Heavy Duty Gas Turbine Combustion Dynamics Study Using a Two-Can Combustion System

In this study, an experimental facility with two combustion cans was built and successfully replicated the field boundary conditions for heavy duty gas turbine combustors. Each combustor consisted of multiple Dry Low NOx (DLN) fuel nozzles, representative of a real gas turbine combustor headend. The two combustor cans were connected at the combustor exits to simulate the cross-talk area in a can-annular combustor configuration of a gas turbine. Moreover, a choked boundary condition, at the exit section of the cross-talk area, simulated the first-stage nozzle of a turbine. The push-push and push-pull tones were excited by varying the fuel flow splits among the various fuel nozzles in each combustor can. The thermoacoustic behavior of the two-can combustor was modeled using both a reduced-order network approach and a high-fidelity CFD approach. The modeling was carried out to guide rig design and to predict the frequency and relative amplitudes of the various dynamics modes from the experiments. Various combustion dynamics mitigation strategies were demonstrated via the experiments in reducing both push-pull and push-push dynamics tones. Moreover, stable combustor operation was demonstrated with complete mitigation of all dynamics tones.