Determination of the Instantaneous Fuel Flow Rate Out of a Fuel Nozzle

Author(s):  
Tongxun Yi ◽  
Domenic A. Santavicca

Reported is a practical method for accurate and fast determination of the instantaneous fuel flow rate out of a fuel injector. Both gaseous and liquid fuels are considered. Unsteady fuel flow rates introduced into a combustor can be caused by both self-excited pressure pulsations and fuel modulations. During combustion instability, the air flow rate into a combustor also varies in response to pressure pulsations. Accurate determination of the instantaneous fuel and air flow rates is important for both modeling and control of combustion instability. The developed method is based on the acoustic wave theory and pressure measurements at two locations upstream of a fuel injector. This method bypasses the complexities and nonlinearities of fuel actuators and fuel nozzles, and works for systems with slow-time-varying characteristics. Acoustic impedance of a gaseous fuel nozzle is found to be a function of multivariables, including the forcing frequency, the acoustic oscillation intensity, and the mean fuel flow rate. Thus, it is not an intrinsic property of the fuel injector alone. In the present study, sharp tubing bending with almost zero radii is found to have minimal effects on the distribution of 1D acoustic wave. This is probably because vortex shedding and recirculation at tubing corners do not alter the globally 1D characteristics of acoustic wave distribution. Different from the traditional two-microphone method, which determines the acoustic velocity at the middle locations of the two microphones, the present method allows the acoustic velocity, the acoustic mass flux, and the specific acoustic impedance to be determined along the fuel tubing or an air pipe.

Author(s):  
Gu Shan-Jian ◽  
Yang Mao-Lin ◽  
Li Xiang-Yi

A method to measure the fuel distribution and the percentage of fuel flow rate captured by a V-gutter flameholder in a high speed airstream has been developed. The effects of configuration and size of the probe and temprature of the sample mixture in the probe on measurement have been investigated. The detailed determination of isokinetic sampling condition is described. The effects of V-gutter geometry on flowfield have been considered. The total experimental error is of the order ±5%.


Author(s):  
Andrew G. Smith ◽  
Suresh Menon ◽  
Jeffery A. Lovett ◽  
Baris A. Sen

Large eddy simulations (LES) are performed of a bluff-body–stabilized flame with discrete liquid fuel injectors located just upstream of the bluff-body trailing edge in a so-called “close-coupled” configuration. Nonreacting and reacting simulations of the Georgia Tech single flameholder test rig [Cross et al., 2010, “Dynamics of Non-premixed Bluff Body-Stabilized Flames in Heated Air Flow,” Proceedings of ASME Turbo Expo, Paper No. GT2010-23059] are conducted using an Eulerian–Lagrangian approach with a finite volume solver. Experimental data is first used to characterize the boundary conditions under nonreacting conditions before simulating reacting test cases at two different fuel mass flow rates. The two fuel mass flow rates not only result in different global equivalence ratios but different spatial distributions of fuel, especially in the near-field wake of the bluff body. The differing spatial distribution of fuel results in two distinct flame dynamics; at the high-fuel flow rate, large-scale sinusoidal Bérnard/von-Kármán (BVK) oscillations are observed, whereas a symmetric flame is seen under the low-fuel flow rate condition.


2002 ◽  
Vol 125 (1) ◽  
pp. 284-291 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Chang ◽  
D. Nelson ◽  
C. Sipperley ◽  
C. Edwards

It is now well established that combustion instability in liquid-fueled gas turbines can be controlled through the use of active fuel modulation. What is less clear is the mechanism by which this is achieved. This results from the fact that in most fuel modulation strategies not only is the instantaneous mass flow rate of fuel affected but so too are the parameters which define the post-atomization spray that takes part in the combustion. Specifically, experience with piezoelectric modulated sprays has shown that drop size, velocity, cone angle, and patternation are all affected by the modulation process. This inability to decouple changes in the fueling rate from changes in the spray distribution makes understanding of the mechanism of instability control problematic. This paper presents the results of an effort to develop an injector which can provide temporal modulation of the fuel flow rate but without concomitant changes in spray dynamics. This is achieved using an atomization strategy which is insensitive to both fuel flow rate and combustor acoustics (an over-pressured spill-return nozzle) coupled with an actuator with flat frequency response (a low-mass voice coil). The design and development of the actuator (and its control system) are described, and a combination of phase-Doppler interferometry and imaging are used to establish its performance. Results show that the system is capable of producing sprays which have little variation in cone angle or spray distribution function despite variations in mass flow rate (number density) of greater than 50% over a range of frequencies of interest for control of combustion instability (10 Hz to 1 kHz).


Author(s):  
Hyeonsoo Chang ◽  
Chad Sipperley ◽  
David Nelson ◽  
Chris Edwards

It is now well established that combustion instability in liquid-fueled gas turbines can be controlled through the use of active fuel modulation. What is less clear is the mechanism by which this is achieved. This results from the fact that in most fuel modulation strategies not only is the instantaneous mass flow rate of fuel affected but so to are the parameters which define the post-atomization spray that takes part in the combustion. Specifically, experience with piezoelectric modulated sprays has shown that drop size, velocity, cone angle, and patternation are all affected by the modulation process. This inability to decouple changes in the fueling rate from changes in the spray distribution makes understanding of the mechanism of instability control problematic. This paper presents the results of an effort to develop an injector which can provide temporal modulation of the fuel flow rate but without concomitant changes in spray dynamics. This is achieved using an atomization strategy which is insensitive to both fuel flow rate and combustor acoustics (an over-pressured spill-return nozzle) coupled with an actuator with flat frequency response (a low-mass voice coil). The design and development of the actuator (and its control system) are described, and a combination of Phase-Doppler Interferometry and imaging are used to establish its performance. Results show that the system is capable of producing sprays which have little variation in cone angle or spray distribution function despite variations in mass flow rate (number density) of greater than 50% over a range of frequencies of interest for control of combustion instability (10 Hz to 1 kHz).


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Karine Arrhenius ◽  
Oliver Büker

AbstractThe study presents an optimised method to correct flow rates measured with a LFE flowmeter pre-set on methane while used for gas mixtures of unknown composition at the time of the measurement. The method requires the correction of the flow rate using a factor based on the viscosity of the gas mixtures once the composition is accurately known. The method has several different possible applications inclusive for the sampling of biogas and biomethane onto sorbent tubes for conformity assessment for the determination of siloxanes, terpenes and VOC in general. Five models for the calculation of the viscosity of the gas mixtures were compared and the models were used for ten binary mixtures and four multi-component mixtures. The results of the evaluation of the different models showed that the correction method using the viscosity of the mixtures calculated with the model of Reichenberg and Carr showed the smallest biases for binary mixtures. For multi-component mixtures, the best results were obtained when using the models of Lucas and Carr.


Author(s):  
Hun Cha ◽  
Yoo Seok Song ◽  
Kyu Jong Kim ◽  
Jung Rae Kim ◽  
Sung Min KIM

An inappropriate design of HRSG (Heat Recovery Steam Generator) may lead to mechanical problems including the fatigue failure caused by rapid load change such as operating trip, start-up or shut down. The performance of HRSG with dynamic analysis should be investigated in case of start-up or shutdown. In this study, dynamic analysis for the HRSG system was carried out by commercial software. The HRSG system was modeled with HP, IP, LP evaporator, duct burner, superheater, reheater and economizer. The main variables for the analysis were the temperature and mass flow rate from gas turbine and fuel flow rate of duct burner for given start-up (cold/warm/hot) and shutdown curve. The results showed that the exhaust gas condition of gas turbine and fuel flow rate of duct burner were main factors controlling the performance of HRSG such as flow rate and temperature of main steam from final superheater and pressure of HP drum. The time delay at the change of steam temperature between gas turbine exhaust gas and HP steam was within 2 minutes at any analysis cases.


Author(s):  
Chi-Rong Liu ◽  
Hsin-Yi Shih

The purpose of this study is to investigate the combustion and emission characteristics of syngas fuels applied in a micro gas turbine, which is originally designed for a natural gas fired engine. The computation results were conducted by a numerical model, which consists of the three-dimension compressible k–ε model for turbulent flow and PPDF (presumed probability density function) model for combustion process. As the syngas is substituted for methane, the fuel flow rate and the total heat input to the combustor from the methane/syngas blended fuels are varied with syngas compositions and syngas substitution percentages. The computed results presented the syngas substitution effects on the combustion and emission characteristics at different syngas percentages (up to 90%) for three typical syngas compositions and the conditions where syngas applied at fixed fuel flow rate and at fixed heat input were examined. Results showed the flame structures varied with different syngas substitution percentages. The high temperature regions were dense and concentrated on the core of the primary zone for H2-rich syngas, and then shifted to the sides of the combustor when syngas percentages were high. The NOx emissions decreased with increasing syngas percentages, but NOx emissions are higher at higher hydrogen content at the same syngas percentage. The CO2 emissions decreased for 10% syngas substitution, but then increased as syngas percentage increased. Only using H2-rich syngas could produce less carbon dioxide. The detailed flame structures, temperature distributions, and gas emissions of the combustor were presented and compared. The exit temperature distributions and pattern factor (PF) were also discussed. Before syngas fuels are utilized as an alternative fuel for the micro gas turbine, further experimental testing is needed as the modeling results provide a guidance for the improved designs of the combustor.


Author(s):  
Uyi Idahosa ◽  
Saptarshi Basu ◽  
Ankur Miglani

This paper reports an experimental investigation of dynamic response of nonpremixed atmospheric swirling flames subjected to external, longitudinal acoustic excitation. Acoustic perturbations of varying frequencies (fp = 0–315 Hz) and velocity amplitudes (0.03 ≤ u′/Uavg ≤ 0.30) are imposed on the flames with various swirl intensities (S = 0.09 and 0.34). Flame dynamics at these swirl levels are studied for both constant and time-dependent fuel flow rate configurations. Heat release rates are quantified using a photomultiplier (PMT) and simultaneously imaged with a phase-locked CCD camera. The PMT and CCD camera are fitted with 430 nm ±10 nm band pass filters for CH* chemiluminescence intensity measurements. Flame transfer functions and continuous wavelet transforms (CWT) of heat release rate oscillations are used in order to understand the flame response at various burner swirl intensity and fuel flow rate settings. In addition, the natural modes of mixing and reaction processes are examined using the magnitude squared coherence analysis between major flame dynamics parameters. A low-pass filter characteristic is obtained with highly responsive flames below forcing frequencies of 200 Hz while the most significant flame response is observed at 105 Hz forcing mode. High strain rates induced in the flame sheet are observed to cause periodic extinction at localized regions of the flame sheet. Low swirl flames at lean fuel flow rates exhibit significant localized extinction and re-ignition of the flame sheet in the absence of acoustic forcing. However, pulsed flames exhibit increased resistance to straining due to the constrained inner recirculation zones (IRZ) resulting from acoustic perturbations that are transmitted by the co-flowing air. Wavelet spectra also show prominence of low frequency heat release rate oscillations for leaner (C2) flame configurations. For the time-dependent fuel flow rate flames, higher un-mixedness levels at lower swirl intensity is observed to induce periodic re-ignition as the flame approaches extinction. Increased swirl is observed to extend the time-to-extinction for both pulsed and unpulsed flame configurations under time-dependent fuel flow rate conditions.


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