Case Study: GE Power achieves world‑record gas turbine combined‑cycle efficiency with Altair Flow Simulator

GE Power Sets World Records for Gas Turbine Combined Cycle Efficiency Using Flow Simulator

GE Power, a global energy leader, needed extreme precision in tracking cooling and leakage air, managing transient thermal response and controlling clearances inside gas turbine engines to achieve ultra‑high combined‑cycle efficiency and low NOx emissions. To address this, GE Power adopted Altair’s Flow Simulator to model secondary flow circuits, bearings, combustion and accessory systems across full operating scenarios.

Using Altair’s Flow Simulator — a fast, numerically stable 1‑D network flow solver with an engine‑cross‑section UI, extensive peer‑reviewed correlations and desktop probabilistic analysis — GE Power optimized cooling/leakage flow paths, transient behavior and clearances down to a few human hairs. The implementation enabled comprehensive parameter exploration and design robustness and helped deliver measurable results: GE Power holds the only two Guinness World Records for gas turbine combined‑cycle efficiency (50Hz and 60Hz), along with lower emissions and improved performance.

GE Power