scholarly journals The Importance of Detailed Chemical Mechanisms in Gas Turbine Combustion Simulations

2014 ◽  
Vol 16 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 179 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Braun-Unkhoff ◽  
E. Goos ◽  
T. Kathrotia ◽  
T. Kick ◽  
C. Naumann ◽  
...  

<p>This paper – in memory of Jürgen Warnatz – summarizes selected recent papers of the Chemical Kinetics Group at the German Aerospace Center in Stuttgart. It shows the need for detailed chemical reaction mechanisms to understand practical combustion systems. A comprehensive description of combustion processes based on detailed mechanisms is especially important in the design of new gas turbine combustion chambers and in the optimization of existing ones to improve efficiency and to reduce pollutant emissions, with fuel-flexibility and load-flexibility ever becoming more important. Different aspects of combustion processes where detailed reaction mechanisms provide useful insights will be covered in this paper: Fuels (alternative jet fuels, biomass based fuels), pollutants (soot), diagnostics (chemiluminescence), and thermochemistry. Furthermore, the underlying thermodynamics inevitably connected with detailed reaction schemes will be addressed. Exemplified results will be presented clearly demonstrating the predictive capabilities of detailed reaction mechanisms to be explored in computational fluid dynamic simulations to further optimize technical combustion systems.</p>

Author(s):  
Krzysztof Kostrzewa ◽  
Berthold Noll ◽  
Manfred Aigner ◽  
Joachim Lepers ◽  
Werner Krebs ◽  
...  

The operation envelope of modern gas turbines is affected by thermoacoustically induced combustion oscillations. The understanding and development of active and passive means for their suppression is crucial for the design process and field introduction of new gas turbine combustion systems. Whereas the propagation of acoustic sound waves in gas turbine combustion systems has been well understood, the flame induced acoustic source terms are still a major topic of investigation. The dynamics of combustion processes can be analyzed by means of flame transfer functions which relate heat release fluctuations to velocity fluctuations caused by a flame. The purpose of this paper is to introduce and to validate a novel computational approach to reconstruct flame transfer functions based on unsteady excited RANS simulations and system identification. Resulting time series of velocity and heat release are then used to reconstruct the flame transfer function by application of a system identification method based on Wiener-Hopf formulation. CFD/SI approach has been applied to a typical gas turbine burner. 3D unsteady simulations have been performed and the flame transfer results have been validated by comparison to experimental data. In addition the method has been benchmarked to results obtained from sinusoidal excitations.


Author(s):  
Sajjad Yousefian ◽  
Gilles Bourque ◽  
Rory F. D. Monaghan

There is a need for fast and reliable emissions prediction tools in the design, development and performance analysis of gas turbine combustion systems to predict emissions such as NOx, CO. Hybrid emissions prediction tools are defined as modelling approaches that (1) use computational fluid dynamics (CFD) or component modelling methods to generate flow field information, and (2) integrate them with detailed chemical kinetic modelling of emissions using chemical reactor network (CRN) techniques. This paper presents a review and comparison of hybrid emissions prediction tools and uncertainty quantification (UQ) methods for gas turbine combustion systems. In the first part of this study, CRN solvers are compared on the bases of some selected attributes which facilitate flexibility of network modelling, implementation of large chemical kinetic mechanisms and automatic construction of CRN. The second part of this study deals with UQ, which is becoming an important aspect of the development and use of computational tools in gas turbine combustion chamber design and analysis. Therefore, the use of UQ technique as part of the generalized modelling approach is important to develop a UQ-enabled hybrid emissions prediction tool. UQ techniques are compared on the bases of the number of evaluations and corresponding computational cost to achieve desired accuracy levels and their ability to treat deterministic models for emissions prediction as black boxes that do not require modifications. Recommendations for the development of UQ-enabled emissions prediction tools are made.


Author(s):  
T. Korakianitis ◽  
R. Dyer ◽  
N. Subramanian

In gas-turbine combustion the gas-dynamic and chemical-energy-release mechanisms have comparable time scales, so that equilibrium chemistry is inadequate for predicting species formation (emissions). In current practice either equilibrium chemical reactions are coupled with experimentally derived empirical equations, or time-consuming computations are used. Coupling non-equilibrium chemistry, fluid-dynamic, and initial- and boundary-condition equations results in large sets of numerically stiff equations; and their time integration demands enormous computational resources. The response modeling approach has been used successfully for large reaction sets. This paper makes two new contributions. First it shows how pre-integration of the heat-release maps eliminates the stiffness of the equations. This is a new modification to the response mapping approach, and it performs satisfactorily for non-diffusion systems. Second the theoretical framework is further extended to predict species formation in cases with diffusion, which is applicable to gas-turbine combustion systems and others. The methodology to implement this approach to reacting systems, and to gas turbine combustion, is presented. The benefits over other reaction-mapping techniques are discussed.


Author(s):  
Shigeki AOKI ◽  
Kiyoshi MATSUMOTO ◽  
Yasushi DOUURA ◽  
Takeo ODA ◽  
Masahiro Ogata ◽  
...  

2004 ◽  
Vol 126 (2) ◽  
pp. 300-305 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. Korakianitis ◽  
R. Dyer ◽  
N. Subramanian

In gas turbine combustion the gas dynamic and chemical energy release mechanisms have comparable time scales, so that equilibrium chemistry is inadequate for predicting species formation (emissions). In current practice either equilibrium chemical reactions are coupled with experimentally derived empirical equations, or time-consuming computations are used. Coupling nonequilibrium chemistry, fluid dynamic, and initial and boundary condition equations results in large sets of numerically stiff equations; and their time integration demands enormous computational resources. The response modeling approach has been used successfully for large reaction sets. This paper makes two new contributions. First it shows how pre-integration of the heat release maps eliminates the stiffness of the equations. This is a new modification to the response mapping approach, and it performs satisfactorily for non-diffusion systems. Second the theoretical framework is further extended to predict species formation in cases with diffusion, which is applicable to gas turbine combustion systems and others. The methodology to implement this approach to reacting systems, and to gas turbine combustion, is presented. The benefits over other reaction-mapping techniques are discussed.


Author(s):  
G. J. Kelsall ◽  
M. A. Smith ◽  
H. Todd ◽  
M. J. Burrows

Advanced coal based power generation systems such as the British Coal Topping Cycle offer the potential for high efficiency electricity generation with minimum environmental impact. An important component of the Topping Cycle programme is the development of a gas turbine combustion system to burn low calorific value (3.5–4.0 MJ/m3 wet gross) coal derived fuel gas, at a turbine inlet temperature of 1260°C, with minimum pollutant emissions. The paper gives an overview of the British Coal approach to the provision of a gas turbine combustion system for the British Coal Topping Cycle, which includes both experimental and modelling aspects. The first phase of this programme is described, including the design and operation of a low-NOx turbine combustor, operating at an outlet temperature of 1360°C and burning a synthetic low calorific value (LCV) fuel gas, containing 0 to 1000 ppmv of ammonia. Test results up to a pressure of 8 bar are presented and the requirements for further combustor development outlined.


Author(s):  
Franco Concli ◽  
Carlo Gorla

Efficiency is becoming more and more a main concern in the design of power transmissions and the demand for high efficiency gearboxes is continuously increasing. Also the new restrictive euro standards for the reduction of pollutant emissions from light vehicles impose to improve the efficiency of the engines but also of the gear transmissions. For this reason the resources dedicated to this goal are continuously increasing. The first step to improve efficiency is to have appropriate models to compare different design solutions. Even if the efficiency of transmissions is quit high if compared to the efficiency of the engines and appropriate models to predict the power losses due to gear meshing, to bearings and to seals already exist, in order to have a further improvement, some aspects like the power losses related to the oil churning, oil squeezing and windage are still to be investigated. These losses rise from the interaction between the moving or rotating elements of the transmission and the lubricant. In previous papers [39, 40, 41 43, 44], the authors have investigated the churning losses of planetary speed reducers (in which there is a relative motion between the “planets + planet carrier” and the lubricant). This report is focused on the oil squeezing power losses. This kind of losses is associated with the pumping of the oil at the gear mesh, where there is a contraction of the volume between the mating gears due to the rotation of them and a consequent overpressure. This overpressure implies a fluid flow primarily in the axial direction and this, for viscous fluids, means additional power losses and a decrease of the efficiency. In this work this phenomena has been studied by means of some CFD (computational fluid dynamic) simulations with a VOF (volume of fluid) approach. The influence of some operating conditions like the rotational speed and the lubricant temperature have been studied. The results of this study have been included in a model to predict the efficiency of the whole transmission.


Author(s):  
Krzysztof Kostrzewa ◽  
Axel Widenhorn ◽  
Berthold Noll ◽  
Manfred Aigner ◽  
Werner Krebs ◽  
...  

In order to achieve low levels of pollutants modern gas turbine combustion systems operate in lean and premixed modes. However, under these conditions self-excited combustion oscillations due to a complex feedback mechanism between pressure and heat release fluctuations can be found. These instabilities may lead to uncontrolled high pressure amplitude oscillations which can damage the whole combustor. The flame induced acoustic source terms are still analytically not well described and are a major topic of thermo-acoustic investigations. For the analysis of thermo-acoustic phenomena in gas turbine combustion systems flame transfer functions can be utilized. The purpose of this paper is to introduce and to investigate modeling parameters, which could influence a novel computational approach to reconstruct flame transfer functions known as the CFD/SI method. The flame transfer function estimation is made by application of a system identification method based on Wiener-Hopf formulation. Varying acoustic boundary conditions, combustion models and time resolutions may strongly affect the reconstructed flame response characterizing overall system dynamics. The CFD/SI approach has been applied to a generic gas turbine burner to derive a flame response. 3D unsteady simulations excited with white noise have been performed and the reconstructed flame transfer functions have been validated with experimental data. Moreover, the impact on the reconstructed flame transfer functions because of different boundary condition configurations has been examined.


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