Prediction of soot and thermal radiation in a model gas turbine combustor burning kerosene fuel spray at different swirl levels

Combustion of kerosene fuel spray has been numerically simulated in a laboratory scale combustor geometry to predict soot and the effects of thermal radiation at different swirl levels of primary air flow. The two-phase motion in the combustor is simulated using an Eulerian–Lagragian formulation considering the stochastic separated flow model. The Favre-averaged governing equations are solved for the gas phase with the turbulent quantities simulated by realisable k–? model. The injection of the fuel is considered through a pressure swirl atomiser and the combustion is simulated by a laminar flamelet model with detailed kinetics of kerosene combustion. Soot formation in the flame is predicted using an empirical model with the model parameters adjusted for kerosene fuel. Contributions of gas phase and soot towards thermal radiation have been considered to predict the incident heat flux on the combustor wall and fuel injector. Swirl in the primary flow significantly influences the flow and flame structures in the combustor. The stronger recirculation at high swirl draws more air into the flame region, reduces the flame length and peak flame temperature and also brings the soot laden zone closer to the inlet plane. As a result, the radiative heat flux on the peripheral wall decreases at high swirl and also shifts closer to the inlet plane. However, increased swirl increases the combustor wall temperature due to radial spreading of the flame. The high incident radiative heat flux and the high surface temperature make the fuel injector a critical item in the combustor. The injector peak temperature increases with the increase in swirl flow mainly because the flame is located closer to the inlet plane. On the other hand, a more uniform temperature distribution in the exhaust gas can be attained at the combustor exit at high swirl condition.     

Flashback-induced flame shape transition in a two-stage LPP aeronautical combustor

Large-Eddy Simulations were performed to study the flashback-induced flame shape transition of a lean premixed M flame in a staged liquid-fuelled aeronautical lean-burner, as observed experimentally. The BIMER combustor is a Lean Premixed Prevapourised (LPP) burner composed of two stages, each with its own injector and swirler: the main outer stage, called multipoint, uses jet-in-crossflow injection to achieve the LPP regime, while the central stage, called pilot, uses a pressure swirl injector to create a hollow cone spray to stabilise the flame. During LPP operation, this M flame presents a strong acoustic activity, promoting a periodic flashback of its leading edge. When, aiming to stabilise the flame, the pilot injection is increased and the multipoint injection decreased, the oscillating leading edge (due to the longitudinal acoustic perturbations) attaches to the pilot spray, changing the flame into a Tulip shape. Two phenomena were identified as being the most relevant causes of this flame shape transition. First, the leading edge position and the thermoacoustic instability amplitude are directly linked to the combustion chamber final temperature. The higher the temperature in the chamber, the more upstream the leading edge stabilises, and the higher the acoustic oscillation amplitude, both increasing the risk of a successful flashback. Second, the injection regime with high pilot injection allows the leading edge to attach to the pilot spray, as the flame only transitions when the pilot spray is sufficiently high. The higher the pilot fuel flow, the higher the amount of fuel sprayed in the critical region where the flame might attach for a transition to the Tulip shape. Therefore, as the change in injection regime is the main mechanism lean staged burners use to reduce emissions while increasing operability, this works shows that an M flame is unsuitable to such burners with similar aerodynamic topology and properties.     

燃料空气供给条件对热声不稳定燃烧影响的研究

对Solar低排放预混燃烧系统的燃烧稳定性进行了数值研究.应用非定常N-S方程、雷诺应力紊流模型及涡团耗散燃烧模型,数值模拟了该类型燃烧器在不同的燃料空气供给条件下的气流流动特性和压力振荡特性,并给出了不稳定发生时压力和速度振荡的幅值和频率.根据供给条件的不同,燃烧可以是稳定的或是不稳定的,取决于燃料到火焰前沿的迟滞时间.采用CFD方法,可精确地获得燃料到火焰前沿的迟滞时间,证实了所采用的模型能够精确预测不稳定燃烧的出现及振荡特性.通过调整燃料与空气的供给条件,可使振荡激励或阻尼.     

烧蚀支板对超燃冲压发动机燃烧室性能的影响

为了提高超燃冲压发动机燃烧室的性能,本文提出了燃料喷注支板与烧蚀支板组合的燃烧室新方案,并研究了新方案对超燃冲压发动机燃烧室性能的影响。相比于单燃料喷注支板方式而言,加入烧蚀支板后,虽然燃烧室内的总压恢复系数有所下降,但燃烧室内燃料与空气的混合效率、燃烧效率均有显著提高,燃烧效率的提高弥补了燃烧室内总压损失所带来的机械能损失,使得燃料喷注支板和烧蚀支板组合方式下的燃烧室比冲高于单燃料喷注支板时的比冲。     

Towards the development of an efficient low-NOx ammonia combustor for a micro gas turbine

Recent studies have demonstrated stable generation of power from pure ammonia combustion in a micro gas turbine (MGT) with a high combustion efficiency, thus overcoming some of the challenges that discouraged such applications of ammonia in the past. However, achievement of low NOx emission from ammonia combustors remains an important challenge. In this study, combustion techniques and combustor design for efficient combustion and low NOx emission from an ammonia MGT swirl combustor are proposed. The effects of fuel injection angle, combustor inlet temperature, equivalence ratio, and ambient pressure on flame stabilization and emissions were investigated in a laboratory high pressure combustion chamber. An FTIR gas analyser was employed in analysing the exhaust gases. Numerical modeling using OpenFOAM was done to better understand the dependence of NO emissions on the equivalence ratio. The result show that inclined fuel injection as opposed to vertical injection along the combustor central axis resulted to improved flame stability, and lower NH₃ and NOx emissions. Numerical and experimental results showed that a control of the equivalence ratio upstream of the combustor is critical for low NOx emission in a rich-lean ammonia combustor. NO emission had a minimum value at an upstream equivalence ratio of 1.10 in the experiments. Furthermore, NO emission was found to decrease with ambient pressure, especially for premixed combustion. For the rich-lean combustion strategy employed in this study, lower NOx emission was recorded in premixed combustion than in non-premixed combustion indicating the importance of mixture uniformity for low NOx emission from ammonia combustion. A prototype liner developed to enhance the control and uniformity of the equivalence ratio upstream of the combustor further improved ammonia combustion. With the proposed liner design, NOx emission of 42?ppmv and ammonia combustion efficiency of 99.5% were achieved at 0.3?MPa for fuel input power of 31.44?kW.     

An experimental study into the effect of injector pressure loss on self-sustained combustion instabilities in a swirled spray burner

Combustion instabilities depend on a variety of parameters and operating conditions. It is known, especially in the field of liquid rocket propulsion, that the pressure loss of an injector has an effect on its dynamics and on the coupling between the combustion chamber and the fuel manifold. However, its influence is not well documented in the technical literature dealing with gas turbine combustion dynamics. Effects of changes in this key design parameter are investigated in the present article by testing different swirlers at constant thermal power on a broad range of injection velocities in a well controlled laboratory scale single injector swirled combustor using liquid fuel. The objective is to study the impact of injection pressure losses on the occurrence and level of combustion instabilities by making use of a set of injectors having nearly the same outlet velocity profiles, the same swirl number and that establish flames that are essentially identical in shape. It is found that combustion oscillations appear on a wider range of operating conditions for injectors with the highest pressure loss, but that the pressure fluctuations caused by thermoacoustic oscillations are greatest when the injector head loss is low. Four types of instabilities coupled by two modes may be distinguished: the first group features a lower frequency, arises when the injector pressure loss is low and corresponds to a weakly coupled chamber-plenum mode. The second group appears in the form of a constant amplitude limit cycle, or as bursts at a slightly higher frequency and is coupled by a chamber mode. Spontaneous switching between these two types of instabilities is also observed in a narrow domain.     

新一代航空发动机燃烧室

针对新一代高油气比(0.051及以上)航空发动机燃烧室,本文提出头部采用化学恰当比直接混合燃烧设计方案.对于新一代高压比(70及以上)低排放民用航空发动机燃烧室,由于其自着火延迟时间极短,因此采用贫油直接混合燃烧,而不能采用预混合预蒸发燃烧.本文提出了一种贫油直接混合低排放燃烧室方案,其燃油空气模由简单的压力雾化喷嘴和...     

Direct numerical simulations and analysis of three-dimensional n-heptane spray flames in a model swirl combustor

Three-dimensional n-heptane spray flames in a swirl combustor are investigated by means of direct numerical simulation (DNS) to provide insight into realistic spray evaporation and combustion as well as relevant modeling issues. The variable-density, low-Mach number Navier–Stokes equations are solved using a fully conservative and kinetic energy conserving finite difference scheme in cylindrical coordinates. Dispersed droplets are tracked in a Lagrangian framework. Droplet evaporation is described by an equilibrium model. Gas combustion is represented using an adaptive one-step irreversible reaction. Two different cases are studied: a lean case that resembles a lean direct injection combustion, and a rich case that represents the primary combustion region of a rich-burn/quick-quench/lean-burn combustor. The results suggest that premixed combustion contribute more than 70% to the total heat release rate, although diffusion flame have volumetrically a higher contribution. The conditional mean scalar dissipation rate is shown to be strongly influenced, especially in the rich case. The conditional mean evaporation rate increases almost linearly with mixture fraction in the lean case, but shows a more complex behavior in the rich case. The probability density functions (PDF) of mixture fraction in spray combustion are shown to be quite complex. To model this behavior, the formulation of the PDF in a transformed mixture fraction space is proposed and demonstrated to predict the DNS data reasonably well.     

Effect of fuel injection location on a plasma jet assisted combustion with a backward-facing step

Non-reacting and reacting experiments on the ignition by a plasma jet (PJ) torch were performed to understand the correlation between fuel injection location and combustion characteristics in unheated Mach 2 airflow. Fuel was injected through three sonic injectors in the recirculation region behind a backward-facing step: a parallel injector at 2 mm from the bottom wall and two normal injectors at 2 and 9 mm from the step wall. In order to mitigate the combustion pressure interaction with nozzle, an isolator was installed between the nozzle and combustor. The combustion performance of normal injection was little affected by the difference of fuel injection locations. Moreover, normally injected fuel was escaped not to be held in the recirculation region despite of low fuel injection rates. This led to lower combustion performance relative to the parallel injection which provided fuel not to leave the recirculation region. In this case, the role of the recirculation region was to fully hold fuel, and the PJ torch provided hot gases as a heat source and acted as a flame-holder to ignite fuel–air mixtures. In a low temperature inflow condition, combustible regions were constrained around the bottom wall where embedded with the PJ torch. When thermal choking occurred in the combustor, it induced shock train both in the combustor and isolator. Under this unstable condition, the combustion performance of the normal injection was lower than that of the parallel injection. This is because the normal injection led most fuel into low temperature incoming air-stream.     

Dynamics of spray and swirling flame under acoustic oscillations : A joint experimental and LES investigation

The dynamics of spray swirling flames is investigated by combining experiments on a single sector generic combustor and large eddy simulations of the same configuration. Measurements and calculations correspond to a self-sustained limit cycle operation where combustion coupled by an axial quarter wave acoustic mode induces large amplitude oscillations of pressure in the system. A detailed analysis of the mechanisms controlling the process is carried out first by comparing the measured and calculated spray and flame dynamics. Considering in a second stage that the spray and flame are compact with respect to the acoustic wavelength the analysis can be simplified by defining state variables that are obtained by taking averages over the combustor cross section and representing the behavior of these average quantities as a function of the axial coordinate and time. This reveals a first region in which essentially convective processes prevail. The convective heat release rate then couples further downstream with the pressure field giving rise to positive Rayleigh source terms which feed energy in the axial acoustic mode. In the convective region, the swirl number features oscillations around its mean value with an impact on the flow aerodynamics and flame radial displacement. Fluctuations in the fuel flow rate are initiated at the injector exhaust and likewise convected downstream. The total mass flow rate that exhibits strong convective disturbances is dominated further downstream by the acoustic motion. This information provides new insights on the convective-acoustic coupling that controls the heat release rate disturbances and reveals the time delays governing the combustion oscillation process.     

Effect of swirl on combustion dynamics in a lean-premixed swirl-stabilized combustor

The effect of inlet swirl on the flow development and combustion dynamics in a lean-premixed swirl-stabilized combustor has been numerically investigated using a large-eddy-simulation (LES) technique along with a level-set flamelet library approach. Results indicate that when the inlet swirl number exceeds a critical value, a vortex-breakdown-induced central toroidal recirculation zone is established in the downstream region. As the swirl number increases further, the recirculation zone moves upstream and merges with the wake recirculation zone behind the centerbody. Excessive swirl may cause the central recirculating flow to penetrate into the inlet annulus and lead to the occurrence of flame flashback. A higher swirl number tends to increase the turbulence intensity, and consequently the flame speed. As a result, the flame surface area is reduced. The net heat release, however, remains almost unchanged because of the enhanced flame speed. Transverse acoustic oscillations often prevail under the effects of strong swirling flows, whereas longitudinal modes dominate the wave motions in cases with weak swirl. The ensuing effect on the flow/flame interactions in the chamber is substantial.     

Experimental investigation of combustion instabilities of a mesoscale multinozzle array in a lean-premixed combustor

Self-excited combustion instabilities in a mesoscale multinozzle array, also referred to as a micromixer-type injector, have been experimentally investigated in a lean-premixed tunable combustor operating with preheated methane and air. The injector assembly consists of sixty identical swirl injectors of 6.5 mm inner diameter, which are evenly distributed across the combustor dump plane. Their flow paths are divided into two groups – inner and outer stages – to form radially stratified reactant stoichiometry for the control of self-excited instabilities. OH PLIF measurements of stable flames reveal that the presence of radial staging has a remarkable influence on stabilization mechanisms, reactant jet penetration/merging, and interactions between adjacent flame fronts. In an inner enrichment case, two outer (leaner) streams merge into a single jet structure, whereas the inner (richer) reactant jets penetrate far downstream without noticeable interactions between neighboring flames. The constructed stability map in the 〈?_i, ?_o〉 domain indicates that strong self-excited instabilities occur under even split and outer enrichment conditions at relatively high global equivalence ratios. This is attributed to large-scale flame surface deformation in the streamwise direction, as manifested by vigorous detachment/attachment movements. The use of the inner fuel staging method was found, however, to limit the growth of large-amplitude heat release rate fluctuations, because the center flames are securely anchored during the whole period of oscillation, giving rise to a moderate lateral motion. We demonstrate that the collective motion of sixty flames – rather than the individual local flame dynamics – play a central role in the development of limit cycle oscillations. This suggests that the distribution pattern of the injector array, in combination with the radial fuel staging scheme, is the key to the control of the instabilities.     

Noise sources in swirl burners

Sources of noise present in swirl burners in the non-combustive and combustive cases are experimentally investigated. It is shown that under the non-combustive conditions, the main source of noise is the precessing vortex core, a three-dimensional time-dependent instability present in such burners at high degrees of swirl. With combustion, the amplitude of this instability is damped and the combustion roar is predominant. Regimes of noise (combustion roar) generation in a flame can be located by measurements of temperature fluctuations, as it is demonstrated that there is a good correlation with pressure fluctuations.     

Impact of co- and counter-swirl on flow recirculation and liftoff of non-premixed oxy-flames above coaxial injectors

Controlling the flame shape and its liftoff height is one of the main issues for oxy-flames to limit heat transfer to the solid components of the injector. An extensive experimental study is carried out to analyze the effects of co- and counter-swirl on the flow and flame patterns of non-premixed oxy-flames stabilized above a coaxial injector when both the inner fuel and the annular oxidizer streams are swirled. A swirl level greater than 0.6 in the annular oxidizer stream is shown to yield compact oxy-flames with a strong central recirculation zone that are attached to the rim of central fuel tube in absence of inner swirl. It is shown that counter-swirl in the fuel tube weakens this recirculation zone leading to more elongated flames, while co-swirl enhances it with more compact flames. These results obtained for high annular swirl levels contrast with previous observations made on gas turbine injectors operated at lower annular swirl levels in which central recirculation of the flow is mainly achieved with counter-rotating swirlers. Imparting a high inner swirl to the central fuel stream leads to lifted flames due to the partial blockage of the flow at the injector outlet by the central recirculation zone that causes high strain rates in the wake of the injector rim. This partial flow blockage is more influenced by the level of the inner swirl than its rotation direction. A global swirl number is then introduced to analyze the structure of the flow far from the burner outlet where swirl dissipation takes place when the jets mix. A model is derived for the global swirl number which well reproduces the evolution of the mass flow rate of recirculating gases measured in non-reacting conditions and the flame liftoff height when the inner and outer swirl levels and the momentum flux ratio between the two streams are varied.     

The impact of N2 micro-jets on the V-to-M flame shape transition in a premixed swirl burner

Injection of N₂ through micro-jets located on the dump plane of a lean premixed swirl stabilized combustor is investigated as a new method for mitigating combustion instabilities. This study focuses on the chemical and fluid dynamic processes by which the N₂ micro-jets impact the flame dynamics. An experimental and numerical investigation is performed to characterize the combustion instability during the V-to-M flame shape transition in a swirl burner fueled with premixed CH₄/air, at an equivalence ratio of 0.62. Reasonable agreements have been found between the experimental measurements and simulation results. Both of them present that the flame changes from V-shape to M-shape periodically, and a low-frequency instability around 10 Hz is observed accordingly. It is confirmed that intermittent flame extinction in the outer recirculation zone (ORZ) is the source of the combustion instability. Furthermore, injection of N₂ through micro-jets located on the combustor dump plane, into the outer recirculation zone, results in a stable V shape flame. It is clearly seen that the ORZ dilution can eliminate the combustion instability without inhibiting the combustion efficiency. A special focus is placed on the impact of the diluent injection on the local flame-flow interaction. The nitrogen micro-jets increase the local nitrogen concentration by 7% on average, lowering the flame speed and extinction strain rates by 27% and 17% respectively. Moreover, the micro-jets increase the turbulence intensity in the ORZ, leading to a significant increase in the Karlovitz number and transferring the local combustion regime from the thin reaction zone regime to the broken reaction zone regime. Hence, the nitrogen micro-jets impact on both the turbulence and the chemical reaction rates prevents flame propagation into the ORZ and results in a stable flame.     

Combustion characteristics of a dual-mode scramjet combustor with cavity flameholder

Combustion characteristics of a laboratory dual-mode ramjet/scramjet combustor were studied experimentally. The combustor consists of a sonic fuel jet injected into a supersonic crossflow upstream of a wall cavity pilot flame. These fundamental components are contained in many dual-mode combustor designs. Experiments were performed with an isolator entrance Mach number of 2.2. Air stagnation temperatures were varied from 1040 to 1490 K, which correspond to flight Mach numbers of 4.3–5.4. Both pure hydrogen and a mixture of hydrogen and ethylene fuels were used. High speed imaging of the flame luminosity was performed along with measurements of the isolator and combustor wall pressures. For ramjet mode operation, two distinct combustion stabilization locations were found for fuel injection a sufficient distance upstream of the cavity. At low T₀, the combustion was anchored at the leading edge of the cavity by heat release in the cavity shear layer. At high T₀, the combustion was stabilized a short distance downstream of the fuel injection jet in the jet-wake. For an intermediate range of T₀, the reaction zone oscillated between the jet-wake and cavity stabilization locations. Wall pressure measurements showed that cavity stabilized combustion was the steadiest, followed by jet-wake stabilized, and the oscillatory case. For fuel injection close to the cavity, a hybrid stabilization mode was found in which the reaction zone locations for the two stabilization modes overlapped. For this hybrid stabilization, cavity fueling rate was an important factor in the steadiness of the flow field. Scramjet mode combustion was found to only exist in the cavity stabilized location for the conditions studied.     

An experimental study of partially premixed flame sound

The occurrence of oscillating combustion and combustion instability has led to resurgence of interest in the causes, mechanisms, suppression, and control of combustion noise. Noise generated by enclosed flames is of greater practical interest but is more complicated than that by open flames, which itself is not clearly understood. Studies have shown that different modes of combustion, premixed and non-premixed, differ in their sound generation characteristics. However, there is lack of understanding of the region bridging these two combustion modes. This study investigates sound generation by partially premixed flames. Starting from a non-premixed flame, air was gradually added to achieve partial premixing while maintaining the fuel flow rate constant. Methane, ethylene, and ethane partially premixed flames were studied with hydrogen added for flame stabilization. The sound pressure generated by methane partially premixed flames scales with M⁵ compared to M³ for turbulent non-premixed methane flames. Also, the sound pressure generated by partially premixed flames of ethane and ethylene scales as M^4.5. With progressive partial premixing, spectra level increases at all frequencies with a greater increase in the high-frequency region compared to the low-frequency region; flames develop a peak and later a constant level plateau in the low frequency region. The partially premixed flames of methane, ethylene, and ethane generate a similar SPL as a function of equivalence ratio when the fuel volume flow rate is matched. However, when fuel mass flow rate is matched, the ethane and ethylene flames produce a similar SPL, which is lower than that produced by the methane flame.     

NH3/H2预混旋流火焰稳定性及燃烧极限实验研究

采用叶轮型旋流燃烧器,选取氢气作为燃料添加剂,研究了掺氢比对氨气旋流火焰稳定性的影响,分析了不同旋流数、叶片数、当量比以及预混气总流量条件下,旋流火焰形态变化。测定并分析了不同参数对旋流火焰燃烧极限范围的影响。结果表明,随掺氢比的增大,火焰逐渐由“V”型转化为稳定的“M”型,燃烧反应愈发充分;高旋流数(1.27)或低叶片数(6片)相比低旋流数(0.42)或高叶片数(8片)更有利于旋流火焰的稳定和燃烧的充分进行;相比富燃,贫燃有利于形成稳定的旋流火焰;预混气总流量较大时,火焰高度较高.对于燃烧极限,掺氢比越高,极限范围越大;总流量的变化对贫燃极限影响较小,对富燃极限影响较大;高旋流数(1.27)条件下,燃烧极限范围较大。     

“Slow” active control of combustion instabilities by modification of liquid fuel spray properties

This paper describes an experimental investigation of the feasibility of using “slow” active control approaches, which “instantaneously” change liquid fuel spray properties, to suppress combustion instabilities. The objective of this control approach was to break up the feedback between the combustion process heat release and combustor pressure oscillations that drive the instability by changing the characteristics of the combustion process (e.g., the characteristic combustion time). To demonstrate the feasibility of such control, this study used a proprietary fuel injector (Nanomiser^TM), which can vary its fuel spray properties, to investigate the dependence of acoustics–combustion process coupling, i.e., the driving of combustion instabilities, upon the fuel spray properties. This study showed that by changing the spray characteristics it is possible to significantly damp combustion instabilities. Furthermore, using combustion zone chemiluminescence distributions, which were obtained by Abel’s deconvolution synchronized with measured acoustic data, it has been shown that the instabilities were mostly driven midway between the combustor centerline and wall, a short distance downstream from the flame holder, where the mean axial flow velocity is approximately zero in the vortex near the flame holder. The results of this study strongly suggest that a “slow” active control system that employs controllable fuel injectors could be effectively used to prevent the onset of detrimental combustion instabilities.     

Investigation on the flameholding mechanisms in supersonic flows: backward-facing step and cavity flameholder

Abstract  

As effective devices to extend the fuel residence time in supersonic flow and prolong the duration time for hypersonic vehicles cruising in the near-space with power, the backward-facing step and the cavity are widely employed in hypersonic airbreathing propulsive systems as flameholders. The two-dimensional coupled implicit RANS equations, the standard k-ε turbulence model, and the finite-rate/eddy-dissipation reaction model have been used to generate the flow field structures in the scramjet combustors with the backward-facing step and the cavity flameholders. The flameholding mechanism in the combustor has been investigated by comparing the flow field in the corner region of the backward-facing step with that around the cavity flameholder. The obtained results show that the numerical simulation results are in good agreement with the experimental data, and the different grid scales make only a slight difference to the numerical results. The vortices formed in the corner region of the backward-facing step, in the cavity and upstream of the fuel injector make a large difference to the enhancement of the mixing between the fuel and the free airstream, and they can prolong the residence time of the mixture and improve the combustion efficiency in the supersonic flow. The size of the recirculation zone in the scramjet combustor partially depends on the distance between the injection and the leading edge of the cavity. Further, the shock waves in the scramjet combustor with the cavity flameholder are much stronger than those that occur in the scramjet combustor with the backward-facing step, and this causes a large increase in the static pressure along the walls of the combustor.