Andre Burdet

Improvement of Gas Turbine Combustion Reactivity Under Flue Gas Recirculation Condition With In-Situ Hydrogen Addition

Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) solutions are currently being assessed in order to address appropriately the climate change challenge. Post-combustion CO2 capture is one of the technologies proposed for both coal-fired and gas-fired power plants. In Natural Gas Combined Cycle (NGCC), the flue gas is treated after the Heat Recovery Steam Generator (HRSG) in a so-called post-combustion CO2 capture module through use of solvents. The size of systems envisaged for the capture of CO2 scales with volumetric flow to be treated together with the CO2 concentration contained in the flue gas. Flue Gas Recirculation (FGR) is proposed as a means to increase CO2 concentration in the flue gas together with a net reduction of volumetric flow to be treated by the CO2 capture module. One of the limiting factors of this technology is the vitiation of air within gas turbine combustor and the associated reduction in oxygen concentration. This paper analyses the influence of air vitiation upon combustion in a generic premix lean industrial burner. Tests are carried out under representative inlet pressure and temperature levels. Variation of inlet oxidizer composition is simulated with the addition of nitrogen and carbon dioxide to the inlet air. It is observed that CO emission increases with oxygen depletion at a fixed residence time, signaling a reduction of combustion reactivity. In addition, NOx emission is shown to be sensitive to oxygen depletion. In order to mitigate reduction of combustion reactivity, hydrogen is added to the fuel, up to 20% in volume. As another alternative, a Catalytic Partial Oxidation (CPO) reactor is used in-situ in order to reform the fuel to different syngas blends. These syngas is then used as fuel, which enables the enhancement of the combustion reactivity counter-acting the impact of FGR conditions. The hydrogen addition appears to help improving the reactivity of the flame, making this concept relevant for operation under vitiated air condition.Copyright

Modeling of Film Cooling—Part II: Model for Use in Three-Dimensional Computational Fluid Dynamics

Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) has recently been used for the simulation of the aerothermodynamics of film cooling. The direct calculation of a single cooling hole requires substantial computational resources. A parametric study, for the optimization of the cooling system in real engines, is much too time consuming due to the large number of grid nodes required to cover all injection holes and plenum chambers. For these reasons, a hybrid approach is proposed, based on the modeling of the near film-cooling hole flow, tuned using experimental data, while computing directly the flow field in the blade-to-blade passage. A new injection film-cooling model is established, which can be embedded in a CFD code, to lower the central processing unit (CPU) cost and to reduce the simulation turnover time. The goal is to be able to simulate film-cooled turbine blades without having to explicitly mesh inside the holes and the plenum chamber. The stability, low CPU overhead level (1%) and accuracy of the proposed CFD-embedded film-cooling model are demonstrated in the ETHZ steady film-cooled flat-plate experiment presented in Part I (Bernsdorf, Rose, and Abhari, 2006, ASME J. Turbomach., 128, pp. 141-149) of this two-part paper. The prediction of film-cooling effectiveness using the CFD-embedded model is evaluated.

Three-Dimensional Flow Prediction and Improvement of Holes Arrangement of a Film-Cooled Turbine Blade Using a Feature-Based Jet Model

A feature-based jet model has been proposed for use in three-dimensional (3D) computational fluid dynamics (CFD) prediction of turbine blade film cooling. The goal of the model is to be able to perform computationally efficient flow prediction and optimization of film-cooled turbine blades. The model reproduces in the near-hole region the macro-flow features of a coolant jet within a Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes framework. Numerical predictions of the 3D flow through a linear transonic film-cooled turbine cascade are carried out with the model, with a low computational overhead. Different cooling holes arrangements are computed, and the prediction accuracy is evaluated versus experimental data. It is shown that the present model provides a reasonably good prediction of the adiabatic film-cooling effectiveness and Nusselt number around the blade. A numerical analysis of the interaction of coolant jets issuing from different rows of holes on the blade pressure side is carried out. It is shown that the upward radial migration of the flow due to the passage secondary flow structure has an impact on the spreading of the coolant and the film-cooling effectiveness on the blade surface. Based on this result, a new arrangement of the cooling holes for the present case is proposed that leads to a better spanwise covering of the coolant on the blade pressure side surface.

Influence of Stator-Rotor Interaction on the Aerothermal Performance of Recess Blade Tips

This paper investigates the influence of stator-rotor interaction on the stage performance of three blade tip geometries. A reference flat tip is used to assess two different recess blade geometries. The study is made in the context of the realistic turbine stage configuration provided by the ETHZ 1.5-stage LISA turbine research facility. This numerical investigation describes the details of unsteady recess cavity flow structure and confirms the beneficial effects of the improved recess geometry over the flat tip and the nominal recess design both in terms of stage efficiency and tip heat load. The tip flow field obtained from the improved recess design combines the advantages of a nominal recess design (aerodynamic sealing) and the flat tip configuration. The turbine stage capacity is almost unchanged between the flat tip and the improved recess tip cases, which simplifies the design procedure when using the improved recess design. The overall heat load in the improved recess case is reduced by 26% compared with the flat tip and by 14% compared with the nominal recess. A key finding of this study is the difference in effects of the upstream stator wake on the recess cavity flow. Where cavity flow in the nominal design is only moderately influenced, the improved recess cavity flow shows enhanced flow unsteadiness. The tip Nusselt number from a purely steady-state prediction in the nominal recess case is nearly identical to the time-average prediction. The improved design shows a 6% difference between steady-state and time-average tip Nusselt number. This is due to the strong influence of the wake passing on the recess cavity flow. In fact, the wake enhances a small flow difference at the leading edge of the recess cavity between the nominal and improved recess cavities, which results in a completely different flow field further downstream in the recess cavity.

Flue Gas Recirculation in Gas Turbine: Investigation of Combustion Reactivity and NOX Emission

Flue gas recirculation (FGR) is a promising technology for the optimization of post-combustion CO2 capture in natural gas combined cycle (NGCC) plants. In this work, the impact of FGR on lean gas turbine premix combustion is predicted by analytical and numerical investigations as well as comparison to experiments. In particular the impact of vitiated air condition and moderate increase of CO2 concentration into combustion reactivity and NOx emission is studied. The influence of inlet pressure, temperature and recirculated NOx are taken as parameters of this study. Two different kinetic schemes are used to predict the impact that FGR has on the combustion process: the GRI3.0 and the RDO6_NO, which is a newly compiled mechanism from the DLR Stuttgart. The effects of the FGR on the NOx emissions are predicted using a chemical reactor network including unmixedness as presumed probability density function (PDF) to account for real effects. The magnitude and ratio of prompt to post-flame thermal NOx changes with the FGR-ratio producing less post flame NOx at reduced O2 content. For technical mixtures (i. e. an industrial fuel injector), NOx emission can be expected to be lower with the vitiation of the oxidizer. This is due to several effects: at low O2 concentration, the highest possible adiabatic flame temperatures for stoichiometric conditions decreases resulting in lower NOx when averaged over all mixing fractions. Further effects result from lower post flame NOx production and the role of “reburn” chemistry, actually reducing NOx (recirculated from the exhaust), which might become relevant for the high recirculation ratios, where parts of the flame would operate at rich stoichiometry at given unmixedness. Therefore in general for each combustor technical mixing could decrease NOx with respect to perfect mixing at high FGR-ratio assuming the engine can still be operated. Although the findings are quite general for gas turbines the advantage that reheat engines have in terms of operation are highlighted. For reheat engines this can be understood as an extension of the “reheat concept” and used as the next step in the goal to achieve minimal emissions at increasing power. In addition, NOx emission obtained in FGR combustion reduces even further when the engine pressure ratio increases, making the concept particularly well suited for reheat engines.

Combustion Under Flue Gas Recirculation Conditions in a Gas Turbine Lean Premix Burner

An EV burner as installed in Alstom’s dry low NOx gas turbines was experimentally investigated under different Flue Gas Recirculation (FGR) and engine conditions. FGR enables the reduction of the high exhaust volume flow while significantly increasing the exhaust CO2 concentration. This may substantially improve the post-combustion capture of CO2 . However, FGR introduces consequent changes in the gas turbine combustion process mainly because of the oxygen depletion and CO2 increase within the oxidizer. N2 and CO2 were mixed with air in order to obtain at the burner inlet a synthetic oxidizer mixture reproducing O2 and CO2 levels spanning different FGR levels of interest for engine operation. In addition, various degrees of unmixedness of the reactive mixture were investigated by varying the ratio of fuel injected at different port locations in the investigated burner set. Stable operation was achieved in all tested conditions. The lean premix flame shifts downstream when O2 is depleted due to the decrease of the reactivity, although it always stays well within the combustion chamber. The potential for NOx reduction when using FGR is demonstrated. Changes of the NOx formation mechanism are described and compared to the experimental data for validation. Unmixedness appears to be less detrimental to NOx emission when under high FGR ratio. However, CO emission is shown to increase when FGR ratio is increased. Meanwhile, with the present gas turbine combustor, the CO emission follows the equilibrium limit even at high FGR ratio. Interestingly, it is observed that when the burner inlet pressure is increased (and consequently the inlet burner temperature), the increase of CO emission due to FGR is lowered while the NOx emission stays at a very low level. This present an argument for using a higher cycle pressure in gas turbines optimized for FGR operation.Copyright

Modeling of Film Cooling: Part II — Model for Use in 3D CFD

Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) has been used recently for the simulation of the aerothermodynamics of film cooling. The direct calculation of a single cooling hole requires substantial computational resources. A parametric study, for the optimization of the cooling system in real engines, is much too time consuming due to the large number of grid nodes required to cover all injection holes and plenum chambers. For these reasons a hybrid approach is proposed, based on the modeling of the near film-cooling hole flow, tuned using experimental data, while computing directly the flow field in the blade-to-blade passage. A new injection film-cooling model is established, which can be embedded in a CFD code, to lower the Central Processing Unit (CPU) costs and reduce the simulation turnover time. The goal is to be able to simulate film-cooled turbine blades without having to explicitly mesh the holes with the plenum chamber. The stability, low CPU overhead level (1%) and accuracy of the proposed CFD-embedded film-cooling model, are demonstrated in the ETHZ steady film-cooled flat plate experiment [5] presented in Part I of this two-part paper. The prediction of film-cooling effectiveness using the CFD-embedded model is evaluated.Copyright

Influence of Near Hole Pressure Fluctuation on the Thermal Protection of a Film-Cooled Flat Plate

The pulsation of film cooling jets in turbines is driven by the near hole pressure fluctuation caused by the deterministic interaction of stator/rotor blade rows. Jet pulsation is characterized by the coolant near hole reduced frequency Ω c and the pulsation amplitude coefficient Ψ. The fluctuation of the near hole pressure is simulated by setting a time-varying signal of static pressure for the outlet boundary condition of a film-cooled flat plate configuration. It is observed that the fluctuation of the near hole pressure influences the blowing ratio, hence the thermal protection downstream of the injection site. For a low mean blowing ratio (BR=0.75), low-medium pulsation frequencies (Ω c ≤0.10) are found to be slightly detrimental to the thermal protection versus a steady injection. On the contrary, for high pulsation frequencies (Ω c ≤0.17), the thermal protection becomes better due to periodic jet disintegration into the wall surface caused by a higher level of transverse kinetic energy of the jet pulse. In addition, the overlapping of jet pulses appears to help the constant temporal spreading of coolant over the wall surface. For a higher mean blowing ratio (BR = 1.25), jet pulsation enhances lift-off so that the thermal protection is, in general, worse compared to a steady injection. Overall, the range of jet pulsation presented in this study affects moderately the thermal protection of the downstream surface.

3D Flow Prediction and Improvement of Holes Arrangement of a Film-Cooled Turbine Blade Using a Feature-Based Jet Model

A feature-based jet model has been proposed for use in 3D CFD prediction of turbine blade film cooling. The goal of the model is to be able to perform computationally efficient flow prediction and optimization of film-cooled turbine blades. The model reproduces in the near hole region the macro flow features of a coolant jet within a Reynolds-Averaged Navier Stokes (RANS) framework. Numerical predictions of the 3D flow through a linear transonic film-cooled turbine cascade are carried out with the model, with a low computational overhead. Different cooling holes arrangement are computed and the prediction accuracy is evaluated versus experimental data. It shown that the present model provides a reasonably good prediction of the adiabatic film-cooling effectiveness and Nusselt number around the blade. A numerical analysis of the interaction of coolant jets issuing from different rows of holes on the blade pressure side is carried out. It is shown that the upward radial migration of the flow due to the passage secondary flow structure has an impact on the spreading of the coolant and the film cooling effectiveness on the blade surface. Based on this result, a new arrangement of the cooling holes for the present case is proposed that leads to a better spanwise covering of the coolant on the blade pressure side surface.Copyright

On the prediction of film cooling with compound angle injection using a three-dimensional feature-based jet model

A three-dimensional feature-based jet model is proposed for the numerical simulation of film cooling flows. The modelling is made in the near hole region and model coefficients are experimentally anchored. The model previously validated for streamwise jet injection cases is modified so that compound jet injection can be simulated. The modifications of the model concern the lateral trajectory of the jet and the structural change of the coolant Counter-rotating Vortex Pair (CVP). It is shown that the modelling strategy is relevant and robust for moderate compound angle injection and that higher injection angle necessitates deeper structural change of the modelling approach.