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A numerical study on NOx formation behavior in a lean-premixed gas turbine combustor using CFD-CRN method

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Abstract

A chemical reactor network (CRN) was developed, guided by computational fluid dynamics (CFD), to predict the NOx formation in lean-premixed gas turbine combustors. CFD analysis was conducted using the ANSYS Fluent version 14.5, a commercial CFD code. The developed CRN consisted of 41 chemical reactor elements, which acted as different reaction zones in the combustor. CRN predictions were carried out using CHEMKIN code and the GRI 3.0 chemical kinetics mechanism. The CFD-CRN method was evaluated over a range of equivalence ratios by comparing the predicted NOx emissions with experimental data. Good agreement between the predictions and measurements indicates the validity of the modeling approach. The CFD-CRN method was employed to analyze NOx formation characteristics in the different regions of the combustor. The analysis of reaction path indicated that in the main flame zone NO was generated greatly by a combination of thermal, prompt, N2O and NNH pathways; in near post-flame zone, NO production by thermal and N2O pathway persists, and NO production by prompt and NNH falls off quickly as the flame continue to completion. In IRZ, where occurs the highest temperature, the thermal pathway is dominated due to high maximum temperature (1800 K) and reduced radical concentration. Through the pathway study for overall NOx emissions, at an equivalence ratio of Φ = 0.5 the sum of N2O and NNH pathway contribution exceeds 81.4 %, but N2O pathway outperformed the NNH pathway. At an equivalence ratio of Φ = 0.6 the contributions of four pathways were almost identical; at an equivalence ratio of Φ = 0.7 the sum of thermal and prompt exceeded 64.3 %, but the thermal pathway was superior to the prompt pathway.

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Acknowledgments

This research is supported by the Konkuk University, 2018.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Graduate School of Mechanical Engineering, Konkuk University, Seoul, 143-701, Korea

    Truc Huu Nguyen

  2. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Konkuk University, Seoul, 143-701, Korea

    Jungkyu Park

  3. Gasturbine Team, Engine Development Center, Hanwha Techwin R&D Center, Gyeonggi-do, 13488, Korea

    Seungchai Jung & Shaun Kim

Authors
  1. Truc Huu Nguyen
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  2. Jungkyu Park
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  3. Seungchai Jung
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  4. Shaun Kim
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jungkyu Park.

Additional information

Recommended by Associate Editor Jeong Park

True Huu Nguyen received the M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Konkuk University in 2012. He is currently a Ph.D. student at Konkuk Univ. His research interests include CFD, combustion of gas turbine on reactions and pollutant emission.

Jung Kyu Park received the B.S. (1981) from Seoul National University in Seoul, Korea, M.S.(1984) and Ph.D. (1987) from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is currently a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Konkuk University. His specialty is combustion and his recent research has focused on reduction of pollutant emissions from diesel engine and gas turbine.

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Nguyen, T.H., Park, J., Jung, S. et al. A numerical study on NOx formation behavior in a lean-premixed gas turbine combustor using CFD-CRN method. J Mech Sci Technol 33, 5051–5060 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12206-019-0944-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12206-019-0944-3

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