Applications of Laser Based Measurements to Combustion Related Fluid Dynamics

This thesis is concerned with laser based techniques for the measurement of fluid dynamical properties and their application to combusting flowfields or flowfields related to combustion. As an introduction, the theory of turbulent flows and combustion is shortly presented. An overview of laser based measuring techniques is given. Next, seven papers are included. The main topic of papers 1 and 2 is the measurements of swirling pipe flows with sudden axi-symmetric expansions. These flowfields are related to the flowfields of gas turbine combustors. Measurements and computations using commercial software are compared. Papers 3 and 7 deal with an laser Doppler anemometry based method for the measurement of the turbulent dissipation rate and its application to an axi-symmetric free jet, respectively. The measurements rely on two-point measurements with high spatial resolution. Also three-component one-point measurements are used to obtain the triple velocity correlations. Together these measurements are sufficient to present the energy balance, if pressure effects are neglected. Papers 4, 5 and 6 are concerned with the turbulent flame speed under premixed conditions. Papers 4 and 5 present flame speed measurements from a stationary burner using methane and Danish natural gas. Particle image velocimetry and one- and two-point Laser Doppler anemometry is used to measure flame speed and turbulent quantities, including integral length scales. Paper 7 presents measurements of flame speed and turbulence parameters in an spark ignition engine. Here heat release analyses from pressure measurements are combined with one- and two-point laser Doppler anemometry to analyze influence of turbulence on flame propagation

Measurements of Turbulent Flame Speed and Integral Length Scales in a Lean Stationary Premixed Flame

Turbulent premixed natural gas - air flame velocities have been measured in a stationary axi-symmetric burner using LDA. The flame was stabilized by letting the flow retard toward a stagnation plate downstream of the burner exit. Turbulence was generated by letting the flow pass through a plate with drilled holes. Three different hole diameters were used, 3, 6 and 10 mm, in order to achieve different turbulent length scales. Turbulent integral length scales were measured using two-point LDA and the stretching in terms of the Karlovitz number could be estimated from these measurements. The results support previous studies indicating that stretching reduces the flame speed

Unshrouded rotor tip clearance effects in expander cycle turbines

Steady flow in axial one-stage turbines is assessed numerically and experimentally. The simulations are performed on coarse meshes using a standard numerical approach (3D, steady state, kε-turbulence model, wall function at solid boundaries). In order to allow for conclusions drawn from these rapid numerical studies, the approach was compared with an explicit LDA (Laser Doppler anemometry) mapping of the velocity field downstream the rotor on a representative turbine stage. A two-component LDA system allowed for measurements of axial and tangential velocity components at varying depth (radius) in the flow channel, Measurements thus correspond to a full plane at constant axial position in the rotating frame of reference of the rotor. Comparison between LDA velocity mapping and CFD results shows good agreement. A series of subsequent simulations is thus used to judge the impact of varied blade/stage design parameters. Two turbine layouts are defined for identical operating conditions and shaft power. The flow in the unshrouded rotor blade row is analyzed for the influence of varying tip clearance size and the dependency on stage velocity triangles. – Known correlations for tip clearance losses (typically used in mean line predictions) are used, though the blade row geometry considered is beyond the limits the correlations are intended for. The absolute loss level found in CFD simulations differs significantly from what is expected when using loss correlations. Still the variation with tip gap size is predicted well by some of the investigated models. As dependency of tip clearance losses on stage velocity triangles is considered, none of the tested correlations gives results consistent with the numerical simulations. The use of standard correlations ‘beyond the limits’ is thus considered to introduce high uncertainty. Due to the good consistency between LDA and numerical results, the conclusions are considered to be valid for stage designs similar to the ones analyzed

Interaction between turbulence and flame in an S.I. engine and in a stationary burner

Turbulent flame speeds have been measured in a single cylinder S.I. engine and in a stationary atmospheric burner. One- and two-point LDA has been used to measure turbulence intensities and integral length scales. Stretching, in terms of Karlovitz numbers could be estimated from these measurements. The influence of moving average filtered turbulence on the flame speed in the S.I. engine is in agreement with the burner experiments. Previously reported signs of quenching of small flames in the S.I. engine, due to excessive turbulence could not be found for larger flames

Hydrogen and Hydrogen-Rich Fuels : Production and Conversion to Electricity

Hydrogen has been proposed as an energy carrier in storage systems, fueled by excess electricity from volatile power production and re-electrified in times of electricity shortage. Unfortunately, these storage systems suffer from fairly poor return efficiencies. There is however a multitude of other production methods and usages that not seldom are intermixed with storage, creating possibilities for hydrogen as an attractive energy carrier. In many cases, hydrogen is mixed with other species. A brief introduction of possible hydrogen production methods and ways to convert hydrogen into electricity are presented. Emphases are put on comparing electrochemical methods (fuel cells and electrolyzers) to more traditional methods, mainly turbine-based power production

Investigation of two-equation turbulence models applied to a confined axis-symmetric swirling flow

The modeling of industrial combustion applications today is almost exclusively based on two-equation turbulence models. Despite its known limitations, the most the widely used model is still the standard k-ε model. The objective of this paper is to investigate the performance of two-equation turbulence models applied to a confined swirling flow. Numerical modeling of an axis-symmetric confined sudden expansion, followed by a contraction with the assumption of steady flow and an incompressible fluid, has been conducted. The flow field is what can be expected in simplified dump gas turbine combustor geometry. In this investigation, three different swirl cases were considered: no swirl, moderate swirl (no central re-circulation zone) and strong swift (a central recirculation zone occurring). The models investigated were: the standard k-ε model, a curvature-modified k-ε model, Chen's k-ε model, a cubic non-linear k-ε model, the standard k-ω model and the Shear Stress Transport (SST) k-ω model. The results show that almost all models were able to predict the major impact of the moderate swirl: reduced outer re-circulation lengths and retardation of the axial velocity on the center-line. However, the Chen k-ε model and the SST k-ω model were found to better reproduce the mean velocity field and the turbulent kinetic energy field from the measurements. For a strong swift, a large re-circulation zone is formed along the center-line, which the standard k-ε model and the modified k-ε model fail to predict. However, the shape and size of the re-circulation zone differ strongly between the models. At this swirl number, the performances of all models were, without exception, worse than for the lower swift numbers. The SST k-ω model achieved the best agreement between computations and experimental data

EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATIONS OF A LOW WEBER LIQUID SPRAY IN AIR CROSS FLOW

A Low Weber water spray subjected to an air cross flow has been investigated. The spray is characterized bylow liquid injection velocity, producing a column that is broken up by aerodynamic forces from the oncoming air. PIV and PDAhave been used to quantify both the continuous and dispersed phases. Long range microscopy has been used to characterize thecolumn breakup process. It has been shown that bubbles (akin to droplet bag breakup) may form already in the column

Computational and experimental investigation of emissions in a highly humidified premixed flame

Emission formation and flame stability were investigated, both experimentally and computationally, for premixed combustion with varying amounts of water vapor in the mixture. Emission measurements were made in a gas turbine combustor at atmospheric conditions, using Danish Natural Gas (NG) as fuel. The emissions were mapped as a function of humidity, inlet air temperature, equivalence ratio and aerodynamic load. Operating conditions were chosen to match what can be expected from e.g. an EvGT cycle for power generation. The inlet air temperature was slightly lower than the inlet temperatures that would be found in a recuperated cycle. The degree of humidity was varied from 0w% to 33w% of the airflow in the experiment, while the air inlet temperature was varied from 500K to 800K. Computations were made using a single Perfectly Stirred Reactor (PSR) model and a reaction scheme with 821 reactions and 69 species. It was found that the NOX emissions were strongly reduced by the addition of water. Most of this decrease vanishes in practical combustion since richer combustion is required to keep CO emissions (combustion efficiency) at a tolerable level. The maximum humidity was found to be dependent on inlet air temperature and aerodynamic load. In this experiment, the maximum humidity achieved was 33%

Influence of combustor geometry on swirl stabilized premixed methane-air flame

Flame structures, blowout limits and emissions of swirlstabilized premixed methane-air flames were studied experimentally in a small atmospheric combustor rig. Combustion sections with rectangular cross section (30mm by 40mm) and circular cross section (inner diameter = 39mm) were used to investigate effects of combustor geometry on the flame's performance. Flame structures and instabilities were obtained from CH∗ chemiluminescence captured by a high speed intensified CMOS camera. Maps of flame blowout limits (ΦBO) versus total mass flow rates (m = 70∼130 standard liter per minute, SLPM) were obtained with the combustor inlet flow temperature (Tin) kept at Tin = 397 ± 5K and a flow swirl number of S = 0.6. Emission data of mole fraction of CO in the exhaust gas versus equivalence ratio was obtained under the conditions of Tin= 293 ± 5K and S = 0.66. It is found that the flame became longer and more unstable with decreasing equivalence ratio or increasing total mass flow rates. A strong high-amplitude and low-frequency oscillation was found to be the reason for the flame blowout. A possible reason for flame instability and blowout is presented in the paper. Within the parameters investigated in this study, the equivalence ratio had the strongest impact on flame stabilities and CO emission. Both in the rectangular and circular combustors, when the flame length increased to a critical value (LIBO, which was approximately the same for these two combustors), flame could not be stabilized anymore and blowout occurred. Compared with the rectangular combustor, the circular one had lower blowout limits and was better in stabilizing the flame. Combustor geometry did not significantly affect CO emission in the current study

Experimental investigation of the stability limits of premixed syngas-air flames at two moderate swirl numbers

This article presents an investigation of the swirl number effects on the stability limits of various syngas compositions in an atmospheric premixed variable-swirl burner. Lean blowout (LBO) and flashback (FB) experiments were performed using fuel mixtures containing varying amounts of H2, CO and CH4 at two swirl numbers. Reducing the swirl number from 0.66 to 0.53, reduced the flashback propensity of various syngas/air mixtures but it did not affect the LBO limits considerably. The flow-field in the combustor was studied at S = 0.66 and 0.53 using high-speed particle image velocimetry (PIV) for a mixture of H2/CH4 (50:50) at various equivalence ratios. At both swirl numbers, for the non-reacting flow and low equivalence ratios the flow-field consisted of an inner recirculation zone at the entrance of the combustor, an annular high velocity zone and an outer recirculation zones between the high-velocity zone and the bounding walls. Increasing the equivalence ratio towards the flashback limit, had varying effects on the flow-field, depending on swirl number. At S = 0.66, increasing the equivalence ratio did not have a significant effect on the general features of the flow-field. At S = 0.53 the flow-field consisted of an inner recirculation zone at low equivalence ratios, but as the equivalence ratio was increased, the high velocity zone extended radially towards the center and the recirculation zone disappeared from the flow-field. The high-speed OH*-chemiluminescence images recorded at the onset of flashback revealed significant differences between S = 0.66 and S = 0.53 in the flame stabilization mechanism prior to flashback and flame propagation in the premixing tube. Considering the velocity measurements together with the OH*-chemiluminescence images, it was concluded that at S = 0.66 flashback was caused by CIVB mechanism whereas at S = 0.53 flashback was initiated by the competition between the flame speed and flow velocity in the core flow