NOx-Abatement Potential of Lean-Premixed GT-Combustors

Author(s):  
T. Sattelmayer ◽  
W. Polifke ◽  
D. Winkler ◽  
K. Döbbeling

The influence of the structure of perfectly premixed flames on NOx-formation is investigated theoretically. Since a network of reaction kinetics modules and model flames is used for this purpose, the results obtained are independent of specific burner geometries. Calculations are presented for a mixture temperature of 630K, an adiabatic flame temperature of 1840K and 1 and 15 bars combustor pressure. In particular, the following effects are studied separately from each other: - molecular diffusion of temperature and species - flame strain - local quench in highly strained flames and subsequent reignition - turbulent diffusion (no preferential diffusion) - small scale mixing (stirring) in the flame front Either no relevant influence or an increase in NOx-production over that of the one-dimensional laminar flame is found. As a consequence, besides the improvement of mixing quality, a future target for the development of low-NOx burners is to avoid excessive turbulent stirring in the flame front. Turbulent flames that exhibit locally and instantaneously near laminar structures (“flamelets”) appear to be optimal. Using the same methodology, the scope of the investigation is extended to lean-lean staging, since a higher NOx-abatement potential can be expected in principle. As long as the chemical reactions of the second stage take place in the boundary between the fresh mixture of the second stage and the combustion products from upstream, no advantage can be expected from lean-lean staging. Only if the primary burner exhibits much poorer mixing than the second stage can lean-lean staging be beneficial. In contrast, if full mixing between the two stages prior to afterburning can be achieved (lean-mix-lean technique), the combustor outlet temperature can in principle be increased somewhat without NO-penalty. However, the complexity of such a system with a larger flame tube area to be cooled will increase the reaction zone temperatures, so that the full advantage cannot be realised in an engine. Of greater technical relevance is the potential of a lean-mix-lean combustion system within an improved thermodynamic cycle. A reheat process with sequential combustion is perfectly suited for this purpose, since, firstly, the required low inlet temperature of the second stage is automatically generated after partial expansion in the high pressure turbine, secondly, the efficiency of the thermodynamic cycle has its maximum and, thirdly, high exhaust temperatures are generated, which can drive a powerful Rankine cycle. The higher thermodynamic efficiency of this technique leads to an additional drop in NOx-emissions per power produced.

1998 ◽  
Vol 120 (1) ◽  
pp. 48-59 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. Sattelmayer ◽  
W. Polifke ◽  
D. Winkler ◽  
K. Do¨bbeling

The influence of the structure of perfectly premixed flames on NOx formation is investigated theoretically. Since a network of reaction kinetics modules and model flames is used for this purpose, the results obtained are independent of specific burner geometries. Calculations are presented for a mixture temperature of 630 K, an adiabatic flame temperature of 1840 K, and 1 and 15 bars combustor pressure. In particular, the following effects are studied separately from each other: • molecular diffusion of temperature and species; • flame strain; • local quench in highly strained flames and subsequent reignition; • turbulent diffusion (no preferential diffusion); • small scale mixing (stirring) in the flame front. Either no relevant influence or an increase in NOx production over that of the one-dimensional laminar flame is found. As a consequence, besides the improvement of mixing quality, a future target for the development of low-NOx burners is to avoid excessive turbulent stirring in the flame front. Turbulent flames that exhibit locally and instantaneously near laminar structures (“flamelets”) appear to be optimal. Using the same methodology, the scope of the investigation is extended to lean-lean staging, since a higher NOx-abatement potential can be expected in principle. As long as the chemical reactions of the second stage take place in the boundary between the fresh mixture of the second stage and the combustion products from upstream, no advantage can be expected from lean-lean staging. Only if the primary burner exhibits much poorer mixing than the second stage can lean-lean staging be beneficial. In contrast, if full mixing between the two stages prior to afterburning can be achieved (lean-mix-lean technique), the combustor outlet temperature can in principle be increased somewhat without NO penalty. However, the complexity of such a system with a larger flame tube area to be cooled will increase the reaction zone temperatures, so that the full advantage cannot be realized in an engine. Of greater technical relevance is the potential of a lean-mixlean combustion system within an improved thermodynamic cycle. A reheat process with sequential combustion is perfectly suited for this purpose, since, first, the required low inlet temperature of the second stage is automatically generated after partial expansion in the high pressure turbine, second, the efficiency of the thermodynamic cycle has its maximum and, third, high exhaust temperatures are generated, which can drive a powerful Rankine cycle. The higher thermodynamic efficiency of this technique leads to an additional drop in NOx emissions per power produced.


Author(s):  
C. K. Chow ◽  
S. J. Bushby ◽  
H. F. Khartabil

The CANDU®-Supercritical Water Reactor (CANDU-SCWR) is one of the six reactor concepts being considered by the Generation-IV International Forum (GIF) for international collaborative R&D. With SCW coolant, the thermodynamic efficiency is increased to over 40%. The CANDU-SCWR is moderated using heavy water, and it has fuel bundles residing inside horizontal pressure tubes, similar to the current CANDU design. The coolant, however, is light water at 25 MPa, with an inlet temperature of 350°C and an outlet temperature of 625°C. Because of the high temperature and high pressure of the coolant, the standard CANDU pressure tube design cannot be used. This paper presents one of the insulated pressure tube designs being considered for the CANDU-SCWR fuel channels. Unlike current CANDU reactors, the proposed CANDU-SCWR fuel channel does not use calandria tubes to separate the pressure tubes from the moderator. Each pressure tube is in direct contact with the moderator, which operates at an average temperature of about 80°C. The pressure tube is thermally insulated from the hot coolant by a porous ceramic insulator. A perforated metal liner protects the insulator from being damaged by the fuel bundles and erosion by the coolant. The coolant pressure is transmitted through the perforated metal liner and insulator and applied directly to the relatively cold pressure tube. The material selection for each fuel channel component depends on its function. The fuel sheaths and the perforated liner must have high corrosion resistance in SCW, although their resident times are significantly different. The insulator must have high thermal resistance and corrosion resistance in SCW, plus sufficient strength to bear the weight of the fuel bundles without significant thickness reduction during its design life. The pressure tube is the pressure boundary material, so it must have high strength to contain the coolant. One common requirement for all in-core fuel channel components is that they should be as neutron transparent as possible. The irradiation deformation of all these components must also be considered in their design. This paper presents the design of this fuel channel, reviews existing data for materials, indicates where more data are required, and summarizes our plans to obtain these data.


Fuel ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 303 ◽  
pp. 121297
Author(s):  
A. Zachl ◽  
M. Buchmayr ◽  
J. Gruber ◽  
A. Anca-Couce ◽  
R. Scharler ◽  
...  

Author(s):  
V. G. Razumovskiy ◽  
Eu. N. Pis’mennyy ◽  
A. Eu. Koloskov ◽  
I. L. Pioro

The results of heat transfer to supercritical water flowing upward in a vertical annular channel (1-rod channel) and tight 3-rod bundle consisting of the tubes of 5.2-mm outside diameter and 485-mm heated length are presented. The heat-transfer data were obtained at pressures of 22.5, 24.5, and 27.5 MPa, mass flux within the range from 800 to 3000 kg/m2·s, inlet temperature from 125 to 352°C, outlet temperature up to 372°C and heat flux up to 4.6 MW/m2 (heat flux rate up to 2.5 kJ/kg). Temperature regimes of the annular channel and 3-rod bundle were stable and easily reproducible within the whole range of the mass and heat fluxes, even when a deteriorated heat transfer took place. The data resulted from the study could be applicable for a reference estimation of heat transfer in future designs of fuel bundles.


2012 ◽  
Vol 134 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Véronique Delisle ◽  
Michaël Kummert

Combined photovoltaic/thermal (PV/T) collectors show great potential for reaching the objective of net-zero energy consumption in buildings, but the number of products on the market is still very limited. One of the reasons for the slow market uptake of PV/T collectors is the absence of standardized methods to characterize their performance. Performance characterization is a challenge for PV/T collectors because of the interaction between the thermal and electrical yield. This study addresses this particular issue for PV/T air collectors used in either closed-loop or open-loop configurations. In particular, it presents the potential of the equivalent cell temperature method to determine the temperature of the PV cells in a PV/T air collector and validates models to predict the thermal performance and cell temperature for this particular type of solar collector. Indoor and outdoor experimental tests were performed on two c-Si unglazed PV/T modules. The indoor part of this procedure provided the thermal diode voltage factor and the open-circuit voltage temperature coefficient, two parameters that are essential in the calculation of the equivalent cell temperature. The outdoor procedure consisted of acquiring simultaneous electrical and thermal measurements at various inlet temperatures and flowrates. For the collector used in a closed-loop configuration, thermal efficiency models using the fluid inlet, outlet, or average temperature in the calculation of the reduced temperature provided similar results. For an open-loop configuration, a thermal efficiency model as a function of the fluid outlet flowrate was found to be more appropriate. Using selection of variable methods, it was found that a multiple linear regression model using the fluid inlet temperature, the irradiance, and the fluid outlet temperature as predictive variables could be used to estimate both the PV module back surface average temperature and the equivalent cell temperature. When using the PV temperature predicted by these models in the electrical efficiency model, both PV temperatures showed similar performance. In collectors where the PV back surface temperature is not accessible for temperature sensors mounting, the equivalent cell temperature provides a valuable alternative to be used as the PV temperature. The PV/T collector thermal and electrical performance in either closed-loop or open-loop configurations was found to be encapsulated with a series of five-plots.


Food Research ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 288-293
Author(s):  
Riyanto ◽  
Ch. Wariyah

Aloe vera contains a phenolic compound that has bioactive activity. Previous research showed that microencapsulation of aloe vera powder with maltodextrin as an encapsulation agent produced instant aloe vera with high antioxidative activity. The problem was the hygroscopic instant caused rapid moisture and oxygen absorption during storage, therefore decreasing the instant aloe vera antioxidative activity periodically. The aim of this research was to evaluate the antioxidative activity stability of instant aloe vera during storage. The processing of instant aloe vera through a reconstituted aloe vera powder with water with a ratio of 1:120 and then added with 2.5% maltodextrin as the encapsulating agent. The solution was then inserted into a spray dryer with an inlet temperature of 130oC, an outlet temperature of 103oC, and the flow rate of the solution is 350.0 mL/h. The resulted instant aloe vera was divided into 15 packs with a weight of 25 g, and each sample was wrapped with polyethylene plastic film with 0.80 mm thickness and then was stored at 25oC with a relative humidity of 75%. The sample was conducted in triplicate. The moisture content, and antioxidative activity that was based on the ability to capture 1,1-diphenyl-2- picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) radical (RSA) and lipid peroxidation inhibition were analyzed every week until the critical condition was achieved at a moisture level of 12%. The research showed that the radical scavenging activity (RSA) and lipid peroxidation inhibition of instant aloe vera before storage were 16.34±1.22% and 39.33±1.68%, respectively, whereas in the critical condition the RSA was 3.63±0.04% and the lipid peroxidation inhibition was 22.31±0.02%. Based on their antioxidative activity, the appropriate storage time of instant aloe vera was about 12 weeks in polyethylene plastic film of 0.08 mm thickness


Author(s):  
Sean D. Salusbury ◽  
Ehsan Abbasi-Atibeh ◽  
Jeffrey M. Bergthorson

Differential diffusion effects in premixed combustion are studied in a counter-flow flame experiment for fuel-lean flames of three fuels with different Lewis numbers: methane, propane, and hydrogen. Previous studies of stretched laminar flames show that a maximum reference flame speed is observed for mixtures with Le ≳ 1 at lower flame-stretch values than at extinction, while the reference flame speed for Le ≪ 1 increases until extinction occurs when the flame is constrained by the stagnation point. In this work, counter-flow flame experiments are performed for these same mixtures, building upon the laminar results by using variable high-blockage turbulence-generating plates to generate turbulence intensities from the near-laminar u′/SLo=1 to the maximum u′/SLo achievable for each mixture, on the order of u′/SLo=10. Local, instantaneous reference flamelet speeds within the turbulent flame are extracted from high-speed PIV measurements. Instantaneous flame front positions are measured by Rayleigh scattering. The probability-density functions (PDFs) of instantaneous reference flamelet speeds for the Le ≳ 1 mixtures illustrate that the flamelet speeds are increasing with increasing turbulence intensity. However, at the highest turbulence intensities measured in these experiments, the probability seems to drop off at a velocity that matches experimentally-measured maximum reference flame speeds in previous work. In contrast, in the Le ≪ 1 turbulent flames, the most-probable instantaneous reference flamelet speed increases with increasing turbulence intensity and can, significantly, exceed the maximum reference flame speed measured in counter-flow laminar flames at extinction, with the PDF remaining near symmetric for the highest turbulence intensities. These results are reinforced by instantaneous flame position measurements. Flame-front location PDFs show the most probable flame location is linked both to the bulk flow velocity and to the instantaneous velocity PDFs. Furthermore, hydrogen flame-location PDFs are recognizably skewed upstream as u′/SLo increases, indicating a tendency for the Le ≪ 1 flame brush to propagate farther into the unburned reactants against a steepening average velocity gradient.


Author(s):  
Matti Malkamäki ◽  
Ahti Jaatinen-Värri ◽  
Antti Uusitalo ◽  
Aki Grönman ◽  
Juha Honkatukia ◽  
...  

Decentralized electricity and heat production is a rising trend in small-scale industry. There is a tendency towards more distributed power generation. The decentralized power generation is also pushed forward by the policymakers. Reciprocating engines and gas turbines have an essential role in the global decentralized energy markets and improvements in their electrical efficiency have a substantial impact from the environmental and economic viewpoints. This paper introduces an intercooled and recuperated three stage, three-shaft gas turbine concept in 850 kW electric output range. The gas turbine is optimized for a realistic combination of the turbomachinery efficiencies, the turbine inlet temperature, the compressor specific speeds, the recuperation rate and the pressure ratio. The new gas turbine design is a natural development of the earlier two-spool gas turbine construction and it competes with the efficiencies achieved both with similar size reciprocating engines and large industrial gas turbines used in heat and power generation all over the world and manufactured in large production series. This paper presents a small-scale gas turbine process, which has a simulated electrical efficiency of 48% as well as thermal efficiency of 51% and can compete with reciprocating engines in terms of electrical efficiency at nominal and partial load conditions.


Author(s):  
N. Courtois ◽  
F. Ebacher ◽  
P. K. Dubois ◽  
N. Kochrad ◽  
C. Landry ◽  
...  

The use of ceramics in gas turbines potentially allows for very high cycle efficiency and power density, by increasing operating temperatures. This is especially relevant for sub-megawatt gas turbines, where the integration of complex blade cooling greatly affects machine capital cost. However, ceramics are brittle and prone to fragile, catastrophic failure, making their current use limited to static and low-stress parts. Using the inside-out ceramic turbine (ICT) configuration solves this issue by converting the centrifugal blade loading to compressive stress, by using an external high-strength carbon-polymer composite rim. This paper presents a superalloy cooling system designed to protect the composite rim and allow it to withstand operating temperatures up to 1600 K. The cooling system was designed using one-dimensional (1D) models, developed to predict flow conditions as well as the temperatures of its critical components. These models were subsequently supported with computational fluid dynamics and used to conduct a power scalability study on a single stage ICT. Results suggest that the ICT configuration should achieve a turbine inlet temperature (TIT) of 1600 K with a composite rim cooling-to-main mass flow rate ratio under 5.2% for power levels above 350 kW. A proof of concept was performed by experimental validation of a small-scale 15 kW prototype, using a commercially available bismaleimide-carbon (BMI-carbon) composite rim and Inconel® 718 nickel-based alloy. The combination of numerical and experimental results show that the ICT can operate at a TIT of 1100 K without damage to the composite rim.


Author(s):  
Ashley Milner ◽  
Caleb Pascoe ◽  
Hemal Patel ◽  
Wargha Peiman ◽  
Graham Richards ◽  
...  

Generation IV nuclear reactor technology is increasing in popularity worldwide. One of the six Generation-IV-reactor types are SuperCritical Water-cooled Reactors (SCWRs). The main objective of SCWRs is to increase substantially thermal efficiency of Nuclear Power Plants (NPPs) and thus, to reduce electricity costs. This reactor type is developed from concepts of both Light Water Reactors (LWRs) and supercritical fossil-fired steam generators. The SCWR is similar to a LWR, but operates at a higher pressure and temperature. The coolant used in a SCWR is light water, which has supercritical pressures and temperatures during operation. Typical light water operating parameters for SCWRs are a pressure of 25 MPa, an inlet temperature of 280–350°C, and an outlet temperature up to 625°C. Currently, NPPs have thermal efficiency about of 30–35%, whereas SCW NPPs will operate with thermal efficiencies of 45–50%. Furthermore, since SCWRs have significantly higher water parameters than current water-cooled reactors, they are able to support co-generation of hydrogen. Studies conducted on fuel-channel options for SCWRs have shown that using uranium dioxide (UO2) as a fuel at supercritical-water conditions might be questionable. The industry accepted limit for the fuel centerline temperature is 1850°C and using UO2 would exceed this limit at certain conditions. Because of this problem, there have been other fuel options considered with a higher thermal conductivity. A generic 43-element bundle for an SCWR, using uranium mononitride (UN) as the fuel, is discussed in this paper. The material for the sheath is Inconel-600, because it has a high resistance to corrosion and can adhere to the maximum sheath-temperature design limit of 850°C. For the purpose of this paper, the bundle will be analyzed at its maximum heat flux. This will verify if the fuel centerline temperature does not exceed 1850°C and that the sheath temperature remains below the limit of 850°C.


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