Hydrogen Combustion Within a Gas Turbine Reheat Combustor

Author(s):  
Madhavan Poyyapakkam ◽  
John Wood ◽  
Steven Mayers ◽  
Andrea Ciani ◽  
Felix Guethe ◽  
...  

This paper describes a novel lean premixed reheat burner technology suitable for Hydrogen-rich fuels. The inlet temperature for such a combustor is very high and reaction of the fuel/oxidant mixture is initiated through auto-ignition, the delay time for which reduces significantly for Hydrogen-rich fuels in comparison to natural gases. Therefore the residence time available for premixing within the burner is reduced. The new reheat burner concept has been optimized to allow rapid fuel/oxidant mixing, to have a high flashback margin and to limit the pressure drop penalty. The performance of the burner is described, initially in terms of its fluid dynamic properties and then its combustion characteristics. The latter are based upon full-scale high-pressure tests, where results are shown for two variants of the concept, one with a pressure drop comparable to today’s natural gas burners, and the other with a two-fold increase in pressure drop. Both burners indicated that Low NOx emissions, comparable to today’s natural gas burners, were feasible at reheat engine conditions (ca. 20 Bars and ca. 1000C inlet temperature). The higher pressure drop variant allowed a wider operating window. However the achievement of the lower pressure drop burner shows that the targeted Hydrogen-rich fuel (70/30 H2/N2 by volume) can be used within a reheat combustor without any penalty on gas turbine performance.

Author(s):  
J. Arturo Alfaro-Ayala ◽  
Armando Gallegos-Muñoz ◽  
Alejandro Zaleta-Aguilar ◽  
Victor Hugo Rangel Hernandez ◽  
Alfonso Campos-Amezcua

The change of the fuel to a bio-fuel in a gas turbine combustor is a defiant challenge due to there is not enough information about the thermal behavior into the combustor, even there is not information about the change of conventional fuel used. In these sense, a numerical analysis using Natural Gas, Diesel and Bio-Ethanol is presented. The results show a significant reduction of the Turbine Inlet Temperature (TIT) when the diesel and bio-ethanol are used in the gas turbine combustor (TITNatural Gas = 1,262.24 K, TITDiesel = 1,204.67 K and TITBio-ethanol = 918.24 K). This leads to an increment of the diesel and bio-fuel mass flow rate in order to reach the allowable condition of the gas turbine combustor. As it is well known, the reduction of the TIT means a reduction of the output power of the gas turbine, thus to avoid this, the increase of bio-ethanol was about 255.5% and diesel was about 112.2% (considering 3.6 kg/s of fuel as the full load). This paper gives an attempt to discover the viability to use bio-fuels in gas turbines from the thermal-fluid dynamic standpoint.


Author(s):  
Elliot Sullivan-Lewis ◽  
Vincent McDonell

Lean-premixed gas turbines are now common devices for low emissions stationary power generation. By creating a homogeneous mixture of fuel and air upstream of the combustion chamber, temperature variations are reduced within the combustor, which reduces emissions of nitrogen oxides. However, by premixing fuel and air, a potentially flammable mixture is established in a part of the engine not designed to contain a flame. If the flame propagates upstream from the combustor (flashback), significant engine damage can result. While significant effort has been put into developing flashback resistant combustors, these combustors are only capable of preventing flashback during steady operation of the engine. Transient events (e.g., auto-ignition within the premixer and pressure spikes during ignition) can trigger flashback that cannot be prevented with even the best combustor design. In these cases, preventing engine damage requires designing premixers that will not allow a flame to be sustained. Experimental studies were conducted to determine under what conditions premixed flames of hydrogen and natural gas can be anchored in a simulated gas turbine premixer. Tests have been conducted at pressures up to 9 atm, temperatures up to 750 K, and freestream velocities between 20 and 100 m/s. Flames were anchored in the wakes of features typical of premixer passageways, including cylinders, steps, and airfoils. The results of this study have been used to develop an engineering tool that predicts under what conditions a flame will anchor, and can be used for development of flame anchoring resistant gas turbine premixers.


Author(s):  
Amrit Sahu ◽  
A.A.E.S Mohamed ◽  
Snehashish Panigrahy ◽  
Gilles Bourque ◽  
Henry Curran

Abstract New ignition delay time measurements (IDT) of natural gas mixtures enriched with small amounts of n-hexane and n-heptane were performed in a rapid compression machine to interpret the sensitization effect of heavier hydrocarbons on auto-ignition at gas-turbine relevant conditions. The experimental data of natural gas mixtures containing alkanes from methane to n-heptane were carried out over a wide range of temperatures (840-1050 K), pressures (20-30 bar), and equivalence ratios (f = 0.5 and 1.5). The experiments were complemented with numerical simulations using a detailed kinetic model developed to investigate the effect of n-hexane and n-heptane additions. Model predictions show that the addition of even small amounts (1-2%) of n-hexane and n-heptane can lead to an increase in reactivity by ~40-60 ms at a temperature of 700 K. The IDTs of these mixtures decrease rapidly with an increase in the concentration of up to 7.5% but becomes almost independent of the C6/C7 concentration >10%. This sensitization effect of C6 and C7 is also found to be more pronounced in the temperature range 700-900 K compared to that at higher temperatures (>900 K). The reason is attributed to the dependence of IDT primarily on H2O2(+M)??H+?H (+M) at higher temperatures while the fuel-dependent reactions such as H-atom abstraction, RO2 dissociation, or Q OOH+O2 reactions are less important compared to the temperature range 700-900 K, where they are very important.


Author(s):  
Amrit Bikram Sahu ◽  
A. Abd El-Sabor Mohamed ◽  
Snehasish Panigrahy ◽  
Gilles Bourque ◽  
Henry Curran

Abstract New ignition delay time measurements of natural gas mixtures enriched with small amounts of n-hexane and n-heptane were performed in a rapid compression machine to interpret the sensitization effect of heavier hydrocarbons on auto-ignition at gas-turbine relevant conditions. The experimental data of natural gas mixtures containing alkanes from methane to n-heptane were carried out over a wide range of temperatures (840–1050 K), pressures (20–30 bar), and equivalence ratios (φ = 0.5 and 1.5). The experiments were complimented with numerical simulations using a detailed kinetic model developed to investigate the effect of n-hexane and n-heptane additions. Model predictions show that the addition of even small amounts (1–2%) of n-hexane and n-heptane can lead to increase in reactivity by ∼40–60 ms at compressed temperature (TC) = 700 K. The ignition delay time (IDT) of these mixtures decrease rapidly with an increase in concentration of up to 7.5% but becomes almost independent of the C6/C7 concentration beyond 10%. This sensitization effect of C6 and C7 is also found to be more pronounced in the temperature range 700–900 K compared to that at higher temperatures (> 900 K). The reason is attributed to the dependence of IDT primarily on H2O2(+M) ↔ 2ȮH(+M) at higher temperatures while the fuel dependent reactions such as H-atom abstraction, RȮ2 dissociation or Q.OOH + O2 reactions are less important compared to 700–900 K, where they are very important.


Author(s):  
K. K. Botros ◽  
H. Golshan ◽  
D. Rogers ◽  
B. Sloof

Gas turbine (GT) engines employed in natural gas compressor stations operate in different modes depending on the power, turbine inlet temperature and shaft speeds. These modes apply different sequencing of bleed valve opening on the air compressor side of the engine. Improper selection of the GT and the driven centrifugal gas compressor operating conditions can lead to larger bleed losses due to wider bleed valve openings. The bleed loss inevitably manifests itself in the form of higher overall heat rate of the GT and greater engine emission. It is therefore imperative to determine and understand the engine and process conditions that drive the GT to operate in these different modes. The ultimate objective is to operate the engine away from the inefficient modes by adjusting the driven gas compressor parameters as well as the overall station operating conditions (i.e. load sharing, control set points, etc.). This paper describes a methodology to couple the operating conditions of the gas compressor to the modes of GT bleed valve opening (and the subsequent air bleed rates) leading to identification of the operating parameters for optimal performance (i.e., best overall efficiency and minimum CO2e emission). A predictive tool is developed to quantify the overall efficiency loss as a result of the different bleed opening modes, and map out the condition on the gas compressor characteristics. One year’s worth of operating data taken from two different compressor stations on TransCanada Pipelines’ Alberta system were used to demonstrate the methodology. The first station employs GE-LM1600 gas turbine driving a Cooper Rolls-RFBB-30 centrifugal compressor. The second station employs GE-LM-2500+ gas turbine driving NP PCL-800/N compressor. The analysis conclusively indicates that there are operating regions on the gas compressor maps where losses due to bleed valves are reduced and hence CO2 emissions are lowered, which presents an opportunity for operation optimization.


Author(s):  
V. C. Tendon ◽  
A. Zabrodsky

Development and operation of larger size gas turbines have demonstrated that higher turbine inlet temperature can be sustained due to advancement in material and cooling technology. After a feasibility study it was determined that modern available technology can be applied to existing previous generation of machines. These programs are identified as “The Performance Upgrade of Gas Turbine”. Amongst the significant benefits that can be realized by retrofitting state of art parts in existing machines are higher power and more durable parts. This paper discusses various programs that are currently offered and implementation technique of upgrading the machines. A recent example is also presented. These unique programs are particularly attractive at the time of overall life consumption of the initial set of hot parts. At that point in an operating gas turbine it will be beneficial to retrofit the latest configuration parts to realize the performance improvements.


Author(s):  
Shinjan Ghosh ◽  
Jayanta S. Kapat

Abstract Gas Turbine blade cooling is an important topic of research, as a high turbine inlet temperature (TIT) essentially means an increase in efficiency of gas turbine cycles. Internal cooling channels in gas turbine blades are key to the cooling and prevention of thermal failure of the material. Serpentine channels are a common feature in internal blade cooling. Optimization methods are often employed in the design of blade internal cooling channels to improve heat-transfer and reduce pressure drop. Topology optimization uses a variable porosity approach to manipulate flow geometries by adding or removing material. Such a method has been employed in the current work to modify the geometric configuration of a serpentine channel to improve total heat transferred and reduce the pressure drop. An in-house OpenFOAM solver has been used to create non-traditional geometries from two generic designs. Geometry-1 is a 2-D serpentine passage with an inlet and 4 bleeding holes as outlets for ejection into the trailing edge. Geometry-2 is a 3-D serpentine passage with an aspect ratio of 3:1 and consists of two 180-degree bends. The inlet velocity for both the geometries was used as 20 m/s. The governing equations employ a “Brinkman porosity parameter” to account for the porous cells in the flow domain. Results have shown a change in shape of the channel walls to enhance heat-transfer in the passage. Additive manufacturing can be employed to make such unconventional shapes.


Author(s):  
Ashley P. Wiese ◽  
Matthew J. Blom ◽  
Michael J. Brear ◽  
Chris Manzie ◽  
Anthony Kitchener

This paper presents a model-based, off-line method for analyzing the performance of individual components in an operating gas turbine. This integrated model combines submodels of the combustor efficiency, the combustor pressure loss, the hot-end heat transfer, the turbine inlet temperature, and the turbine performance. As part of this, new physics-based models are proposed for both the combustor efficiency and the turbine. These new models accommodate operating points that feature the flame extending beyond the combustor and combustion occurring in the turbine. Systematic model reduction is undertaken using experimental data from a prototype, microgas turbine rig built by the group. This so called gas turbine air compressor (GTAC) prototype utilizes a single compressor to provide cycle air and a supply of compressed air as its sole output. The most general model results in sensible estimates of all system parameters, including those obtained from the new models that describe variations in both the combustor and turbine performance. As with other microgas turbines, heat losses are also found to be significant.


Author(s):  
Matteo Cerutti ◽  
Roberto Modi ◽  
Danielle Kalitan ◽  
Kapil K. Singh

As government regulations become increasingly strict with regards to combustion pollutant emissions, new gas turbine combustor designs must produce lower NOx while also maintaining acceptable combustor operability. The design and implementation of an efficient fuel/air premixer is paramount to achieving low emissions. Options for improving the design of a natural gas fired heavy-duty gas turbine partially premixed fuel nozzle have been considered in the current study. In particular, the study focused on fuel injection and pilot/main interaction at high pressure and high inlet temperature. NOx emissions results have been reported and analyzed for a baseline nozzle first. Available experience is shared in this paper in the form of a NOx correlative model, giving evidence of the consistency of current results with past campaigns. Subsequently, new fuel nozzle premixer designs have been investigated and compared, mainly in terms of NOx emissions performance. The operating range of investigation has been preliminarily checked by means of a flame stability assessment. Adequate margin to lean blow out and thermo-acoustic instabilities onset has been found while also maintaining acceptable CO emissions. NOx emission data were collected over a variety of fuel/air ratios and pilot/main splits for all the fuel nozzle configurations. Results clearly indicated the most effective design option in reducing NOx. In addition, the impact of each design modification has been quantified and the baseline correlative NOx emissions model calibrated to describe the new fuel nozzles behavior. Effect of inlet air pressure has been evaluated and included in the models, allowing the extensive use of less costly reduced pressure test campaigns hereafter. Although the observed effect of combustor pressure drop on NOx is not dominant for this particular fuel nozzle, sensitivity has been performed to consolidate gathered experience and to make the model able to evaluate even small design changes affecting pressure drop.


2017 ◽  
Vol 374 ◽  
pp. 131-147
Author(s):  
Gambo Kofar Bai Dayyabu ◽  
Hai Zhang ◽  
Qun Zheng ◽  
Salman Abdu

Wet compression process has been widely accepted as a measure of increasing the performance of industrial gas turbine, in the present work, in-depth analysis on the principle aspects of wet compression, more specifically, the influence of injected water droplets diameter, surface temperature, and their effects on the behavior of axial flow transonic compressor and gas turbine performance were analyzed using computational fluid dynamic. Injected water droplets and gas flow phase change was most intense in the area adjacent to shockwaves and were the slip velocity of the droplet is highest. Water injection in to the compressor rotor is a little perturbation to the flow field due to the formation of flow separation, evaporation rate, increasing weber number, reduction in the inlet temperature, and velocity vortex pattern relatively different from that of the dry case. The effects of water droplets on the rotor region at injection rate of 1%, shows decrease in the inlet temperature of 11%, outlet temperature 5% and uplift the efficiency to 1.5%.


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