Case Study: GE extends gas turbine lifespan with Altair Flow Simulator

GE’s Flow Simulator Increases Lifespan of BHGE’s Gas Turbine

GE’s Baker Hughes (BHGE) Secondary Flow & Heat Transfer team needed to accurately estimate secondary air requirements across the entire gas turbine and provide boundary conditions for thermo‑mechanical analyses while controlling local temperatures, thermal gradients and back flow margin (BFM) to improve component lifespan and reliability. To address the probabilistic evaluation of BFM and component failure under geometric and thermo‑fluid uncertainties, the team adopted Altair’s Flow Simulator.

Altair’s Flow Simulator delivered a smart GUI for fast model setup from engine cross‑sections, a comprehensive 1D‑element database with tunable correlations, and a stable, fast solver that supports rapid multirun statistical studies. By enabling probabilistic BFM assessment and robust multirun design workflows, Altair’s tool has been successfully used across the BHGE fleet and in NovaLT turbine development to improve thermal design confidence, increase component lifespan and speed up design and validation cycles.

GE