The author makes a compelling argument that the continued effort of increasing the cycle pressure ratio and TIT will hit a wall of diminishing returns, and therefore, new variations to the Brayton Cycle should be looked into, such as intercooling, reheat, and constant volume combustion [1].
The acceptable complexity for any machine is mainly determined by the economic drivers and reliability constraints. In the end, the increase in efficiency achieved by the added complexity should be economically viable. With the global energy scenario changing more rapidly than ever before due to the increase in renewable energy sources, the role of GT in the power generation business remains uncertain at the moment. Such uncertainties are not conducive to introduce radical changes in the architecture, and that is why OEMs are trying to push the current GT architecture as much as possible. Although intercooler and reheat have been applied to...
