CO and H2O Time-Histories in Shock-Heated Blends of Methane and Ethane for Assessment of a Chemical Kinetics Model

Methane and ethane are the two main components of natural gas and typically constitute more than 95% of it. In this study, a mixture of 90% CH4 /10% C2H6 diluted in 99% Ar was studied at fuel lean (ϕ = 0.5) conditions, for pressures around 1, 4, and 10 atm. Using laser absorption diagnostics, the time histories of CO and H2O were recorded between 1400 and 1800 K. Water is a final product from hydrocarbon combustion, and following its formation is a good marker of the completion of the combustion process. Carbon monoxide is an intermediate combustion species, a good marker of incomplete/inefficient combustion, as well as a regulated pollutant for the gas turbine industry. Measurements such as these species time histories are important for validating and assessing chemical kinetics models beyond just ignition delay times and laminar flame speeds. Time-history profiles for these two molecules measured herein were compared to a modern, state-of-the-art detailed kinetics mechanism as well as to the well-established GRI 3.0 mechanism. Results show that the H2O profile is accurately reproduced by both models. However, discrepancies are observed for the CO profiles. Under the conditions of this study, the measured CO profiles typically increase rapidly after an induction time, reach a maximum and then decrease. This maximum CO mole fraction is often largely over-predicted by the models, whereas the depletion rate of CO past this peak is often over-estimated by the models for pressures above 1 atm. This study demonstrates the need to improve on the accuracy of the HCCO reactions involved in CO formation for pressures of practical interest for the gas turbine industry.

Experimental Study of Superheated Kerosene Jet Fuel Sprays From a Pressure-Swirl Nozzle

The development of higher thermal stability fuels and the development of onboard fuel deoxygenation systems may permit the preheating of fuel up to about 755 K before the onset of pyrolysis. At a sufficiently high fuel temperature for a given combustion chamber pressure, the flash vaporization of liquid or supercritical state fuel can ensue upon injection into the chamber. The performance of standard aviation turbine engine fuel nozzles, designed for mechanically breaking up liquid sprays, may thus be significantly altered by the employment of severely preheated fuel. An evaluation of heated and superheated Jet A-1 sprays from a pressure-swirl atomizer was implemented in a purpose-built test facility. Laser sheet imaging of the spray yielded simultaneous axial cross-sectional maps of Mie-scatter and fluorescence signals. In addition, particle image velocimetry was also used to measure the spray droplet velocity-field. The results indicated that increasing the fuel’s dimensionless level of superheat ΔT* from −1.8 to 0.6 yielded significant changes in the spray structure; specifically, finer droplet sizes, a more uniform dropsize distribution across the spray, increased spray cone angle till about ΔT* = −0.8 followed by a contraction thereafter, marginally increased spray penetration, and significantly higher localised near nozzle tip droplet velocities. The measurements supported the hypothesis that the initial hollow-cone spray structure evolves to a near solid-cone structure with a central vapour core as the fuel is superheated.

Characterization of Spray Formed by Diesel-Water Mixture Jet Injected Into an Air Crossflow

Using a mixture of water and diesel fuel is considered a way to reduce gas emissions including NOx and COx in the gas turbine. This paper presents experimental results on spray characteristics of the water-diesel fuel mixture in an air crossflow. A plain-orifice type injector of 0.508 mm in diameter is employed in the research. Pure water, pure diesel fuel, and water-diesel fuel mixtures with different mixing ratios are used to compare their spray characteristics. In order to observe spray behaviors in different breakup regimes, Weber numbers for water of 30 and 125 are chosen as the operating condition and the corresponding Weber numbers for diesel fuel at the same conditions are 92 and 382, respectively. Momentum flux ratios are 10 and 20. A tee connection and a subsequent static mixer are employed at upstream of fuel injector to mix two liquids. Phase Doppler Particle Analyzer (PDPA) measurement is performed to measure droplet distributions and mean drop size at various mixture ratios, and planar laser induced fluorescence (PLIF) technique with dyeing either diesel or water is used to look into the primary breakup process. PDPA data show that the spray characteristics of water-diesel fuel mixtures such as mean drop size and number density distribution can be predicted from the measured drop size distribution of pure fluids by weighting those quantities by mass fraction of each fluid, indicating that the water and diesel are injected alternately without significant mixing between the two fluids. A short transition of liquid flow from water-to-diesel or diesel-to-water produces small fraction of relatively bigger droplets.

Flame Dynamics Intermittency in the Bi-Stable Region Near a Subcritical Hopf Bifurcation

We report experimental evidence of thermoacoustic bi-stability in a lab-scale turbulent combustor over a well-defined range of fuel-air equivalence ratios. Pressure oscillations are characterized by an intermittent behavior with “bursts”, i.e. sudden jumps between low and high amplitudes occurring at random time instants. The corresponding probability density functions of the acoustic pressure signal show clearly separated maxima when the burner is operated in the bi-stable region. A flame describing function, which links acoustic pressure to heat release rate fluctuations, is estimated at the modal frequency from simultaneously recorded flame chemiluminescence and acoustic pressure. The representation of its statistics is new and particularly informative. It shows that this describing function is characterized, in average, by a nearly constant gain and by a significant drift of the phase as function of the oscillation amplitude. This finding suggests that the bi-stability does not result from an amplitude-dependent balance between flame gain and acoustic damping, but rather from the non-constant phase difference between the acoustic pressure and the coherent fluctuations of heat release rate.

Review of Hybrid Emissions Prediction Tools and Uncertainty Quantification Methods for Gas Turbine Combustion Systems

There is a need for fast and reliable emissions prediction tools in the design, development and performance analysis of gas turbine combustion systems to predict emissions such as NOx, CO. Hybrid emissions prediction tools are defined as modelling approaches that (1) use computational fluid dynamics (CFD) or component modelling methods to generate flow field information, and (2) integrate them with detailed chemical kinetic modelling of emissions using chemical reactor network (CRN) techniques. This paper presents a review and comparison of hybrid emissions prediction tools and uncertainty quantification (UQ) methods for gas turbine combustion systems. In the first part of this study, CRN solvers are compared on the bases of some selected attributes which facilitate flexibility of network modelling, implementation of large chemical kinetic mechanisms and automatic construction of CRN. The second part of this study deals with UQ, which is becoming an important aspect of the development and use of computational tools in gas turbine combustion chamber design and analysis. Therefore, the use of UQ technique as part of the generalized modelling approach is important to develop a UQ-enabled hybrid emissions prediction tool. UQ techniques are compared on the bases of the number of evaluations and corresponding computational cost to achieve desired accuracy levels and their ability to treat deterministic models for emissions prediction as black boxes that do not require modifications. Recommendations for the development of UQ-enabled emissions prediction tools are made.

Assessment of UV Sensors for Flameout Detection

UV sensors were tested to evaluate the response and reliability as a flameout detection system to reduce system level risks. In this study, UV sensors from two manufacturers were tested on high pressure experimental rigs and on a 15MW gas turbine engine with annular diffusion flame combustion system. Tests were run to investigate the effect of fuel composition, engine load, and sensor circumferential position. The effect of each variable on sensor signal strength and response time is presented in this paper. The response time of the sensor is evaluated against the rate of change of combustor pressure and the time for fuel-air mixture to reach lean extinction limit in the primary zone. Results show that the UV sensor response is not affected by engine load, circumferential location of the sensors, or fuel composition down to Wobbe index of 18.7 MJ/Sm3. At lower Wobbe indices, the signal strength decreased significantly. This result has been attributed to the movement of flame location away from the line of sight of the sensor. Furthermore, it was found that the UV sensor responded before the bulk average reactant mixture reached lean blow out fuel-air ratios. When compared to the baseline detection system the UV sensor performs faster at low load conditions (800 milliseconds) but slower at full load conditions (400 milliseconds). Experimental rig testing led to similar conclusions for sensor response time and signal strength. Future testing of UV sensors on hydrogen blends is planned.

Experimental Study of Transient Mechanisms of Bi-Stable Flame Shape Transitions in a Swirl Combustor

Sudden changes of flame shape are an undesired, yet poorly understood feature of swirl combustors used in gas turbines. The present work studies flame shape transition mechanisms of a bistable turbulent swirl flame in a gas turbine model combustor, which alternates intermittently between an attached V-form and a lifted M-form. Time-resolved velocity fields and 2D flame structures were measured simultaneously using high-speed stereo-PIV and OH-PLIF at 10 kHz. The data analysis is performed using two novel methods that are well adapted to the study of transient flame shape transitions: Firstly, the linear stability analysis (LSA) of a time-varying mean flow and secondly the recently proposed spectral proper orthogonal decomposition (SPOD). The results show that the transitions are governed by two types of instability, namely a hydrodynamic instability in the form of a precessing vortex core (PVC) and a thermoacoustic (TA) instability. The LSA shows that the V-M transition implies the transient formation of a PVC as the result of a self-amplification process. The V-M transition, on the other hand, is induced by the appearance of a TA instability that suppresses the PVC and thereby modifies the flow field such that the flame re-attaches at the nozzle. In summary these results provide novel insights into the complex interactions of TA and hydrodynamic instabilities that govern the shape of turbulent swirl-stabilized flames.

Effect of Acoustic Feedback on Lagrangian Coherent Structures in a Backward Facing Step Combustor With a Partially Premixed Flame

The thermoacoustic oscillations of a partially premixed flame stabilized in a backward facing step combustor are studied at a constant equivalence ratio in long and short combustor configurations corresponding to with and without acoustic feedback respectively. We perform simultaneous time-resolved particle image velocimetry (TR-PIV) and chemiluminescence for selected flow conditions based on the acoustic characterization in the long combustor. The acoustic characterization shows a transition in the dominant pressure amplitudes from low to high magnitudes with an increase in the inlet flow Reynolds number. This is accompanied by a shift in the dominant frequencies. For the intermittent pressure oscillations in the long combustor, the wavelet analysis indicates a switch between the acoustic and vortex modes with silent zones of relatively low-pressure amplitudes. The short combustor configuration indicates the presence of the vortex shedding frequency and an additional band comprising the Kelvin Helmholtz mode. Next, we apply the method of finite-time Lyapunov exponent (FTLE) to the time-resolved velocity fields to extract features of the Lagrangian coherent structures (LCS) of the flow. In the long combustor post transition with the time instants with dominant acoustic mode, a large-scale modulation of the FTLE boundaries over one cycle of pressure oscillation is evident. Further, the FTLEs and the flame boundaries align each other for all phases of the pressure oscillation. In the short combustor, the FTLEs indicate the presence of small wavelength waviness that overrides the large-scale vortex structure, which corresponds to the vortex shedding mode. This behaviour contrasts with the premixed flame in the short combustor reported earlier in which such large scales were found to be seldom present. The presence of the large-scale structures even in the absence of acoustic feedback in a partially premixed flame signifies its inherent unstable nature leading to large pressure amplitudes during acoustic feedback. Lastly, the FTLE boundaries provide the frequency information of the identified coherent structure and also acts as the surrogate flame boundaries that are estimated from just the velocity fields.

An Onion Peeling Reconstruction of the Spatial Characteristics of Entropy Waves in a Model Gas Turbine Combustor

Entropy noise affects thermoacoustic stability in lean pre-mixed gas turbine combustion chambers. It is defined as acoustic noise that is emitted at the first turbine stage due to the acceleration of entropy waves that are advected from the reaction zone in the combustor to the turbine inlet. These non-isentropic temperature waves are caused by equivalence ratio fluctuations which are inherently present in a technically premixed combustion system. To experimentally study the generation and transport of entropy waves, an estimation of the spatial distribution of the entropy spots is highly valuable as it allows the accurate determination of the cross-section averaged entropy, which is the relevant quantity for the formation mechanism of entropy noise at the turbine stage. In this work, a time-of-flight based temperature measurement method is applied to a circular combustion test rig equipped with a premixed swirl-stabilized combustor. Downstream of the burner, an electric spark discharge is employed to generate a narrow acoustic pulse which is detected with a circumferentially arranged microphone array. The measured time of flight of the acoustic signal corresponds to the line-integrated inverse of the speed of sound between the acoustic source and each microphone. By modulating a share of the injected gaseous fuel, equivalence ratio fluctuations are generated upstream of the reaction zone and consequently entropy spots are advected through the axial measurement plane. The spark discharge is triggered at distinct phase angles of the entropy oscillation, thus allowing a time resolved-analysis of the thermo-acoustic phenomenon. Estimating the spatial temperature distribution from the measured line integrated inverse speed of sounds requires tomographic reconstruction. A Tikhonov regularized Onion Peeling is employed to deduce radial temperature profiles. To increase the number of independent data, the spark location is radially traversed, which enhances the resolution of the reconstructed temperature field. A phantom study is conducted, which allows the assessment of the capabilities of the reconstruction algorithm. By means of the reconstructed radial entropy field, spatially resolved entropy waves are measured and their amplitudes and phases are extracted. The characteristics of the entropy waves measured in this way correspond well to former studies.

Comparison of Temperature Fields and Emissions Predictions Using Both an FGM Combustion Model, With Detailed Chemistry, and a Simple Eddy Dissipation Combustion Model With Simple Global Chemistry

The detailed modeling of the turbulence-chemistry interactions occurring in industrial flames has always been the leading challenge in combustion Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). The wide range of flame types found in Industrial Gas Turbine Combustion systems has exacerbated these difficulties greatly, since the combustion modeling approach must be able to predict the flames behavior from regions of fast chemistry, where turbulence has no significant impact on the reactions, to regions where turbulence effects play a significant role within the flame. One of these combustion models, that is being used more and more in industry today, is the Flamelet Generated Manifold (FGM) model, in which the flame properties are parametrized and tabulated based on mixture fraction and flame progress variables. This paper compares the results obtained using an FGM model, with a GRI-3.0 methane-air chemistry mechanism, against the more traditional Industrial work-horse, Finite-Rate Eddy Dissipation Model (FREDM), with a global 2-step Westbrook and Dryer methane-air mechanism. Both models were used to predict the temperature distributions, as well as emissions (NOx and CO) for a conventional, non-premixed, Industrial RB211 combustion system. The object of this work is to: (i) identify any significant differences in the predictive capabilities of each model and (ii) discuss the strengths and weakness of both approaches.