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Mixture Preparation Effects on Distributed Combustion for Gas Turbine Application

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Novel Combustion Concepts for Sustainable Energy Development

Abstract

Distributed Combustion is now known to provide significant improvements to the performance of gas turbine combustors. Key features of distributed combustion include uniform thermal field in the entire combustion chamber for significantly improved pattern factor and avoidance of hot-spot regions that promote thermal NO x emissions, negligible emissions of hydrocarbons and soot, low noise, and reduced air cooling requirements for turbine blades. Distributed combustion necessitates controlled mixing between the injected air, fuel, and hot reactive gases from within the combustor prior to mixture ignition. The mixing process impacts spontaneous ignition of the mixture to result in improved distributed combustion reactions. Distributed combustion can be achieved in premixed, partially premixed, or non-premixed modes of combustor operation with sufficient entrainment of hot and active species present in the combustion zone and their rapid turbulent mixing with the reactants. Distributed combustion with swirl is investigated here to further explore the beneficial aspects of such combustion under relevant gas turbine combustion conditions. The near-term goal is to develop a high-intensity combustor with ultra-low emissions of NOx and CO and a much improved pattern factor and eventual goal of near-zero emission combustor. Different fuel injection scenarios are examined with focus on mixing to achieve distributed reaction conditions and ultra-low emissions. In all the cases, air was injected tangentially to impart swirl to the flow inside the combustor. Ultra-low NO x emissions were found for both the premixed and non-premixed combustion modes for the geometries investigated here. Results showed very low levels of NO (~10 PPM) and CO (~21 PPM) emissions under non-premixed mode of combustion with air preheats at an equivalence ratio of 0.6 and a moderate heat release intensity of 27 MW/m3-atm. Further enhancement of the mixing process using dilution reduced NO emission to 4.6 PPM which is nearly equivalent to emissions under premixed combustion mode with reduced CO emissions compared to non-premixed combustion mode. Results are also reported on lean stability limits and OH* chemiluminescence under different fuel injection scenarios for determining the extent of distribution combustion conditions. Numerical simulations have also been performed to help develop an understanding of the mixing process for better understanding of ignition and combustion.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, 20742, USA

    Ahmed E. E. Khalil & Ashwani K. Gupta

Authors
  1. Ahmed E. E. Khalil
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  2. Ashwani K. Gupta
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ashwani K. Gupta .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India

    Avinash K Agarwal

  2. Centre for Biofuels and Biotechnology Division, NIIST, Thiruvananthapuram, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India

    Ashok Pandey

  3. Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, USA

    Ashwani K. Gupta

  4. Flow and Combustion Laboratory, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA

    Suresh K. Aggarwal

  5. Department of Aerospace Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India

    Abhijit Kushari

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Khalil, A.E.E., Gupta, A.K. (2014). Mixture Preparation Effects on Distributed Combustion for Gas Turbine Application. In: Agarwal, A., Pandey, A., Gupta, A., Aggarwal, S., Kushari, A. (eds) Novel Combustion Concepts for Sustainable Energy Development. Springer, New Delhi. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-81-322-2211-8_12

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-81-322-2211-8_12

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, New Delhi

  • Print ISBN: 978-81-322-2210-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-81-322-2211-8

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