Research Topics
Based on strong and continuous cooperation with University partners, e.g. RWTH Aachen University and the Aachen University of Applied Science (ACUAS) and also in cooperation with industrial partners, promising ideas and technologies for gas turbine and power plant application are investigated by B&B-AGEMA and, thus, such new concepts can be transferred from research into application at the industrial partners.

B&B-AGEMA is a member of the German Association for combustion machinery (FVV e. V.) and, thus, participates in the research projects of the FVV for the turbomachinery group. The company is also a member of the development association for the Institute of power plant technology, steam and gas turbines (IKDG) at the RWTH Aachen University.

B&B-AGEMA is involved presently, also with own fundings, in the following research topics:

Turbine technology:

  • Highly efficient film cooling technology for gas turbine blades and other hot gas path components (e.g. patent on DJFC-technology)
  • Conjugate calculation of fluid flow and heat transfer for complex cooling configurations, e.g. for realistic gas turbine blade
  • Reduction of tip clearance losses by special shaped blade tips
  • Highly efficient sealing configurations for turbine disk cavities
  • Reduction of negative clocking effects in turbines (e.g. patent application on clocking adjustment)
  • Innovative calculation approaches for resonance and damping of coupled bladings (e.g. shrouded blades and/or damper elements)
  • Laser drilling technologies
  • New concepts for thermal barrier coatings (TBC)
  • Multi-hole cooling technologies & cooling through porous media

Compressor technology

  • Development of low-loss high performance airfoils for axial compressors (based on inverse design technology)
  • Optimization strategies for compression lines
  • Thermodynamic design including real gas approaches of compression lines (e.g. supercritical CO2 compression for
  • CCS-application in power plants and for pipeline & injection application)
  • Interface development between ACF design tool and CFD software

Combustion technology

  • Optimization of pre-mixed combustion systems
  • Experimental operation of gas turbine combustors at the Aachen High Pressure Combustion Test Facility (at IKDG of RWTH Aachen University, up to 9 MW thermal power)
  • Low-NOx combustion of Hydrogen-rich fuel gases
  • Computation-based design of stable combustion systems

Power plant technology

  • Calculation methods for application of components in 700 deg Celsius steam power stations
  • Coupled gas turbine and solar-thermal power plant systems
  • Energy storage systems (e.g. Compressed Air Energy Storage)
  • Innovative calculations methods for evaluation and optimization of steam condensers and cooling towers
Results of the research efforts are partly published in cooperation with industrial and academic partners in the numerous journal and conference paper contributions.