Production

Steam turbines was one of the original methods of producing electric power.  A turbine converts the kinetic energy of a moving fluid (liquid or gas) to mechanical energy. Steam turbines have a series of blades mounted on a shaft against which steam is forced, thus rotating the shaft connected to the generator. In a fossil fuelled steam turbine, the fuel is burned in a furnace to heat water in a boiler to produce steam.   A steam turbine power generating plant is the most common type of power plant today. This type of plant converts heat into electricity usually using a boiler, and a turbine to drive an electric generator. Large scale commercial size systems use steam produced from a variety of sources, including nuclear reactions, burning fossil fuels and wastes, and even geothermal energy. The most common fuels used at steam turbine plants to produce steam are coal, oil, and natural gas. 

A gas turbine is an engine where gas is continuously burnt with compressed air to produce a stream of hot, fast moving gas. This gas stream is used to power the compressor that supplies the air to the engine as well as providing excess energy that may be used to do other work.  The engine consists of three main parts:

The compressor usually sits at the front of the engine. There are two main types of compressor, the centrifugal compressor and the axial compressor. The compressor will draw in air and compress it before it is fed into the combustion chamber. In both types the compressor rotates and is driven by a shaft that passes through the middle of the engine and is attached to the turbine.

The combustor is where fuel is added to the compressed air and burnt to produce high velocity exhaust gas. Down the middle of the combustor runs the flame tube. The flame tube has a series of holes in it to allow in the compressed air. It is inside the flame tube that fuel is injected and burnt. There will be one or more igniters that project into the flame tube to start the mixture burning. Air and fuel are continually being added into the combustor once the engine is running. Combustion will continue without the use of the igniters once the engine has been started. The combustor and flame tube must be very carefully designed to allow combustion to take place efficiently and reliably. This is especially difficult given the large amount of fast moving air being supplied by the compressor. The holes in the flame tube must be carefully sized and positioned. Smaller holes around where the fuel is added provide the correct mixture to burn. This is called the primary zone. Holes further down the flame tube allow in extra air to complete the combustion. This is the secondary zone. A final set of holes just before the entry to the turbine allow the remainder of the air to mix with the hot gases to cool them before they hit the turbine. This final zone is known as the dilution zone. The exhaust gas is fed from the end of the flame tube into the turbine.

The turbine extracts energy from the exhaust gas. The turbine can, like the compressor, be centrifugal or axial. In each type the fast moving exhaust gas is used to spin the turbine. Since the turbine is attached to the same shaft as the compressor at the front of the engine, the turbine and compressor will turn together. The turbine may extract just enough energy to turn the compressor. The rest of the exhaust gas is left to exit the rear of the engine to provide thrust, as in a pure jet engine. Or extra turbine stages may be used to turn other shafts to power other machinery such as the rotors of a helicopter, the propellers of a ship or electrical generators in power stations.