Anthony Giles

Methane-Oxygen Flame Stability in a Generic Premixed Gas Turbine Swirl Combustor at Varying Thermal Power and Pressure

At low thermal power (<5 kW) conditions, nitrogen and carbon dioxide were added as diluents to a premix of methane-oxygen in an atmospheric generic swirl burner. Results indicate that CO2-diluted oxy-methane flames have a wider stability range than N2-diluted flames in terms of overall oxygen concentration in the premix. Bulk flow Reynolds number, augmented by varying the size of the burner exit nozzle, was also found to increase the stability limits of flames diluted with both CO2 and N2, as the increased flow velocity offsets the higher burning velocity of the oxyfuel mixture. A combination of differing transport properties between diluents and the resulting flame chemistry produces a change in the structure of the premixed oxyfuel swirl flame, shown by combustion PIV to affect the observed lean and rich stability limits. Utilising the results at low thermal power conditions, enhanced-oxygen combustion of a methane-air flame was investigated in a pressurized generic swirl burner operating at higher thermal power (<50 kW) conditions and pressures up to 3 bar absolute. Over a range of increasing thermal powers, it is seen that a relatively small amount of pure oxygen addition can shift the equivalence ratio at which the lean stability limit or rich stability limit are reached compared with the same phenomenon observed for a methane-air flame. Pressurised operation with CO2 dilution up to 15.5 mol% was validated through stability limit and emissions gas analysis, giving further support to the use of exhaust gas recirculation in premixed swirl-stabilized burners for oxyfuel combustion.

Tangential Velocity Effects and Correlations for Blowoff and Flashback in a Generic Swirl Burner and the Effect of a Hydrogen Containing Fuel

Swirl combustors are almost universally employed in gas turbines owing to their great stability range which occurs due to the formation of a CRZ which recycles heat and active chemical species to the flame root, considerably enhancing stability over a wide range of operating conditions. Increasing interest in lean fuel premixed systems has arisen because of its propensity to reduce NOx emissions. This coupled with the use of hydrogen containing alternative fuels offers the possibility of reduced greenhouse gas emissions. Alternative fuels include hydrogen-enriched natural gas in various proportions, by products of process industries such as coke oven gas and indeed pure hydrogen. This gives rise to numerous areas of concern for operators and developers of premixed gas turbine combustors especially in the area of flashback and blow-off. Blow-off and flashback with hydrogen containing fuels are of special concern with hydrogen enriched fuels, owing to the high flame speed of hydrogen, to such an extent that diffusion combustion is commonly employed resulting in higher NOx emissions. This paper compares the effect of a typical alternative hydrogen containing fuel, Coke Oven Gas (COG) with methane/natural gas upon blowoff and flashback in two premixed swirl burners in swirl number regimes representative of those found in practical systems. Methane/Natural gas is used as a base fuel for comparison. All results are obtained at atmospheric pressure without air preheat as a precursor to pressurised tests. The two swirl burners have quite different inlet systems, but common exhaust designs. A central fuel injector just extends into the exhaust and is ~40% of the exhaust diameter, a common industrial size. Swirl numbers range from less than 0.8 to over 4. A new simple correlation has been found between tangential velocity, blow-off and flashback in swirl burners operating under conditions representative of industrial practice for methane and COG. For coke oven gas (COG containing 65% H2 and 25% CH4) the correlation was found for freely expanding flames. For flashback a similar but weaker correlation was found for methane whilst for COG the correlation was very successful in the fuel rich regime. . The paper analyses this correlation in the context of the flame speed in these type of swirling flames as well as the effect of the changing combustion aerodynamics as equivalence ratio varied.

Laminar Burning Velocity and Markstein Length Characterisation of Compositionally Dynamic Blast Furnace Gas

Blast Furnace Gas is a poor quality process gas comprising proportions of CO, H2, CO2, and N2, with a low energy density typically in the order of 3 MJ·kg−1. Produced in large quantities as a by-product of blast furnace iron making, it is one of the process gases indigenous to integrated steelworks worldwide. The inherently dynamic nature of furnace operation causes compositional variation and therefore leads to fluctuation in the fuel characteristics, often dissuading engineers from fully utilising the gas in increasingly complex and efficient technologies such as gas turbines. Characterisation studies were undertaken in a new constant volume bomb to determine the sensitivity to change in laminar burning velocity and Markstein length experienced as a result of increasing the volumetric H2 fraction in the range of 1–7%. Experiments were performed by measuring outwardly propagating spherical flame evolution, recorded using a Schlieren flame visualisation technique for a range of equivalence ratios, and processed using nonlinear data analysis. The relative performance of the experimental technique was benchmarked against other works using well-investigated CH4 and yielded results in good agreement with published values. Peak laminar burning velocity was shown to increase by a factor of approximately 3.5 over the tested range, with H2 concentration and equivalence ratio shown to greatly influence the effect of flame stretch. Comparisons of results were also made with values obtained from different reaction mechanisms employed using the PREMIX code developed by Sandia National Laboratories.

Catalytic Influence of Water Vapor on Lean Blowoff and NOx Reduction for Pressurized Swirling Syngas Flames

It has become increasingly cost-effective for the steel industry to invest in the capture of heavily carbonaceous basic oxygen furnace or converter gas, and use it to support the intensive energy demands of the integrated facility, or for surplus energy conversion in power plants. As industry strives for greater efficiency via ever more complex technologies, increased attention is being paid to investigate the complex behavior of by-product syngases. Recent studies have described and evidenced the enhancement of fundamental combustion parameters such as laminar flame speed due to the catalytic influence of H2O on heavily carbonaceous syngas mixtures. Direct formation of CO2 from CO is slow due to its high activation energy, and the presence of disassociated radical hydrogen facilitates chain branching species (such as OH), changing the dominant path for oxidation. The observed catalytic effect is nonmonotonic, with the reduction in flame temperature eventually prevailing, and overall reaction rate quenched. The potential benefits of changes in water loading are explored in terms of delayed lean blow-off (LBO), and primary emission reduction in a premixed turbulent swirling flame, scaled for practical relevance at conditions of elevated temperature (423 K) and pressure (0.1–0.3 MPa). Chemical kinetic models are used initially to characterize the influence that H2O has on the burning characteristics of the fuel blend employed, modeling laminar flame speed and extinction strain rate across an experimental range with H2O vapor fraction increased to eventually diminish the catalytic effect. These modeled predictions are used as a foundation to investigate the experimental flame. OH* chemiluminescence and OH planar laser-induced fluorescence (PLIF) are employed as optical diagnostic techniques to analyze changes in heat release structure resulting from the experimental variation in water loading. A comparison is made with a CH4/air flame and changes in LBO stability limits are quantified, measuring the incremental increase in air flow and again compared against chemical models. The compound benefit of CO and NOx reduction is quantified also, with production first decreasing due to the thermal effect of H2O addition from a reduction in flame temperature, coupled with the potential for further reduction from the change in lean stability limit. Power law correlations have been derived for change in pressure, and equivalent water loading. Hence, the catalytic effect of H2O on reaction pathways and reaction rate predicted and observed for laminar flames are appraised within the challenging environment of turbulent, swirl-stabilized flames at elevated temperature and pressure, characteristic of practical systems.

Experimental Analysis of Confinement and Swirl Effects on Premixed CH4-H2 Flame Behavior in a Pressurized Generic Swirl Burner

The introduction of hydrogen into natural gas systems for environmental benefit presents potential operational issues for gas turbine combustion and power generation applications; in particular acceptable blending concentrations are still widely debated. The use of a generic swirl burner under conditions pertinent to a gas turbine combustor is therefore advantageous to (i) provide evidence of potential design modifications to inform future gas turbine operation on hydrogen blends and (ii) validate numerical model predictions. Building on a previous experimental combustion database consisting of methane-hydrogen fuel blends under atmospheric and elevated ambient conditions, a new scaled generic swirl burner has been designed for experimental investigation of flame stability and exhaust gas emissions at combustor inlet temperatures to 573 K, pressures to 0.33 MPa, and thermal powers to 126 kW. The geometry downstream of the modular burner is developed further to enable separate investigation under isothermal and combustion conditions of the influence of combustor outlet geometry and the effect of changing geometric swirl number. The burner confinement is modified to include both a cylindrical exit quartz combustion chamber and a conical convergent exit quartz combustion chamber, designed to provide a more representative geometric and acoustic boundary at the combustor outlet. Two inlet geometric swirl numbers of industrial relevance are chosen; namely 0.5 and 0.8. Combustion stability and heat release locations of lean premixed CH4-air and CH4-H2-air combustion are evaluated by a combination of OH planar laser induced fluorescence, OH* chemiluminescence, and dynamic pressure measurements. Changes in flame stabilization location are characterized by the use of an OH* chemiluminescence intensity centroid. Notable upstream flame movement coupled with changes in acoustic response are evident, particularly near the lean operating limit as hydrogen blending shifts lean blowoff of methane flames to lower equivalence ratios with corresponding reduction in NOx emissions. The influence of increased pressure on the lean operating point stability and emissions appear to be small over the range considered, however a power law correlation has been developed for scaling combustion noise amplitudes with inlet pressure and swirl number. Indicators of flame flashback as well as combustor acoustic response are affected considerably when the convergent combustor outlet geometry is deployed. This has been shown to alter the influence of the central recirculation zone as a flame stabilizing coherent flow structure. Chemical kinetic modelling supports the experimental observations that stable burner operation can be achieved with blended methane-hydrogen up to 15% by volume.