Parametric Studies of Gas Turbine Combustion NOx Emissions Using KIVA With a Reduced Mechanism

2000 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. Su ◽  
C. Q. Zhou

Abstract A numerical study was conducted to determine the effects of combustion condition parameters, including inlet temperature and pressure, fuel spray characteristics on NOx emissions in gas turbine combustion using the KIVA-3V code. Log-normal spray distribution was assumed for the simulation of real fuel spray distributions at injection. A simplified mechanism with 17-species and 26-step was employed for chemical reactions of Jet A in a formula of C12H23. A sector model of a typical annular combustor was used in calculations. Flow fields and temperature distributions were analyzed. A wide range of operating condition was varied with the inlet pressure from 0.1 to 2.0 MPa, inlet temperature from 400 to 900 K, and overall fuel/air ratio from 0.012 to 0.08. The results reasonably agreed with those from experimental data and Chemkin modeling, which demonstrates the applicability of KIVA-3V and the chemical mechanism to the predictions of NOx emissions. With respect to the inlet temperature, NOx productions show a trend of monotone increasing. As the inlet pressure increases, NOx emissions increase at the beginning and then decrease. The droplet mean diameter as well as injection velocity and angle were independently varied to distinguish the separate effects of variables involved. It is found that the NOx emissions decrease with the Sauter mean diameter, but increase with the injection velocity and angle of fuel sprays. It appears that KIVA-3V code can be a valuable tool for the development of low emission combustors.

Author(s):  
Mohamed A. Altaher ◽  
Hu Li ◽  
Gordon E. Andrews

Biodiesels have advantages of low carbon footprint, reduced toxic emissions, improved energy supply security and sustainability and therefore attracted attentions in both industrial and aero gas turbines sectors. Industrial gas turbine applications are more practical biodiesels due to low temperature waxing and flow problems at altitude for aero gas turbine applications. This paper investigated the use of biodiesels in a low NOx radial swirler, as used in some industrial low NOx gas turbines. A waste cooking oil derived methyl ester biodiesel (WME) was tested on a radial swirler industrial low NOx gas turbine combustor under atmospheric pressure, 600K air inlet temperature and reference Mach number of 0.017&0.023. The pure WME, its blends with kerosene (B20 and B50) and pure kerosene were tested for gaseous emissions and lean extinction as a function of equivalence ratio for both Mach numbers. Sauter Mean Diameter (SMD) of the fuel spray droplets was calculated. The results showed that the WME and its blends had lower CO, UHC emissions and higher NOx emissions than the kerosene. The weak extinction limits were determined for all fuels and B100 has the lowest value. The higher air velocity (at Mach = 0.023) resulted in smaller SMDs which improved the mixing and atomizing of fuels and thus led to reductions in NOx emissions.


1999 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. Su ◽  
C. Q. Zhou

Abstract A numerical study was conducted to determine the effects of fuel spray characteristics on the gas turbine combustion performance including the combustion efficiency and the overall temperature distribution factor (OTDF) at the exit of the combustor using the KIVA-3V code. A model of a typical annular combustor was used in the computations. Operating conditions were varied with inlet pressure from 0.1 to 1.2 MPa, inlet temperature from 400 to 650 K, and air fuel ratio from 0.015 to 0.024. A log-normal spray distribution was assumed to simulate a real fuel spray distribution at injection. The droplet mean diameter as well as injection velocity and angle were independently varied to distinguish the separate effects of variables involved. Flow fields and temperature distributions in the combustor were analyzed. The results reasonably agreed with those from a semi-empirical approach. It is found that the overall temperature distribution deteriorates as the Sauter mean diameter of fuel spray increases. There is an optimum range of the Sauter mean diameters for the efficient combustion of fuel sprays. The overall temperature distribution is improved as the injection velocity of fuel sprays increases, but the combustion efficiency does not change much with it. It appears that the KIVA-3V code can be used to guide the design and improvement of the gas turbine combustor.


Author(s):  
Shigeru Hayashi ◽  
Hideshi Yamada ◽  
Kazuo Shimodaira

The development of a variable geometry lean-premixed combustor is in progress at NAL. Engine testing has been cooducted by using a natural gas-fueled 210-kW gas turbine to demonstrate the capability of ultra-low NOx emissions over a wide range of eogine operation. This paper describes the effort of engine testing of the combustor to achieve NOx emissions of the 10-ppm level. Fuel was staged to the non-premixed pilot and premixed main burners. A butterfly valve air splitting system was employed to maintain both low NOx emissions and high efficieocy over a wide operating range of the engine. The engioe was operated in the lean-premixed, low NOx emissions mode from idle to full power. Over the whole operating conditions from idle to full power, NOx emissions were reduced to levels less than 25 ppm (15% O2 dry). The NOx emissions level for a nearly constant combustion efficiency decreased with increasing power or turbine inlet temperature. At operating conditions of 90% to full power, NOx emissions levels of 12 to 8 ppm (15% O2 dry) were measured with combustion efficiencies of 99.7 to 99.1%.


1978 ◽  
Vol 100 (4) ◽  
pp. 640-646 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Donovan ◽  
T. Cackette

A set of factors which reduces the variability due to ambient conditions of the hydrocarbon, carbon monoxide, and oxides of nitrogen emission indices has been developed. These factors can be used to correct an emission index to reference day ambient conditions. The correction factors, which vary with engine rated pressure ratio for NOx and idle pressure ratio for HC and CO, can be applied to a wide range of current technology gas turbine engines. The factors are a function of only the combustor inlet temperature and ambient humidity.


Author(s):  
D. A. Sullivan ◽  
P. A. Mas

The effect of inlet temperature, pressure, air flowrate and fuel-to-air ratio on NOx emissions from gas turbine combustors has received considerable attention in recent years. A number of semi-empirical and empirical correlations relating these variables to NOx emissions have appeared in the literature. They differ both in fundamental assumptions and in their predictions. In the present work, these simple NOx correlations are compared to each other and to experimental data. A review of existing experimental data shows that an adequate data base does not exist to evaluate properly the various NOx correlations. Recommendations are proposed to resolve this problem in the future.


Author(s):  
Wookyung Kim ◽  
Jeffrey Cohen

The central objective of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of implementing a plasma discharge to improve combustor dynamics and flame stability. Specifically, a nano-second pulsed plasma discharge (NSPD) was applied to a premixed gaseous fuel/air dump combustor for mitigation of dynamic combustion instabilities with a minimal NOX penalty. This paper addresses the scaling of this technology from ambient pressure and temperature conditions to more realistic gas turbine combustor conditions. A model combustor operating at representative conditions of O (102) m/s flow velocity, ∼ 580 K combustor inlet temperature, and ∼ 5 atm in-combustor pressure was selected to simulate a typical low-power environment of future aero engine gas turbine combustors. Fully premixed methane or propane was utilized as a fuel. Similar to a previous ambient-pressure study, a significant reduction of pressure fluctuation level was observed, by a factor of 2X to 4X over a wide range of velocity at the baseline temperature and pressure. The plasma power required for the reduction increased linearly with increasing velocity. The change of fuel from methane to propane showed that propane requires significantly (2X) higher plasma power to achieve a similar level of noise reduction. It was also observed that the lean blowout (LBO) limit was significantly extended in the presence of the plasma, however, substantial incomplete combustion occurs in the extended regime. NOX measurements showed that the incremental NOX production due to the presence of the plasma was low (∼ < 1EINOX) in general, however, it increased with decreasing velocity and pressure, and increasing temperature.


2015 ◽  
Vol 4 (5) ◽  
pp. 41-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
Кулаков ◽  
D. Kulakov ◽  
Щёголев ◽  
N. Shchegolev ◽  
Тумашев ◽  
...  

Coal mining is accompanied by the release of coal mine methane. Its emissions into the atmosphere within methane-air mixture have a negative impact on the ecological situation. The modern approach involves the use of methane-air-mixture for heat boilers or units to generate electricity. For the generation of heat and electrical energy the coal mine methane could be used in cogeneration gas turbine plants with an altered sequence of processes. Thermo — and gas dynamics studies were conducted in a wide range of parameters of gas turbine plants. For small power plants recommended are: 2.8 compression ratio, turbine inlet — 1173 K, gas cooler inlet temperature — 303 K, 0.8 regeneration ratio. In this case the electrical efficiency of gas turbine plant is 25–26% and even 63–64% if produced heat is counted. Cogeneration gas turbine plant with an altered sequence of process has smaller capital and operating costs compared to traditional gas turbine unit. The use of methane-air mixture as fuel in such gas turbine units increases the profitability of coal mining and improves the ecological situation in the region.


Author(s):  
Robert Tacina ◽  
Changlie Wey ◽  
Peter Laing ◽  
Adel Mansour

Results of a low-NOx combustor test with a 15° sector are presented. A multipoint, lean-direct injection concept is used. The configuration tested has 36 fuel injectors and fuel-air mixers in place of a dual annular arrangement of two conventional fuel injectors. An integrated-module approach is used for the construction where chemically etched laminates that are diffusion bonded, combine the fuel injectors, air swirlers and fuel manifold into a single element. Test conditions include inlet temperatures up to 866K, and inlet pressures up to 4825 kPa. The fuel used was Jet A. A correlation is developed relating the NOx emissions to the inlet temperature, inlet pressure, and fuel-air ratio. Using a hypothetical 55:1 pressure-ratio engine, cycle NOx emissions are estimated to be less than 40% of the 1996 ICAO standard.


Author(s):  
Youichlrou Ohkubo ◽  
Yoshinorl Idota ◽  
Yoshihiro Nomura

Spray characteristics of liquid fuel air-assisted atomizers developed for a lean premixed-prevaporization combustor were evaluated under two kinds of conditions: in still air under non-evaporation conditions at atmospheric pressure and in a prevaporization-premixing tube under evaporation conditions with a running gas turbine. The non-evaporated mass fraction of fuel spray was measured using a phase Doppler particle analyzer in the prevaporization-premixing tube, in which the inlet temperature ranged from 873K to 1173K. The evaporation of the fuel spray in the tube is mainly controlled by its atomization and distribution. The NOx emission characteristics measured with a combustor test rig were evaluated with three-dimensional numerical simulations. A low non-evaporated mass fraction of less than 10% was effective in reducing the exhausted NOx from lean premixed-prevaporization combustion to about 1/6 times smaller than that from lean diffusion (spray) combustion. The flow patterns in the combustor are established by a swirl chamber in fuel-air preparation tube, and affect the flame stabilization of lean combustion.


Author(s):  
J. E. Donald Gauthier

This paper describes the results of modelling the performance of several indirectly fired gas turbine (IFGT) power generation system configurations based on four gas turbine class sizes, namely 5 kW, 50 kW, 5 MW and 100 MW. These class sizes were selected to cover a wide range of installations in residential, commercial, industrial and large utility power generation installations. Because the IFGT configurations modelled consist of a gas turbine engine, one or two recuperators and a furnace; for comparison purpose this study also included simulations of simple cycle and recuperated gas turbine engines. Part-load, synchronous-speed simulations were carried out with generic compressor and turbine maps scaled for each engine design point conditions. The turbine inlet temperature (TIT) was varied from the design specification to a practical value for a metallic high-temperature heat exchanger in an IFGT system. As expected, the results showed that the reduced TIT can have dramatic impact on the power output and thermal efficiency when compared to that in conventional gas turbines. However, the simulations also indicated that several configurations can lead to higher performance, even with the reduced TIT. Although the focus of the study is on evaluation of thermodynamic performance, the implications of varying configurations on cost and durability are also discussed.


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