Combustion Characteristics of Hydrogen-Methane Hybrid Fuels in Coflow Jet Diffusion Flames

2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hui Wu ◽  
Wenxing Zhang ◽  
Kejin Mu ◽  
Yue Wang ◽  
Yunhan Xiao
Keyword(s):  
Gas Turbines ◽  
Flame Temperature ◽  
Flame Length ◽  
Combustion Characteristics ◽  
Pollutant Emissions ◽  
Maximum Temperature ◽  
Production Test ◽  
Pure Hydrogen ◽  
Nox Emissions ◽  
Nature Gas

As the development and increasingly widespread use of IGCC and zero emission energy system, the development of advanced combustion capabilities for gaseous hydrogen and hydrogen rich fuels in gas turbine applications is becoming an area of much great concern. The combustion characteristics of hydrogen rich fuel is very different from nature gas in aspects such as flame stability, flame temperature, combustor acoustics, pollutant emissions, combustor efficiency, and some other important quantities. However, few of these issues are clearly understood by far. The purpose of this paper is to compare in detail the combustion performance of hydrogen-methane hybrid fuels with various volumetric H2 fractions ranging from 0% to 100%. Meanwhile, the comparison of pure H2, pure CH4, and 80%H2+20%CH4 was the emphasis. 80%H2+20%CH4 hybrid gas is selected expressly because its component is approximately equal to the outcome of a hydrogen production test bed of our laboratory, and it is considered by the team to be a potential transition fuel of gas turbines between nature gas and pure hydrogen. Detailed experimental measurements and numerical simulations were conducted using a coflow jet diffusion burner. It was found that in the extent of experiments, when under equal general power, the flame length of hydrogen contained fuels wasn’t much shorter than methane, and didn’t get shorter with the increase of H2 fraction as expected. That was because the shortening tendency caused by the increase of H2 fraction was counteracted partially by the increase of fuel velocity, results of which was the extending of flame length. Maximum temperature of H2 flame was 1733K, which was 30K higher than 80%H2+20%CH4 and 120K higher than CH4. All of the highest temperatures of the three fuels were presented at the recirculation zone of the flame. Although it seemed that the flame of CH4 had the longest dimension compared with H2 contained fuels when observed through photos, the high temperature region of flames was getting longer when increasing H2 fractions. Curves of temperature distribution predicted by all the four combustion models in FLUENT investigated here had a departure away from the experimental data. Among the models, Flamelet model was the one whose prediction was comparatively close to the experimental results. Flame of H2 and 80%H2+20%CH4 had a much better stability than flame of CH4, they could reach a so called recirculating flame phase and never been blew out in the extent of experiments. On the contrary, CH4 flames were blew out easily soon after they were lifted up. Distribution of OH concentration at the root of flames showed that the flame boundary of H2 and 80%H2+20%CH4 was more clearly than CH4. That is to say, at the root of the flame, combustion of H2 was the most intensive one, 80%H2+20%CH4 took the second place, while CH4 was the least. NOx emissions didn’t show a linear relationship with the volumetric fraction of H2, but showed an exponential uptrend instead. It presented a fairly consistent tendency with flame temperature, which proved again there was a strong relationship between flame temperature and NOx emissions in the combustion of hydrogen contained fuels. If adding CH4 into pure H2, NOx concentration would have a 17.2ppm reduction with the first 20% accession, but only 11.1ppm with the later 80% accession. Hence, if NOx emission was the only aspect to be considered, 80%H2+20%CH4 seemed to be a better choice of transition fuel from pure CH4 to pure H2.

scholarly journals The Role of Fuel Preparation in Low Emissions Combustion

1995 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. H. Lefebvre
Keyword(s):  
Gas Turbine ◽  
Gas Turbines ◽  
Fuel Injection ◽  
Flame Temperature ◽  
Pollutant Emissions ◽  
Alternative Methods ◽  
Nox Emissions ◽  
Oxides Of Nitrogen ◽  
Lean Burn ◽  
The Impact

The attainment of very low pollutant emissions, in particular oxides of nitrogen (NOx), from gas turbines is not only of considerable environmental concern but has also become an area of increasing competitiveness between the different engine manufacturers. For stationary engines, the attainment of ultra-low NOx has become the foremost marketing issue. This paper is devoted primarily to current and emerging technologies in the development of ultra-low emissions combustors for application to aircraft and stationary engines. Short descriptions of the basic design features of conventional gas turbine combustors and the methods of fuel injection now in widespread use are followed by a review of fuel spray characteristics and recent developments in the measurement and modeling of these characteristics. The main gas turbine generated pollutants and their mechanisms of formation are described, along with related environmental risks and various issues concerning emissions regulations and recently-enacted legislation for limiting the pollutant levels emitted by both aircraft and stationary engines. The impact of these emissions regulations on combustor and engine design are discussed first in relation to conventional combustors and then in the context of variable-geometry and staged combustors. Both these concepts are founded on emissions reduction by control of flame temperature. Basic approaches to the design of “dry” low NOx and ultra-low NOx combustors are reviewed. At the present time lean, premix, prevaporize, combustion appears to be the only technology available for achieving ultra-low NOx emissions from practical combustors. This concept is discussed in some detail, along with its inherent problems of autoignition, flashback, and acoustic resonance. Attention is also given to alternative methods of achieving ultra-low NOx emissions, notably the rich-bum, quick-quench, lean-burn and catalytic combustors. These concepts are now being actively developed, despite the formidable problems they present in terms of mixing and durability. The final section reviews the various correlations which are now being used to predict the exhaust gas concentrations of the main gaseous pollutant emissions from gas turbine engines. Comprehensive numerical methods have not yet completely displaced these semi-empirical correlations but are nevertheless providing useful insight into the interactions of swirling and recirculating flows with fuel sprays, as well as guidance to the combustion engineer during the design and development stages. Throughout the paper emphasis is placed on the important and sometimes pivotal role played by the fuel preparation process in the reduction of pollutant emissions from gas turbines.

The Role of Fuel Preparation in Low-Emission Combustion

1995 ◽  
Vol 117 (4) ◽  
pp. 617-654 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. H. Lefebvre
Keyword(s):  
Gas Turbine ◽  
Gas Turbines ◽  
Fuel Injection ◽  
Flame Temperature ◽  
Acoustic Resonance ◽  
Pollutant Emissions ◽  
Alternative Methods ◽  
Nox Emissions ◽  
Oxides Of Nitrogen ◽  
Lean Burn

The attainment of very low pollutant emissions, in particular oxides of nitrogen (NOx), from gas turbines is not only of considerable environmental concern but has also become an area of increasing competitiveness between the different engine manufacturers. For stationary engines, the attainment of ultralow NOx has become the foremost marketing issue. This paper is devoted primarily to current and emerging technologies in the development of ultralow emissions combustors for application to aircraft and stationary engines. Short descriptions of the basic design features of conventional gas turbine combustors and the methods of fuel injection now in widespread use are followed by a review of fuel spray characteristics and recent developments in the measurement and modeling of these characteristics. The main gas-turbine-generated pollutants and their mechanisms of formation are described, along with related environmental risks and various issues concerning emissions regulations and recently enacted legislation for limiting the pollutant levels emitted by both aircraft and stationary engines. The impacts of these emissions regulations on combustor and engine design are discussed first in relation to conventional combustors and then in the context of variable-geometry and staged combustors. Both these concepts are founded on emissions reduction by control of flame temperature. Basic approaches to the design of “dry” low-NOx and ultralow-NOx combustors are reviewed. At the present time lean, premix, prevaporize combustion appears to be the only technology available for achieving ultralow NOx emissions from practical combustors. This concept is discussed in some detail, along with its inherent problems of autoignition, flashback, and acoustic resonance. Attention is also given to alternative methods of achieving ultralow NOx emissions, notably the rich-burn, quick-quench, lean-burn, and catalytic combustors. These concepts are now being actively developed, despite the formidable problems they present in terms of mixing and durability. The final section reviews the various correlations now being used to predict the exhaust gas concentrations of the main gaseous pollutant emissions from gas turbine engines. Comprehensive numerical methods have not yet completely displaced these semi-empirical correlations but are nevertheless providing useful insight into the interactions of swirling and recirculating flows with fuel sprays, as well as guidance to the combustion engineer during the design and development stages. Throughout the paper emphasis is placed on the important and sometimes pivotal role played by the fuel preparation process in the reduction of pollutant emissions from gas turbines.

Comparison of Numerical Combustion Models for Hydrogen and Hydrogen-Rich Syngas Applied for Dry-Low-NOx-Micromix-Combustion

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. H.-W. Funke ◽  
N. Beckmann ◽  
J. Keinz ◽  
S. Abanteriba
Keyword(s):  
Reaction Mechanism ◽  
Gas Turbines ◽  
Combustion Process ◽  
Computational Effort ◽  
Hydrogen Combustion ◽  
Combustion Stability ◽  
Research Approach ◽  
Pure Hydrogen ◽  
Nox Emissions ◽  
Combustion Models

The Dry-Low-NOx (DLN) Micromix combustion technology has been developed as low emission combustion principle for industrial gas turbines fueled with hydrogen or syngas. The combustion process is based on the phenomenon of jet-in-crossflow-mixing. Fuel is injected perpendicular into the air-cross-flow and burned in a multitude of miniaturized, diffusion-like flames. The miniaturization of the flames leads to a significant reduction of NOx emissions due to the very short residence time of reactants in the flame. In the Micromix research approach, CFD analyses are validated towards experimental results. The combination of numerical and experimental methods allows an efficient design and optimization of DLN Micromix combustors concerning combustion stability and low NOx emissions. The paper presents a comparison of several numerical combustion models for hydrogen and hydrogen-rich syngas. They differ in the complexity of the underlying reaction mechanism and the associated computational effort. For pure hydrogen combustion a one-step global reaction is applied using a hybrid Eddy-Break-up model that incorporates finite rate kinetics. The model is evaluated and compared to a detailed hydrogen combustion mechanism derived by Li et al. including 9 species and 19 reversible elementary reactions. Based on this mechanism, reduction of the computational effort is achieved by applying the Flamelet Generated Manifolds (FGM) method while the accuracy of the detailed reaction scheme is maintained. For hydrogen-rich syngas combustion (H2-CO) numerical analyses based on a skeletal H2/CO reaction mechanism derived by Hawkes et al. and a detailed reaction mechanism provided by Ranzi et al. are performed. The comparison between combustion models and the validation of numerical results is based on exhaust gas compositions available from experimental investigation on DLN Micromix combustors. The conducted evaluation confirms that the applied detailed combustion mechanisms are able to predict the general physics of the DLN-Micromix combustion process accurately. The Flamelet Generated Manifolds method proved to be generally suitable to reduce the computational effort while maintaining the accuracy of detailed chemistry. Especially for reaction mechanisms with a high number of species accuracy and computational effort can be balanced using the FGM model.

Effect of Fuel Composition on Emissions From a Low-Swirl Burner

2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Sequera ◽  
Ajay K. Agrawal
Keyword(s):  
Gas Turbines ◽  
Bluff Body ◽  
Swirling Flow ◽  
Flame Temperature ◽  
Operating Conditions ◽  
Pollutant Emissions ◽  
Recirculation Region ◽  
Fuel Composition ◽  
High Hydrogen ◽  
Flow Recirculation

Lean Premixed Combustion (LPM) is a widely used approach to effectively reduce pollutant emissions in advanced gas turbines. Most LPM combustion systems employ the swirling flow with a bluff body at the center to stabilize the flame. The flow recirculation region established downstream of the bluff-body brings combustion products in contact with fresh reactants to sustain the reactions. However, such systems are prone to combustion oscillations and flame flashback, especially if high hydrogen containing fuels are used. Low-Swirl Injector (LSI) is an innovative approach, whereby a freely propagating LPM flame is stabilized in a diverging flow field surrounded by a weakly-swirling flow. The LSI is devoid of the flow recirculation region in the reaction zone. In the present study, emissions measurements are reported for a LSI operated on mixtures of methane (CH4), hydrogen (H2), and carbon monoxide (CO) to simulate H2 synthetic gas produced by coal gasification. For a fixed adiabatic flame temperature and air flow rate, CH4 content of the fuel in atmospheric pressure experiments is varied from 100% to 50% (by volume) with the remainder of the fuel containing equal amounts of CO and H2. For each test case, the CO and nitric oxide (NOx) emissions are measured axially at the combustor center and radially at several axial locations. Results show that the LSI provides stable flame for a range of operating conditions and fuel mixtures. The emissions are relatively insensitive to the fuel composition within the operational range of the present experiments.

Study of a Rich/Lean Staged Combustion Concept for Hydrogen at Gas Turbine Relevant Conditions

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Felipe Bolaños ◽  
Dieter Winkler ◽  
Felipe Piringer ◽  
Timothy Griffin ◽  
Rolf Bombach ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Heat Transfer ◽  
Gas Turbine ◽  
Gas Turbines ◽  
Carbon Capture ◽  
Flame Temperature ◽  
Nox Emissions ◽  
Hydrogen Fuel ◽  
Auto Ignition ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Rich

The combustion of hydrogen-rich fuels (> 80 % vol. H2), relevant for gas turbine cycles with “pre-combustion” carbon capture, creates great challenges in the application of standard lean premix combustion technology. The significant higher flame speed and drastically reduced auto-ignition delay time of hydrogen compared to those of natural gas, which is normally burned in gas turbines, increase the risk of higher NOX emissions and material damage due to flashback. Combustion concepts for gas turbines operating on hydrogen fuel need to be adapted to assure safe and low-emission combustion. A rich/lean (R/L) combustion concept with integrated heat transfer that addresses the challenges of hydrogen combustion has been investigated. A sub-scale, staged burner with full optical access has been designed and tested at gas turbine relevant conditions (flame temperature of 1750 K, preheat temperature of 400 °C and a pressure of 8 bar). Results of the burner tests have confirmed the capability of the rich/lean staged concept to reduce the NOx emissions for undiluted hydrogen fuel. The NOx emissions were reduced from 165 ppm measured without staging (fuel pre-conversion) to 23 ppm for an R/L design having a fuel-rich hydrogen pre-conversion of 50 % at a constant power of 8.7 kW. In the realized R/L concept the products of the first rich stage, which is ignited by a Pt/Pd catalyst (under a laminar flow, Re ≈ 1900) are combusted in a diffusion-flame-like lean stage (turbulent flow Re ≈ 18500) without any flashback risk. The optical accessibility of the reactor has allowed insight into the combustion processes of both stages. Applying OH-LIF and OH*-chemiluminescence optical techniques, it was shown that mainly homogeneous reactions at rich conditions take place in the first stage, questioning the importance of a catalyst in the system, and opening a wide range of optimization possibilities. The promising results obtained in this study suggest that such a rich/lean staged burner with integrated heat transfer could help to develop a new generation of gas turbine burners for safe and clean combustion of H2-rich fuels.

Impact of Fuel Composition on Blow Off and Flashback in Swirl Stabilized Lean Premixed Combustion

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amin Akbari ◽  
Vincent McDonell ◽  
Scott Samuelsen
Keyword(s):  
Natural Gas ◽  
Gas Turbines ◽  
Operating Conditions ◽  
Combustion Stability ◽  
Pollutant Emissions ◽  
Fuel Composition ◽  
Pure Hydrogen ◽  
Combustion Properties ◽  
Lean Premixed ◽  
The Impact

Co firing of natural gas with renewable fuels such as hydrogen can reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and meet other sustainability considerations. At the same time, adding hydrogen to natural gas alters combustion properties, such as burning speeds, heating values, flammability limits, and chemical characteristics. It is important to identify how combustion stability relates to fuel mixture composition in industrial gas turbines and burners and correlate such behavior to fuel properties or operating conditions. Ultimately, it is desired to predict and prevent operability issues when designing a fuel flexible gas turbine combustor. Fuel interchangeability is used to describe the ability of a substitute fuel composition to replace a baseline fuel without significantly altering performance and operation. Any substitute fuel, while maintaining the same heating load as the baseline fuel, must also provide stable combustion with low pollutant emissions. Interchangeability indices try to predict the impact of fuel composition on lean blowoff and flashback. Correlations for operability limits have been reported, though results are more consistent for blowoff compared to flashback. Yet, even for blowoff, some disagreement regarding fuel composition effects are evident. In the present work, promising correlations and parameters for lean blow off and flashback in a swirl stabilized lean premixed combustor are evaluated. Measurements are conducted for fuel compositions ranging from pure natural gas to pure hydrogen under different levels of preheat and air flow rates. The results are used to evaluate the ability of existing approaches to predict blowoff and flashback. The results show that, while a Damköhler number approach for blowoff is promising, important considerations are required in applying the method. For flashback, the quench constant parameter suggested for combustion induced vortex breakdown was applied and found to have limited success for predicting flashback in the present configuration.

Effects of Swirler Configurations on Flow Structures and Combustion Characteristics

2004 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guoqiang Li ◽  
Ephraim J. Gutmark
Keyword(s):  
Fuel Injection ◽  
Vortex Breakdown ◽  
Swirling Flow ◽  
Combustion Characteristics ◽  
Pollutant Emissions ◽  
Flow Structures ◽  
Inlet Temperature ◽  
Nox Emissions ◽  
Atmospheric Conditions ◽  
Fuel Injector

Modern gas turbine combustion technologies are driven by stringent regulations on pollutant emissions such as CO and NOx. A combustion system of multiple swirlers coupled with distributed fuel injection was studied as a new concept for reducing NOx emissions by application of Lean Direct Injection (LDI) combustion. The present paper investigates the effects of swirler configurations on the flow structures in isothermal flow and combustion cases using a multiple-swirlers fuel injector at atmospheric conditions. The swirling flow field within the combustor was characterized by a central recirculation zone formed after vortex breakdown. The differences between the tangential and axial velocity profiles, the shape of the recirculation zones and the turbulence intensity distribution for the different fuel injector configurations impacted the flame structure, the temperature distribution and the emission characteristics both for gaseous and liquid fuels. Co-swirling configuration was shown to have the lowest NOx emission level compared with the counter-swirling ones for both types of fuels with lower inlet temperature. In contrast to this, the swirl configuration had less effect on the combustion characteristics in the case of gaseous fuel with high air inlet temperature. The differences in NOx emissions were shown to be closely related to the Damkohler number or the degree to which the flame resembled well-mixed combustion, which is the foundation for LDI combustion.

Development of a Low NOx Combustor for 300kW-Class Ceramic Gas Turbine (CGT302)

1998 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Okuto ◽  
T. Kimura ◽  
I. Takehara ◽  
T. Nakashima ◽  
Y. Ichikawa ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Research And Development ◽  
Gas Turbine ◽  
Flow Rate ◽  
Gas Turbines ◽  
Combustion Efficiency ◽  
Development Project ◽  
Pollutant Emissions ◽  
Inlet Temperature ◽  
Outlet Temperature ◽  
Nox Emissions

Research and development project of ceramic gas turbines (CGT) was started in 1988 promoted by the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) in Japan. The target of the CGT project is development of a 300kW-class ceramic gas turbine with a 42 % thermal efficiency and a turbine inlet temperature (TIT) of 1350°C. Three types of CGT engines are developed in this project. One of the CGT engines, which is called CGT302, is a recuperated two-shaft gas turbine for co-generation use. In this paper, we describe the research and development of a combustor for the CGT302. The project requires a combustor to exhaust lower pollutant emissions than the Japanese regulation level. In order to reduce NOx emissions and achieve high combustion efficiency, lean premixed combustion technology is adopted. Combustion rig tests were carried out using this combustor. In these tests we measured the combustor performance such as pollutant emissions, combustion efficiency, combustor inlet/outlet temperature, combustor inlet pressure and pressure loss through combustor. Of course air flow rate and fuel flow rate are controlled and measured, respectively. The targets for the combustor such as NOx emissions and combustion efficiency were accomplished with sufficient margin in these combustion rig tests. In addition, we report the results of the tests which were carried out to examine effects of inlet air pressure on NOx emissions here.

Fuel Flexibility Test Campaign on a 10 MW Class Gas Turbine Equipped With a Dry-Low-NOx Combustion System

2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefano Cocchi ◽  
Michele Provenzale ◽  
Gianni Ceccherini
Keyword(s):  
Gas Turbine ◽  
Gas Turbines ◽  
Pressure Ratio ◽  
Flame Temperature ◽  
Nox Emission ◽  
Pollutant Emissions ◽  
Combustion System ◽  
Fuel Flow ◽  
Fuel Flexibility ◽  
Air Staging

An experimental test campaign, aimed to provide a preliminary assessment of the fuel flexibility of small power gas turbines equipped with Dry Low NOx (DLN) combustion systems, has been carried over a full-scale GE10 prototypical unit, located at the Nuovo-Pignone manufacturing site, in Florence. Such activity is a follow-up of a previous experimental campaign, performed on the same engine, but equipped with a diffusive combustion system. The engine is a single shaft, simple cycle gas turbine designed for power generation applications, rated for 11 MW electrical power and equipped with a DLN silos type combustor. One of the peculiar features of such combustion system is the presence of a device for primary combustion air staging, in order to control flame temperature. A variable composition gaseous fuel mixture has been obtained by mixing natural gas with CO2 up to about 30% vol. inerts concentration. Tests have been carried over without any modification of the default hardware configuration. Tests performed aimed to investigate both ignition limits and combustors’ performances, focusing on hot parts’ temperatures, pollutant emissions and combustion driven pressure oscillations. Results indicate that ignition is possible up to 20% vol. inerts concentration in the fuel, keeping the fuel flow during ignition at moderately low levels. Beyond 20% vol. inerts, ignition is still possible increasing fuel flow and adjusting primary air staging, but more tests are necessary to increase confidence in defining optimal and critical values. Speed ramps and load operation have been successfully tested up to 30% vol. inerts concentration. As far as speed ramps, the only issue evidenced has been risk of flameout, successfully abated by rescheduling combustion air staging. As far as load operation, the combustion system has proven to be almost insensitive to any inerts concentration tested (up to 30% vol.): the only parameter significantly affected by variation in CO2 concentration has been NOx emission. As a complementary activity, a simplified zero-dimensional model for predicting NOx emission has been developed, accounting for fuel dilution with CO2. The model is based on main turbine cycle and DLN combustion system controlling parameters (i.e., compressor pressure ratio, firing temperature, pilot fuel and primary air staging), and has been tuned achieving good agreement with data collected during the test campaign.

Numerical Study on the Reduction of NOx Emissions From Pulse Detonation Combustion

2017 ◽  
Vol 140 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Neda Djordjevic ◽  
Niclas Hanraths ◽  
Joshua Gray ◽  
Phillip Berndt ◽  
Jonas Moeck
Keyword(s):  
Gas Turbine ◽  
Gas Turbines ◽  
Operating Conditions ◽  
Pollutant Emissions ◽  
Emissions Reduction ◽  
Nox Emissions ◽  
Primary Methods ◽  
Detonation Cell ◽  
Pulse Detonation ◽  
Detonation Combustion

A change in the combustion concept of gas turbines from conventional isobaric to constant volume combustion, such as in pulse detonation combustion (PDC), promises a significant increase in gas turbine efficiency. Current research focuses on the realization of reliable PDC operation and its challenging integration into a gas turbine. The topic of pollutant emissions from such systems has so far received very little attention. Few rare studies indicate that the extreme combustion conditions in PDC systems can lead to high emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx). Therefore, it is essential already at this stage of development to begin working on primary measures for NOx emissions reduction if commercialization is to be feasible. The present study evaluates the potential of different primary methods for reducing NOx emissions produced during PDC of hydrogen. The considered primary methods involve utilization of lean combustion mixtures or its dilution by steam injection or exhaust gas recirculation. The influence of such measures on the detonability of the combustion mixture has been evaluated based on detonation cell sizes modeled with detailed chemistry. For the mixtures and operating conditions featuring promising detonability, NOx formation in the detonation wave has been simulated by solving the one-dimensional (1D) reacting Euler equations. The study enables an insight into the potential and limitations of considered measures for NOx emissions reduction and lays the groundwork for optimized operation of PDC systems.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document