further supported
the benefits overspray can give. These results increased the interest
concerning overspray and a plethora of studies have been pre-
sented in the recent years.
In most of the overspray studies evaporation is assumed in ther-
modynamic equilibrium, as for example in the work by Wang and
Khan [18] and Bhargava and Meher-Homji [6]. The results pre-
sented by Härtel and Pfeifer [19] indicated that the assumption
of evaporation in thermodynamic equilibrium will result to a sig-
nificant overestimation of the benefits of wet compression. White
and Meacock [20] analysis of wet compression indicated that the
entropy increase due to phase change should not be neglected as
done in the literature as for example by Sexton and Sexton [21]
and Klepper et al. [22]. Concerning the compressor operation with
overspray Hill [15] discussed the possibility of stage rematching
and consequently compressor map shift, a phenomenon further
discussed by Horlock [24] and Ludorf et al. [23].
Thus in order to examine the effect of overspray the stage
rematching should be taken into consideration along with the fact
warliq liquid Water to dry air ratio, by mass
wfr water to fuel ratio, by mass
Di % change = (i  i,ref)/i,ref  100
g stage efficiency
gth thermal efficiency
pC compressor pressure ratio
U mass flow coefficient
W pressure rise coefficient
Subscripts
amb ambient conditions
ref reference values
f fuel
that the evaporation occurs from the droplets surface modelling
evaporation as a non- isentropic process. One dimensional com-
pressor models taking these aspects of water injection into consid-
eration have been presented by White and Meacock [20] and
Roumeliotis and Mathioudakis [25].
The model developed by the authors [25] will be used herein in
order to examine in depth the effect of overspray on the engine
operability and analyze aspects that are of interest to the gas tur-
bine users.
2. Engine model
In order to have the ability to examine the operation of a gas
turbine of different configurations under various operating condi-
tions and control variables, a generic performance model (TEA-
CHES) was developed by the research group of the LTT/NTUA.
Further information of what constitutes a performance model
and an outline of the procedure for building one has been pre-
sented by Roumeliotis et al. [26]. The model was created in order
to simulate any gas turbine configuration. Specifically it can handle
up to three spool engines with power turbine, with reheating and
recuperation and water/steam injection without droplet carry-over
at the turbomachinery components at various positions along the
engine. It has the ability to adapt to available data by employing
the adaptive modelling technique as introduced by the research
group of the authors [27] while several parameters can be set as
control variables like TIT, CDP, load, etc.
The basic idea behind the adaptive modelling is that component
characteristics (e.g. compressor map) are allowed to change
through appropriate modification factors. The values of these fac-
tors are determined by requiring that available engine perfor-
mance data are matched by the engine model. In the end of the
adaptive procedure a unique set of components characteristics is
produced in order to reproduce the specific engine operation with
great accuracy [12]. When diagnostic applications on an actual en-
gine are considered, the modification factors can be used as engine
health indices as presented by Aretakis et al. [28].
The way that the water injection is handled and the way that
the model can be implemented to specific engines with available
data in order to reproduce its operation has been discussed in de-
tail by Roumeliotis et al. [26]. In brief gas – water mixing is calcu-
lated through the application of the conservation laws of
continuity, energy and momentum. The effect of the presence of
water vapor on the performance maps is taken into consideration
with the use of correction methods reported by AGARD [29], as
there is no carry – over of water in the turbomachinery
components.
 I. Roumeliotis, K. Mathioudakis / Applied Energy 87 (2010) 1207–1216 1209

2.1. Engine model for overspray

Overspray results to a significant stage rematching altering the

compressor map from the one with ‘‘dry” operation thus the use of
‘‘dry” maps to a model as the one described above is not suitable. In
order to evaluate compressor performance with water injection at
the inlet or intermediate positions a ‘‘stage stacking” approach
coupled with a droplet model has been materialised as described
by the authors [25]. The stage stacking method was selected as,
apart from overall performance quantities it allows the prediction
of overall compressor stall limits by incorporating criteria of indi-
vidual stage stall, allowing overall compressor stall and chock lim-
its evaluation for a specified rotating speed. The specific model
incorporates an adaptivity feature allowing the derivation of indi-
vidual stage characteristics, which optimally reproduce a given Fig. 1. Measurements and model predictions for compressor discharge pressure.
overall map as described by Mathioudakis and Stamatis [30]. The
droplet model embedded in the stage stacking method is the mod-
el described by Spalding [31].
The calculations are done assuming the droplets to be entrained
in the flow, so there is no velocity slip between them and the gas-
eous medium. White and Meacock [20] referenced that the droplet
diameter can be up to 5 lm for the no slip assumption to be rela-
tively valid. This assumption was validated by Roumeliotis [32] by
incorporating the Lagrangian equations of movement for droplets
of various diameters on an axial compressor flow field. The entropy
increase due to evaporation is calculated by using the analytical
equation proposed by Young [33] which as examined by Roumeli-
otis [32] give accurate results.
The compressor stage performance coefficients (U, W, g) are as-
sumed unchanged due to droplet presence, as experimental data
presented by Roumeliotis and Mathioudakis [34] suggest that
water injection of quantities up to 2% by mass without evaporation
inside the stage is not expected to change significant the U  W Fig. 2. Measurements and model predictions for gas turbine efficiency with (FOW)
characteristic, nor the aerodynamic behaviour of the stage. and without (FOD) water injection.

Overspray affects both compressor and turbine operation, thus

altering the components coupling. In order to study the overspray
effect on the engine performance the compressor model is coupled
to the engine model. Specifically the compressor model is replacing
the compressor map by applying a 1-D zooming procedure. Details
concerning the zooming procedure are presented in [25].
3. Analysis of water injection cases
The models presented are used to analyze the operation of gas
turbines implementing water injection technologies. The results
are analyzed and discussed in conjunction with the available bib-
liographic data in order to give further insight on gas turbine oper-
ation with water injection.
3.1. Combustor water injection
Combustor water injection is a mature technology that has
found broad application by engine manufacturers such as in the
case of the GE LM family [10]. Due to emissions regulations inde-
pendent users are also installing water injection systems on exist-
ing gas turbines [35]. When a user is installing a combustor water
injection system, the shift of the whole gas turbine operation
should be examined. In order to study such effects the generic en-
gine model discussed above was adapted to a specific engine (ABB
GT13-E2). Measured data for operation with natural gas (NG) fuel
oil dry (FOD) and fuel oil with water injection (FOW) were used.
The results indicated that the adapted model can reproduce the en-
gine operation and behaviour within a 1% error with respect to the
measurements for a broad operation envelope and for different
fuel types with and without water injection as can be seen in Fig. 1.
In Fig. 2 the engine thermal efficiency predicted and calculated
from measurements can be seen. As expected, burner water injec-
tion results to a power increase and to engine efficiency reduction.
The negative effect on the engine efficiency is decreasing for low
power operation.
Having established a reliable model for the specific engine, the
effect of water injection on engine operation can be examined.
Water injection leads to an increase of the compressor discharge
pressure which is primary a result of the increased turbine mass
flow and secondarily of the gas properties change, as analyzed by
Mathioudakis [36].
This increase causes a surge margin reduction with respect to
the dry operation. Surge margin is defined via Eq. (1), according
to Walsh and Fletcher [37]
pC;surge  pC;working
SMð%Þ ¼  100% ð1Þ
pC;working
In Fig. 3 the surge margin reduction due to the increased water
to fuel ratio is presented for operation under constant TIT or con-
stant load. The reduction can be prohibitive for wfr in the range
of 3 as a 5% value is rather slim [38]. For values encountered in
practice (wfr:1–2) the reduction is permissible, as the surge margin
reduces from 15% to 8,6% for wfr = 2. In the case of steam injection
the behaviour is similar, while the steam to fuel ratio where the
surge margin is reduced below 5% is 3,6 (constant TIT). In any case
it is evident that the wfr should be limited by the surge margin
reduction. An important observation is that if the firing tempera-
ture is reduced to maintain constant load the effect of water injec-
tion on the surge margin is rather small and is not expected to
cause any operation problems.
1210 I. Roumeliotis, K. Mathioudakis / Applied Energy 87 (2010) 1207–1216
Fig. 3. Surge margin reduction due to combustor water injection.
The effect on overall engine efficiency can be seen in Fig. 4. The
effect of water injection is more pronounced when the engine is
working at fixed load. In the case of fixed TIT, the engine is working
at higher load and pressure ratio; hence the effect on thermal effi-
ciency is not as negative as in the case of constant load. In the case
of steam injection, the latent heat for evaporation is available from
an outside source, (for example using an exhaust gas heat exchan-
ger) resulting to the increase of the gas turbine efficiency by
increasing the steam injection quantity. The effect of steam injec-
tion is more pronounced for operation under constant TIT.
In both steam and water injection, the increased turbine mass
flow results to a significant increase on engine load for operation
under constant TIT as presented in Fig. 5. This means that when
the engine is working in high torque conditions and water/steam
is injected in the combustor there is a torque surplus. Mechanical
strength of the shaft and the electrical generator capacity should
be taken into consideration in such cases. As can be seen in Fig. 5
the operation with water injection during a cold day can result
to an increase of power up to 50% from the nominal one, thus
stressing more the mechanical integrity of the engine. It must be
noted that results presented by Fischer et al. [39] indicate that
for a specific engine the axial thrust will not be a problem for
power increase more than the 100% of the nominal one.
Concerning the control variable, it should be noted that the en-
gines are usually working with constant TIT (subject to limit). This
operation will result to higher performance gain in the case of
steam injection and to smaller loss at thermal efficiency in the case
of water injection but it will also result to a higher loss of surge
margin which may result to compressor unstable operation. The
Fig. 4. Gas turbine thermal efficiency variation for varying wfr for operation under
constant load and constant TIT.
Fig. 5. Gas turbine load variation for varying wfr for operation under constant TIT.
users should also consider that with water/steam injection the syn-
thesis of the gas flow is changing. This change will result to higher
metal temperature at the turbine blades as discussed by Jin et al.
[40] and result to life limiting events at the hot section of the en-
gine if the firing temperature remains unchanged. This is not ex-
pected to be a problem for constant load operation as the firing
temperature is reduced for the same load with water/steam
injection.
3.2. Inlet air cooling with water injection
The gas turbine output and efficiency drop during high ambient
temperature conditions, when demand usually increases, results to
the broad application of inlet air cooling with water injection
(chilling for brevity). Chilling decreases the compressor inlet tem-
perature and increases the humidity fraction of the air sucked by
the engine. The temperature reduction results to the increase of
power and efficiency, while the humidity increase results to a
power increase but to an efficiency decrease. The temperature ef-
fect is greater than the humidity effect resulting to the improve-
ment of the engine performance with inlet air cooling. The effect
of ambient temperature and humidity on the thermal efficiency
of ABB GT13E2 engine model used can be seen in Fig. 6 for opera-
tion under constant TIT.
The gain that the user will experience strongly depends on the
ambient effect on the gas turbine performance and behaviour and
on the temperature decrease that can be achieved. The tempera-
ture decrease is a function of ambient conditions, mainly of tem-
perature and humidity and the Mach number at the engine face.
For these reasons in order to have a clearer idea about the effect
of chilling, different engines of different configurations, power set-
tings and technology level were examined. All the engine models
were created by adapting the generalized engine model to avail-
able data. The data used was either measurements if available
[36] or data found in the open literature [26]. In Table 1 the exam-
ined engines are presented. In all cases the engine control variable
was selected to be the turbine inlet temperature (TIT) as it is the
most common and the fuel was selected to be typical natural gas.
In Fig. 7 the behaviour of the various engines versus ambient
temperature variation is shown. The behaviour of each engine is
different. It can be said that the single shaft configurations are less
inclined to efficiency degradation due to ambient temperature in-
crease as expected [41,6].
In Fig. 8 the gain on thermal efficiency by using chilling is pre-
sented for the specific engines, assuming dry ambient air. The anal-
ysis taken is for the case that inlet air is becoming saturated
according to the compressor face static conditions and there is
no droplet carry-over inside the compressor. The efficiency gain
with inlet air cooling can be significant for ambient temperatures
 I. Roumeliotis, K. Mathioudakis / Applied Energy 87 (2010) 1207–1216 1211

Fig. 6. Effect of ambient temperature and humidity on gas turbine efficiency.

Table 1
Examined engines.

Case Configuration Engine

1 Single shaft ABB GT 8
2 Single shaft GEC EM610B
3 Single shaft GE PG9171E
4 Single shaft ABB GT 13E2
5 Twins shaft GE LM 2500
6 Twin shaft ABB GT 10
7 Twin spool with power turbine RR Tyne
8 Twin spool with power turbine RR Olympus

Fig. 8. Effect of inlet cooling on gas turbine efficiency for varying ambient
temperature and different engines, RHamb = 0%.

Fig. 7. Effect of ambient temperature on efficiency for different engines,
RHamb = 0%.
greater than 30 °C. As aero derivative machines are more sensitive
to ambient temperature, they benefit significantly from inlet air
cooling thus the gain is greater for multi-shaft engines an observa-
tion that comes in agreement with the results presented by Bharg-
ava and Meher-Homji [6].
In order to examine an actual case, the adapted model for the
GEC EM610B engine was used to reproduce its operation under
the ambient conditions that occur at a sea-side power plant site,
for the summer months (15/6–15/9). The engine is assumed to
operate under constant TIT for both chilling and normal operation.
The efficiency gain during actual summer conditions can be seen in
Fig. 9 in conjunction with the measured ambient temperature and
humidity. It is evident that the gain can be rather high for most of
the summer period. The mean gain is up to 1% with a significant
gain of 2–2.5% during very hot days (40 °C). What is more impor-
tant is that during very hot days when the demand for power is
high inlet cooling can give a solution as the power gain can be as
high as 8% for the hottest days (Fig. 10).
The effect of chilling on compressor operability is mainly due to
the movement on the engine operating line towards lower CIT thus
to higher corrected rotational speed. This effect along with the ef-
fect of increased humidity results to a surge margin reduction
compared with the one that the user would witness when operat-
ing without chilling for the same ambient conditions. In order to
quantify this effect the surge margin of the compressor for ambient
temperature 30 °C and for varying ambient RH is presented in
Fig. 11. The surge margin for the case of 30% RH and 30 °C will
be reduced by 1.5% for chilling operation. From these values it
can be said that chilling will not decrease the surge margin enough
to risk the compressor integrity, although it can be a contributing
factor if the surge margin is already slim. It must be noted that
the compressor will experience a similar behaviour with every in-
let air cooling technique, such as refrigerant cooling, as the humid-
ity effect produce only a 0.3–0.5% SM reduction and the rest is the
result of the working line movement.
3.3. Overspray fogging
In recent years as the injection technology has done significant
progress overspray has been suggested as a viable method for
1212 I. Roumeliotis, K. Mathioudakis / Applied Energy 87 (2010) 1207–1216
Fig. 9. Measured ambient conditions and calculated efficiency gain by using inlet
air cooling during the summer months for a specific power plant site.
Fig. 10. Calculated power gain by using inlet air cooling during the summer months
for a specific power plant site.
performance boost by Utamura et al. [16]. Wet compression allows
the continuous evaporation during compression thus thermody-
namically the compression is approaching the isothermal one
resulting to a significant reduction of compressor specific work
[19]. This reduction will in turn create an increase to the engine
overall efficiency. What should be considered is that apart from
the thermodynamic effect, wet compression results to a significant
stage rematching.
As discussed by Roumeliotis and Mathioudakis [25] interstage
injection gives less gain than inlet overspray. Inlet overspray apart
from being the most beneficial technique performance wise, is the
one most easily implemented on existing gas turbines.
The wet compressor model presented will be used to analyze
the effect of overspray on compressor operation. Injection position
is assumed at the first stage inlet in order to isolate the overspray
Fig. 11. SM variation due to chilling for Tamb = 30 °C and varying RHamb.
effect from chilling effects. The droplets are assumed of 5 lm
diameter unless otherwise stated. The 5 lm diameter can be con-
sidered rather small compared to the today available injector tech-
nology [42], but the use of superheated fed – water [43] suggest
that such fine sprays are achievable.
In order to demonstrate the effect of overspray on the compres-
sor operation the multistage (15 stages) axial compressor of the
Tornado engine has been used as a test case. The model used
was adapted to data and the stages performance characteristics
that reproduce rather well the overall dry compressor map were
acquired as described by Tsalavoutas et al. [44].
In Fig. 12 the compressor map calculated with 1% of overspray
is presented in conjunction with the dry map. It is evident that
wet compression results to a significant stage rematching moving
the speedlines towards higher mass flow rates, results that are in
agreement with the ones presented by White and Meacock [20].
Concerning the surge line, operation with water injection re-
sults to a movement of the surge line towards lower pressure ratios
at high rotational speeds, while for lower rotational speeds the
movement of the surge line is less severe. For rotational speeds
as low as N/Nd = 0.8 the wet surge line actually moves to higher
pressure ratios. This behaviour is in agreement with ALSTOM’s
on site experience with the GT24/26 engines as discussed by Lech-
eler and Hoffmann [45].
The stage rematching due to overspray results in a degradation
of the aerodynamic performance, as the compressor is not de-
signed for water injection, thus the stages are not operating any-
more at the optimum operating point. The degradation of the
compressor aerodynamic efficiency occurs even with the injection
Fig. 12. Compressor map for 1% overspray at inlet.
 I. Roumeliotis, K. Mathioudakis / Applied Energy 87 (2010) 1207–1216 1213

of small water quantities, as presented in [25], thus compromising

the benefits that accrue from the thermodynamics of wet
compression.
Despite the stage rematching the effect of overspray is benefi-
cial to the engine performance. Utamura et al. [16] have reported
a gain on thermal efficiency equal to 1.84% and on power equal to
8% for high humidity conditions and water injection of 0.65%
mass flow fraction. The effect of 1% overspray on the performance
of the Tornado engine calculated by the model is shown in
Fig. 13.
Overspray results to increased gas mass flow through the
compressor, which leads to the increase of compressor power
consumption, although the compressor specific work is signifi-
cantly reduced. The evaporation during compression results to
Fig. 14. Effect of overspray on engine efficiency, Tamb = 15 °C and Dd = 5 lm.
low CDT thus the fuel mass flow increases. The increased mass
flow through the turbine results to the rise of the cycle pressure
ratio and the turbine power increase. The increased humidity of
the working medium along with the increased cycle pressure ra-
tio leads to an only slightly decreased exhaust gas temperature
while the exhaust mass flow significantly increases. Although
the fuel mass flow is increasing the increased cycle pressure ra-
tio in addition to the decreased compression specific work re-
sults to a significant gain in efficiency and a gas turbine power
gain up to 14%.
In Fig. 14 the efficiency increase is presented for increasing the
overspray quantity for operation with constant TIT. The efficiency
is increasing up to a specific overspray quantity and then the in-
creased humidity of the working medium along with the decreased
CDT and the shift of operation even more off-design become dom-
inant resulting to a decrease of the efficiency gain.
The efficiency gain is increasing as the ambient temperature is
increasing, mainly due to the higher evaporation rate at the first
stages and the fact that the engine is already working off-design. Fig. 15. Effect of overspray on engine efficiency, Tamb = 30 °C, Dd = 5 lm and
Apart from the ambient conditions the droplet diameter is a signif- Dd = 2 lm.
icant factor that influences the gain. As can be seen in Fig. 15 if the
droplets diameter are 2 lm the efficiency gain become as high as
2.5% mainly due to the higher evaporation rates and lower entropy Although the benefits of overspray on engine performance are
increase due to evaporation. indisputable there are some aspects that the users should take into
Concerning the power gain the effect of overspray is even more consideration prior and after installing a nozzle manifold for over-
remarkable as a gain up to 20% with a 2% overspray can be spray. Overspray results to the increase of the engine pressure ratio
achieved (Fig. 16). and to the movement of the compressor surge line towards lower
Another interesting aspect is the effect of overspray on exhaust pressure ratios. Both effects are negative influencing the compres-
gas temperature and mass flow, quantities that are important for sor surge margin seen in Fig. 18.
operation in combined cycles. The exhaust gas temperature has a The movement of the operating point and the simultaneously
small decrease while the mass increases significantly thus com- descent of the surge line results to a severe surge margin reduction
pensating for the temperature decrease (Fig. 17). even for small water quantities. For 2% overspray the surge margin

Fig. 13. Effect of overspray on overall engine performance.

1214 I. Roumeliotis, K. Mathioudakis / Applied Energy 87 (2010) 1207–1216
Fig. 16. Effect of overspray on engine load, Tamb = 30 °C, Dd = 5 lm and Dd = 2 lm.
Fig. 17. Gas turbine exhaust quantities, Tamb = 30 °C and Dd = 5 lm.
Fig. 18. Effect of overspray on surge margin.
is reduced to 3.8%. If the compressor’s remaining surge margin is
less than 5% the machine may well be in an operating region of
localized rotating stall that can subject the compressor to blade
flutter, thus it is essential that the maximum overspray quantity
with respect to the surge margin is defined prior to implementing
overspray to an existing engine.
Another aspect is the effect of the change of the pressure build
up inside the compressor. The stage rematching due to overspray
results to the shift of the pressure build up towards the rear stages
of the compressor as these are the stages that work on high load-
ing. In Fig. 19 the pressure build up for the specific engine is pre-
Fig. 19. Pressure build up change due to overspray relative to dry operation.
sented, exhibiting a behaviour that is in agreement with
ALSTOM’s experience with overpsray on the GT24/26 engines
[45,46].
The pressure build up change results to a change in the bound-
ary conditions for the gas turbine’s cooling air system. The cooling
air supply pressure can be reduced during overspray for part of the
cooling air system, if bleed occurs at the stages that the pressure is
less than the dry one. The reduction of pressure will result to a
reduction of bleed quantity from the specific bleed ports. The re-
duced temperature of the bleed along with the higher isobaric spe-
cific heat may compensate for the reduced bleed quantity but this
should be examined on a case by case basis.
Overspray quantity and droplet diameter are parameters that
the user should take into consideration when deciding to install
a nozzle manifold for overspray operation. In case of intense over-
spray the surge margin will diminish, the pressure build up will
change dramatically altering the cooling air system’s behaviour
and on top of that, if the whole water does not evaporate inside
the compressor, the user will witness a reduction of the possible
efficiency gain. In Fig. 20 the effect of water quantity and the effect
of droplet diameter on the evaporation process inside the compres-
sor are presented. The results for 5 lm droplet diameter are in
agreement with the ones presented by Loebig et al. [47] who use
a more complex (3-D) analysis for a compressor with similar
length and temperature rise characteristics. It is evident that the
user should ensure that the injected quantity can be evaporated in-
side the compressor and the droplet diameter is as small as
possible.
Another aspect is the blade erosion due to droplet–blade inter-
action. As discussed by Roumeliotis and Mathioudakis [48] during
experiments on a compressor stage with conditions that do not
promote evaporation inside the compressor an increase of the con-
sumed power was measured. The increase of the consumed power
was attributed to the blade droplet interaction and the subsequent
centrifugation of the droplets towards the casing, thus there is a
droplet–blade interaction. The results of borescope inspection by
Jolly and Cloyd [49] on a GE Frame 6B indicated that the drop-
let–blade interaction may result to the appearance of erosion espe-
cially at the first stage blades. The users should either upgrade the
coating of the compressor first stages or take special care for the
inspection and possible replacement as proposed by Deneve et al.
[50]. What should be considered is that the possible blade degrada-
tion will result to a surge margin reduction as discussed by Brun
et al. [38], thus the implementation of overspray to a worn com-
pressor will lead to operation with very small surge margin. The
same problem may occur after a long period of operation with
overspray if erosion problems arise and there is no inspection
and maintenance.
 I. Roumeliotis, K. Mathioudakis / Applied Energy 87 (2010) 1207–1216
Fig. 20. Effect of injected quantity and droplet diameter on water evaporation.
4. Concluding remarks
The techniques used for power and efficiency augmentation
that implement water injection at various stations across the en-
gine have been analyzed using well established methods and mod-
els. The performance and operational aspects of each technique
have been calculated and analyzed in order to further understand
their effect on gas turbine operation and performance. The possible
problems that may arise concerning the gas turbine integrity such
as the reduced surge margin due to the techniques implementation
have been recognized, giving some basic guidelines on what the
users should expect and how to minimize the risk concerning the
engine operation, along with highlighting aspects of water injec-
tion that needs further research, such as the effect on the cooling
air system.
The main remarks concerning engine performance and opera-
tion are:
 Combustor water/steam injection results to a change of turbine
operation, shifting the compressor operating point towards the
surge line. The surge margin reduction can become significant
for large water/steam injection quantities if the firing tempera-
ture remains the same. The effect of the increased humidity con-
tent with respect to the blade cooling should be further
examined as it may result to life limiting events.
 Combustor water injection results to a thermal efficiency reduc-
tion, while steam injection results to a significant increase of the
gas turbine efficiency as the heat for the water evaporation is
available from an outside source. The magnitude of the effect
is different for different control variables.
 Combustor water/steam injection results to a significant power
output increase. As combustor water injection can be used even
on conditions that result to high load (for example during very
low ambient temperatures) the mechanical integrity of the gas
turbine and the possibility of overspeeding should be taken into
consideration while deciding the operating envelope of the com-
bustor water/steam injection system.
 The analysis of the effect of chilling on eight engines of different
configuration, power setting and TIT level indicates that multi-
shaft engines are expected to present higher improvement with
chilling. It should be noted that in order to fully examine the
expected gain due to inlet air cooling on the engine perfor-
mance, an adapted engine model should be used and not a gen-
eric one as the compressor map is of high importance.
 Overspray fogging gives a significant boost on the engine perfor-
mance even for relative low ambient temperatures as for ISO
conditions.
1215
 The gain that can be achieved with overspray is better as the
ambient temperature increases and as the droplet diameter
decreases, since in both cases the evaporation at the fist stages
is promoted.
 The benefits of overspray on Combined Cycles have not been
examined thoroughly as in most cases the analysis of the com-
bined cycle with overspray is done assuming constant compres-
sor speedlines. It should be further examined if there is an
overspray quantity which gives the best behaviour with respect
to the combined cycle overall efficiency.
 The performance gain comes with a significant cost on surge
margin. There is the possibility of erosion due to droplet–blade
interaction which may further reduce the surge margin. Planned
inspection and possible the coating change of the first blades
should be undertaken.
 Overspray is expected to influence the cooling air system by
reducing the amount of cooling air from the interstage bleeds,
especially the front ones due to the shift of the compressor pres-
sure build up. Thus the effect of overspray on the gas turbine
cooling system should be analyzed in order to fully evaluate
its effect and avoid life limiting effects.
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