Infrared heaters from Heraeus Noblelight are being used to prevent filtration systems from icing up within an acoustic protection system for a large scale (inline) Gas Compression Station in Germany.
The total acoustic protection package includes silencing of the gas turbine inlet and exhaust systems and has been designed, installed and project managed by Mechtool Engineering of Darlington on behalf of a major supplier of Gas fired turbines and compression systems.
It is important that the intake air to the turbines and compressors is filtered, as any particulate soiling can affect the plant performance by causing damage to the blading or even dust encrustations and fouling on the blades themselves. Non-woven materials tend to be used for filters and the Solar Turbines’ system uses arrays of small filters within large filter housings. However, as gas turbines often operate in conditions of very low ambient temperature, it is important that intake air filtration systems incorporate some means to prevent icing up, as this could seriously affect filtration efficiency.
Various icing prevention techniques have been tried, including large hot water radiators using process heat and even taking compressed air from the system and blowing this directly at the filters. In this installation, it was decided to use infrared and tests showed that an infrared system uses less power and is easier to install than competitive techniques.
Consequently, three systems, each comprising 12 fast response medium wave, 5.6kW infrared modules was specified and installed for various filters. The modules are arranged in 3 banks of 4 emitters to give complete coverage over the filter surface. They are controlled by a thermostat, which switches on the heaters when the temperature falls below a set level and switches them off when the temperature rises to a pre-set level. The use of gold reflectors enhances the proven efficiency of infrared for this application and further improvements in efficiency are provided by the rapid response of the emitters.