Exploration of Novel Fuels for Gas Turbine Applications
The internship for each student will be under the supervision of Gilles Bourque PhD, the Combustion Research and Technology Team Leader. Mr Bourque has been working for the past 12 years at RR Canada of which 10 in the Combustion department. The student will be an integral part of his team and as such will also interact with key members of the team on a daily basis. A usual week would start with a team meeting where members give: 1) a verbal update of their progress, 2) when a significant chunk of work has been complete a short presentation summarising the achievements, and 3) the planned work for the week is revised and agreed with all members. This work environment is highly appreciated by the undergraduate and graduate students as we welcome an increasing number of students choosing RR Canada for their internship. Since 2005 we have taken onboard more than 150 students from Canadian universities. The work package for each intern is described in more details below. In a nutshell, the students will use the fundamental knowledge gained from their research in the various labs and apply it to real gas turbine problems. In contrast to aero gas turbine where alternative fuels are currently being designed to be "Drop-In" fuels (as close as possible to kerosene), industrial gas turbine are already coping with very different fuels characteristics and will need to integrate an even wider spectrum of characteristics with alternative fuels. The impact of the various alternative fuel properties that differ from conventional fuels (natural gas and diesel #2) will be studied by the student at industrial gas turbine relevant conditions. It is anticipated that the results of the studies will help RR engineers to design and develop adaptation to current hardware and prepare proper rig test program, and eventually engine test program. As already mentioned, it is crucial that the students be an integral part of the team to ensure proper knowledge transfer and true work experience for the students.
