Direct numerical simulation of turbulent premixed ammonia and ammonia-hydrogen combustion under engine-relevant conditions

The combustion characteristics of ammonia and ammonia-hydrogen fuel blends under spark-ignited turbulent premixed engine-relevant conditions were investigated by means of direct numerical simulation and detailed chemistry. Several test cases were investigated for an outwardly expanding turbulent premixed flame configuration covering pure ammonia and ammonia-hydrogen fuel blends with 10% and 15% hydrogen content by volume for different equivalence ratio values of 0.9, 1.0 and 1.1. The results showed that the fuel-lean flames exhibit strong wrinkled structures at flame front compared to stoichiometric and fuel-rich flames. The heat release rate plots indicate that adding hydrogen into ammonia improves the reactivity of the flame and enhances the combustion process. The scatter plots of heat release rate versus local curvature coloured by NO formation, show that high heat release rate values occur in the concave structures and low heat release rate values occur in the convex structure, which is consistent with NO distribution. The highest turbulent burning velocity values were found for the fuel-lean cases due to more wrinkled flame front with lower effective Lewis number compared to fuel-rich cases. The results show a bending effect for the ratio between turbulent to laminar burning velocities with respect to hydrogen addition at all equivalence ratios with 10% hydrogen addition into ammonia exhibiting a highest value for the burning velocity ratio. Two distinct flame structures (concave and convex) were analysed in terms of local equivalence ratio based on the elements of N and O as well as H and O. They revealed an opposite distribution of NO formation normal to the flame front within concave and convex structures. Elementary chemical reactions involved in NO formation have shown that hydrogen addition into ammonia influences the reactivity of certain specific chemical reactions.     

Combustion characteristics of a swirling inverse diffusion flame upon oxygen content variation

The combustion characteristics of a swirling inverse diffusion flame (IDF) upon variation of the oxygen content in the oxidizer were experimentally studied. The oxidizer jet was a mixture mainly composed of oxygen and nitrogen gases, with a volumetric oxygen fraction of 20%, 21% and 26%, and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) was used as the fuel. Each set of experiment was conducted with constant oxygen content in the oxidizer. When the oxygen was varied, the changes in flame appearance, flame temperature, overall pollutant emission and heating behaviors of the swirling IDF were investigated. The swirling IDFs with different oxygen content in the oxidizer have similar flame structure involving a large-size and high-temperature internal recirculation zone (IRZ) which favors for thermal NO formation, and the thermal mechanism dominates the NO production for the swirling IDFs. The use of nitrogen-diluted air (with 20% oxygen) allowed the IDFs to operate at lower temperature with reduced NO_x formation, compared to the case of air/LPG combustion (with 21% oxygen). Meanwhile, an increase in CO emission is observed. With oxygen-enriched air (26% oxygen), the increase in temperature and EINO_x under lean conditions is more significant than under rich conditions. With 26% oxygen in the oxidizer stream, the IDF produces: (1) a shorter and narrowed navy-blue flame ring located closer to the burner exit, (2) highly luminous yellow flame extending into the central IRZ and above the blue flame ring, (3) a low CO emission, especially under lean conditions, (4) an increase in temperature at low Ф while a decrease in temperature at high Ф, and (5) an increase in EINO_x at all Ф. The heating test using the swirling IDFs in flame impingement heat transfer reveals that the heating rate can be monotonically increased as oxygen content in the oxidizer jet increases under the lean condition (Ф = 1.0). The oxygen enrichment does not contribute to the heating rate under the rich condition (Ф = 2.0), because for the non-premixed combustion of an IDF, the enrichment in oxygen means a lower oxidizer jet Reynolds number and thus less complete combustion occurs as a result of reduced amount of entrained ambient air.     

Experimental and numerical analyses of the combustion characteristics of Mg/PTFE/Viton fuel-rich pyrolants in the atmospheric environment

Abstract

Magnesium/polytetrafluoroethylene/Viton (MTV) fuel-rich pyrolants use the atmospheric oxygen as a complementary oxidizer to sustain and alter the performance of the combustion reaction. The flame diffusion characteristics of MTV fuel-rich pyrolants in the atmospheric environment are studied by a high-speed camera (HSC). The flame temperature and combustion components are measured by using remote sensing Fourier Transform Infrared Spectrometer (FTIR). In order to obtain the combustion component distribution more accurately, an aerobic combustion model containing the oxidation reaction of the excess reactant Mg and carbonaceous species with O₂ is established in this study. Eddy dissipation concept (EDC) model is applied to the numerical simulation of the three dimensional anaerobic and aerobic combustion field coupled with Realizable k-ε two-equation turbulence model. The research results show that flame temperature is mainly contributed by anaerobic combustion reaction. The flame structure obtained by the aerobic combustion model is closer to the experimental results, and the result of component distribution calculated by aerobic combustion is more consistent with characteristic spectrum. Therefore, the aerobic combustion model is more suitable for describing the actual MTV flame, and the combustion field can be divided into an anaerobic core zone and an aerobic diffusion zone.     

Study on Characteristics of Co-firing Ammonia/Methane Fuels under Oxygen Enriched Combustion Conditions

Having a background of utilising ammonia as an alternative fuel for power generation, exploring the feasibility of co-firing ammonia with methane is proposed to use ammonia to substitute conventional natural gas. However, improvement of the combustion of such fuels can be achieved using conditions that enable an increase of oxygenation, thus fomenting the combustion process of a slower reactive molecule as ammonia. Therefore, the present study looks at oxygen enriched combustion technologies, a proposed concept to improve the performance of ammonia/methane combustion. To investigate the characteristics of ammonia/methane combustion under oxygen enriched conditions, adiabatic burning velocity and burner stabilized laminar flame emissions were studied. Simulation results show that the oxygen enriched method can help to significantly enhance the propagation of ammonia/methane combustion without changing the emission level, which would be quite promising for the design of systems using this fuel for practical applications. Furthermore, to produce low computational-cost flame chemistry for detailed numerical analyses for future combustion studies, three reduced combustion mechanisms of the well-known Konnov’s mechanism were compared in ammonia/methane flame simulations under practical gas turbine combustor conditions. Results show that the reduced reaction mechanisms can provide good results for further analyses of oxygen enriched combustion of ammonia/methane. The results obtained in this study also allow gas turbine designers and modellers to choose the most suitable mechanism for further combustion studies and development.     

MILD combustion of hydrogenated biogas under several operating conditions in an opposed jet configuration

MILD combustion of biogas takes its importance firstly from the combustion process that diminishes significantly fuel consumption and reduces emissions and secondly from the use of biogas which is a renewable fuel. In this paper, the influence of several operating conditions (namely biogas composition, hydrogen enrichment and oxidizer dilution) is studied on flame structure and emissions. The investigation is conducted in MILD regime with a special focus on chemical effects of CO₂ in the oxidizer. Opposed jet diffusion combustion configuration is adopted. The combustion kinetics is described by the Gri 3.0 mechanism and the Chemkin code is used to solve the problem.It is found that oxygen reduction has a significant effect on flame temperature and emissions while less sensitivity corresponds to hydrogen enrichment in MILD combustion regime. Temperature and species are considerably reduced by oxygen decrease in the oxidizer and augmented by hydrogen addition to the fuel. The maximum values of temperature and species are not influenced by the composition of the biogas in MILD regime. Blending biogas with hydrogen can be used to sustain MILD combustion at very low oxygen concentration in the fuel.In MILD combustion regime, the chemical effect of CO₂ in the oxidizer stream reduces considerably the flame temperature and species production, except CO which is enhanced. For high amounts of CO₂ in the oxidizer, the chemical effect of CO₂ becomes negligible.     

Effect of excess hydrogen on hydrogen fueled internal combustion engine under full load

Detailed hydrogen-air chemical reaction mechanisms were coupled with three dimension grids of an experimental hydrogen fueled internal combustion engine (HICE) to establish a combustion model based on CONVERGE software. The influence of excess hydrogen coefficient on the combustion and emission characteristics of HICE under full load was studied based on the CFD model. Simulation results showed that excess hydrogen leaded to higher concentration of OH species in flame front, and quicker hydrogen-oxygen reaction and flame propagation speed, which in turn leaded to higher pressure and temperature in cylinder. The rise of pressure and temperature in turn contributed to the increase of indicate power but un-burned hydrogen leaded to decrease of efficiency. NOx, especially NO emissions decreased significantly with excess hydrogen under full load not only because increased of H concentration, and decreased of O and OH concentration, which leaded to reverse reaction of NO formation through thermal NO routes. Low excess hydrogen coefficient can achieve a good trade-off between power and emissions under full load.     

Decarbonisation potential of dimethyl ether/hydrogen mixtures in a flameless furnace: Reactive structures and pollutant emissions

This article sheds light on the combustion characteristics of dimethyl ether and its mixtures with methane/hydrogen under flameless conditions at different equivalence ratios. It was found that combustion of 100% dimethyl ether in flameless conditions minimises the NO formation, keeping it less than 10 ppm with no CO or unburned hydrocarbons. Progressive addition of methane was found to reduce the NO, reaching up to zero value at 50% methane in molar fraction along with a marginal CO₂ reduction. However, large amounts of CO were found for higher methane levels, greater than 60% CH₄ in molar fraction. Reactive structures based on OH1 chemiluminescence revealed that adding methane results in increased ignition delay times and, consequently, a more distributed reaction zone characterised by reduced temperature gradients. No visible flame was observed for pure dimethyl ether as well as dimethyl ether/methane mixtures. Furthermore, a more intense and narrower reaction zone, characterised by the presence of a visible flame, was formed upon hydrogen addition. Adding hydrogen by 50% in molar fraction did not cause a noticeable rise in NO levels; however, CO₂ was lowered by about 18%. Further addition of hydrogen resulted in increased peak temperatures of about 1700 K and higher NO emissions of about 50 ppm. Additionally, a skeletal Chemical Reactor Network was built and simulated with the commercial software CHEMKIN Pro to investigate the effect of the different mixtures and operating conditions on NO formation from a chemical point of view. N₂O pathway was observed to be the root source of NO emissions for pure DME and DME/CH₄ mixtures, however; the thermal pathway became gradually more important as hydrogen concentration was increased in the mixture.     

Characteristics of oxy-fuel combustion in gas turbines

This paper reports on a numerical study of the thermodynamic and basic combustion characteristics of oxy-fuel combustion in gas turbine related conditions using detailed chemical kinetic and thermodynamic calculations. The oxy-fuels considered are mixtures of CH₄, O₂, CO₂ and H₂O, representing natural gas combustion under nitrogen free gas turbine conditions. The GRI Mech 3.0 chemical kinetic mechanism, consisting of 53 species and 325 reactions, is used in the chemical kinetic calculations. Two mixing conditions in the combustion chambers are considered; a high intensity turbulence mixing condition where the combustion chamber is assumed to be a well-stirred reactor, and a typical non-premixed flame condition where chemical reactions occur in thin flamelets. The required residence time in the well-stirred reactor for the oxidation of fuels is simulated and compared with typical gas turbine operation. The flame temperature and extinction conditions are determined for non-premixed flames under various oxidizer inlet temperature and oxidizer compositions. It is shown that most oxy-fuel combustion conditions may not be feasible if the fuel, oxygen and diluent are not supplied properly to the combustors. The numerical calculations suggest that for oxy-fuel combustion there is a range of oxygen/diluent ratio within which the flames can be not only stable, but also with low remaining oxygen and low emission of unburned intermediates in the flue gas.     

Oxy-fuel combustion of solid fuels

Oxy-fuel combustion is suggested as one of the possible, promising technologies for capturing CO₂ from power plants. The concept of oxy-fuel combustion is removal of nitrogen from the oxidizer to carry out the combustion process in oxygen and, in most concepts, recycled flue gas to lower the flame temperature. The flue gas produced thus consists primarily of carbon dioxide and water. Much research on the different aspects of an oxy-fuel power plant has been performed during the last decade. Focus has mainly been on retrofits of existing pulverized-coal-fired power plant units. Green-field plants which provide additional options for improvement of process economics are however likewise investigated. Of particular interest is the change of the combustion process induced by the exchange of carbon dioxide and water vapor for nitrogen as diluent. This paper reviews the published knowledge on the oxy-fuel process and focuses particularly on the combustion fundamentals, i.e. flame temperatures and heat transfer, ignition and burnout, emissions, and fly ash characteristics. Knowledge is currently available regarding both an entire oxy-fuel power plant and the combustion fundamentals. However, several questions remain unanswered and more research and pilot plant testing of heat transfer profiles, emission levels, the optimum oxygen excess and inlet oxygen concentration levels, high and low-temperature fire-side corrosion, ash quality, plant operability, and models to predict NO_x and SO₃ formation is required.     

多孔燃烧器中氨/空气燃烧特性数值研究

氨具有氢密度高、生产成本低、基础设施完善等优点,作为一种潜在的可再生替代燃料受到了广泛的关注。目前,仅有少数研究关注氨气燃烧喷嘴的研究,针对氨气稳定燃烧喷嘴的研究尤其不足。为实现氨燃料的稳定燃烧和低污染物排放,本研究提出了一种氨用多孔介质燃烧器。对氨用多孔介质燃烧器建立了二维数值模型,并对预混氨/空气在多孔介质燃烧器中的燃烧性能进行了评价,考察了不同进口速度u₀、当量比Φ和多孔介质导热系数对氨/空气火焰特性和NO排放的影响。结果表明,多孔介质燃烧器能在u₀ = 3 ~ 7 m/s和Φ = 0.9 ~ 1.2条件下稳定燃烧;随着多孔介质导热系数的增大,火焰最高温度下降且火焰位置向上游移动;减小进口速度和增大当量比能够显著降低NO的排放。     

Emission characteristics and heat release rate surrogates for ammonia premixed laminar flames

Ammonia is a carbon-free fuel that has the potential to meet increasing energy demand and to reduce CO₂ emissions. In the present work, the characteristics of pollutant emissions in ammonia premixed laminar flames are investigated using one-dimensional simulations, and heat release rate (HRR) surrogates for ammonia combustion are proposed. Both atmospheric and high-pressure conditions were considered, and four representative mechanisms for ammonia combustion were employed. It is shown that the total emission of NO and NH₃ achieves a minimum around an equivalence ratio (?) of 1.1 under atmospheric conditions, and there is no noticeable emission of NO and NH₃ for ? = 1.1 ~ 1.5 under high-pressure conditions. Three HRR surrogates, [NH₃][OH], [NH₂][O], and [NH₂][H], were proposed based on the analysis of HRR and elementary reaction profiles. The performance of HRR surrogates was found to vary with equivalence ratios. For example, with the Miller mechanism, [NH₃][OH], [NH₂][O], and [NH₂][H] have the best performance under atmospheric conditions at ? = 1.15, 0.95 and 1.05, respectively, and under high-pressure conditions at ? = 1.11, 0.87 and 0.96, respectively. Similar conclusions can also be drawn with other mechanisms. These findings provide valuable insights into emission control and flame identification of ammonia combustion.     

Combustion with mixed enrichment of oxygen and hydrogen in lean regime

A low global richness of combustion is interesting from an ecological and economic point of view as it helps to limit fuel consumption. In fact, the consequences of the combustion in poor mode are the appearance of local or global flame extinctions, energy loss by radiation and change in flame structure. The flammability limits of the diffusion methane flame can be resolved by the enrichment of the combustion air with oxygen or the use of the pure oxygen as oxidant as well as the addition to hydrogen in natural gas. Moreover, the use of oxygen and hydrogen as previously mentioned allow working in low ranges of richness while maintaining good flame stability. For a constant burner power of 15 kW, the reduction of the richness involves an increase in the oxidizer flow rate injected into the combustion reaction. In this present study, the variation of the richness, the fuel enrichment with hydrogen and the oxidant enrichment with oxygen are shown as major parameters where they have direct influences on the flow dynamic, the flame structure and the pollutant emissions.The Chemiluminescence of OH* radical and the PIV (Particle image velocimetry) are used in this work to characterize the flame structure, the stability and the dynamics of the flame. The measurement of pollutant emissions effected by a gas analyzer. The enrichment in oxygen and hydrogen provides a stable flame, which is well attached to the burner for the following richness values: 0.7, 0.8, 0.9 and 1. The reduction of the richness promotes the mixture quality of the reactants and leads a reduction in CO₂ and CO concentration. By contrast, the decrease of the richness supports the formation of NOx.     

Studies on properties of laminar premixed hydrogen-added ammonia/air flames for hydrogen production

In order to evaluate the potential of burning and reforming ammonia as a carbon-free fuel in production of hydrogen, fundamental unstretched laminar burning velocities, and flame response to stretch (represented by the Markstein number) for laminar premixed hydrogen-added ammonia/air flames were studied both experimentally and computationally. Freely (outwardly)-propagating spherical laminar premixed flames at normal temperature and pressure were considered for a wide range of global fuel-equivalence ratios, flame stretch rates (represented by the Karlovitz number) and the extent of hydrogen substitution. Results show the substantial increase of laminar burning velocities with hydrogen substitution, particularly under fuel-rich conditions. Also, predicted flame structures show that the hydrogen substitution enhances nitrogen oxide (NO_x) and nitrous oxide (N₂O) formation. At fuel-rich conditions, however, the amount of NO_x and N₂O emissions and the extent of the increase with the hydrogen substitution are much lower than those under fuel-lean conditions. These observations support the potential of hydrogen as an additive for improving the burning performance with low NO_x and N₂O emissions in fuel-rich ammonia/air flames and hence the potential of using ammonia as a clean fuel. Increasing the amount of added hydrogen tends to enhance flame sensitivity to stretch.     

富氧进气与水乳化柴油的掺烧试验及数值模拟

在直喷柴油机上采用体积分数21％、22％、23％和24％的进气增氧技术,燃用纯柴油与30％水乳化柴油进行燃烧及排放试验.采用CFD软件与正庚烷简化模型耦合进行数值模拟.试验结果表明,燃用纯柴油时,随进气氧体积分数的增加,燃烧始点提前;在使用30％水乳化柴油时,着火延迟加大,但其依然遵循随掺入的氧体积分数增大着火时刻提前的规律,NO和烟度的排放低于燃用纯柴油的情况.模拟计算显示:CFD与动力学模型的耦合可以较为准确地预测富氧燃烧的缸内着火时刻及燃烧状况.分析上止点后2° CA时刻燃烧室温度场切片可知,燃用30％水乳化柴油使缸内温度下降,即使掺入体积分数24％的O2,NO生成也低于燃用纯柴油、空气助燃的情况,实现富氧条件下相对于原机的低温燃烧,减少了污染物的排放.     

Reexamination on methane/oxygen combustion in a rapidly mixed type tubular flame burner

To fundamentally elucidate the requirement for an inherently safe technique of rapidly mixed type tubular flame combustion, experiments have been made to investigate (1) the mixing process of fuel and oxidizer, and (2) the appearances of methane flames under various oxygen mole fractions. Three optically accessible quartz burners of different slit widths were made for measuring the mixing layer thickness with a PIV system. Under various rates of flow of the oxidizer to the fuel, a boundary layer type flow is recognized to dominate the mixing of fuel and oxidizer around the exit of the injection slit, namely the mixing layer thickness is inversely proportional to the square root of mean injection velocity. Using two stainless steel burners, combustion tests were conducted with the oxidizers of oxygen/air mixtures. To quantitatively investigate the requirement for tubular flame establishment, the Damköhler number, which is the ratio of characteristic mixing time to characteristic chemical reaction time, has been discussed in detail. The mixing time was calculated according to estimated mixing layer thickness, while the chemical reaction time was computed with the Chemkin code. The Damköhler number has proved to be a useful measure for success/failure of tubular flame combustion. When the Damköhler number is larger than unity, chemical reaction starts before complete fuel/air mixing and the tubular flame fails to be established; when the Damköhler number is much smaller than unity, the fuel and the oxidizer are completely mixed before the onset of reaction, resulting in successful tubular flame combustion. The results confirm our hypothesis in a previous study. Furthermore, based on the concept of Damköhler number, the minimum flow rate to achieve the tubular flame combustion could be estimated.     

脉动供燃料燃烧技术及各参数影响研究

研究了一个采用脉动供燃料燃烧方式的射流扩散火焰,利用直接摄像技术观察分析了在不同工况参数下的火焰特征及其变化规律,包括富燃时间份额、平均雷诺数和管道连接状况等,分析了各参数的影响和共振工况下的火焰特征。结果表明,富燃时间份额在70％～90％范围内火焰呈现较规则的贫富燃交替结构,在共振频率时更加清晰,70％～80％时火焰长度最长,交替结构最规则;在更低的富燃时间份额时,共振频率下火焰根部出现崩溃性混合和湍流且火焰升起,其值愈低湍动愈强,在其它频率下保持附着,而长度变短,在55％～60％时长度最短。管道连接状况也影响火焰脉动特性。共振频率下,平均雷诺数增大火焰可在较高富燃时间份额下升起,其它频率下火焰始终附着。     

Numerical investigation on hydrogen-enriched methane combustion in a domestic back-pressure boiler and non-premixed burner system from flame structure and pollutants aspect

In this paper, the non-premixed hydrogen-enriched methane-air combustion was investigated numerically with the use of a CFD code. In the first part of the study, the combustion experiments were performed in a back- pressure boiler using natural gas. The intake rate of fuel was kept constant as 45 Nm³/h while the coefficient for the air excess ratio was changed between 1.2 and 1.35. After the experiments, the numerical analyses were performed. The Fluent code was utilized as the simulation instrument. The eddy dissipation combustion model was selected to be used in the numerical analyses, since it is known that this combustion model can save computational time and fairly predict the combustion flame structure and emissions. Pure methane and natural gas were taken as fuels in the numerical analyses. The obtained results from the numerical analyses were validated with the experimental flue gas temperature and emission measurements. Then, the hydrogen-enrichment of pure methane fuel was investigated numerically in such a way that the boiler capacity (432 kW) was kept constant. The coefficient for the air excess ratio was 1.2 for all the considered combustion simulation cases. The hydrogen addition ratio was 25%, 50% and 75% by mass, respectively. The thermal NO emissions and temperature distributions in the combustion chamber were obtained according to the different hydrogen-enriched methane fuel combustion cases. In addition, the emissions contained in the flue gas together with the temperature values were calculated. The obtained results from the numerical studies indicate that the hydrogen-enrichment of methane reduces the carbon emissions, while it substantially augments the formation of the thermal NO emissions. The calculated thermal NO emission value in the flue gas is 147 ppm for the pure methane combustion case, and it is 566 ppm for the combustion case with 75% by mass of hydrogen addition ratio. Therefore, it is determined that hydrogen fuel is a pollutant from the thermal NO emission aspect for the considered enrichment ratios in the studied domestic boiler-burner system.     

分级燃烧降低燃煤锅炉NOx排放的机理及影响因素分析

再燃燃料在还原性气氛下对主燃区煤粉燃烧生成的氮氧化物的还原反应中 ,再燃燃料中产生的中间产物氰基、氨基和烃根等起到分解氮氧化物的作用。同一再燃燃料中烃类物质在富燃料和贫燃料气氛中所起作用截然不同。实际应用中应使再燃区内各处处于弱还原性气氛下以保证再燃降低NOx 排放的效果 ,并尽量采用气体燃料作为再燃燃料 ,同时在获取所需NOx 排放水平前提下尽量选取较高的空气过量系数(化学当量比 ) ,以同时降低飞灰中的含碳量、减轻高温腐蚀的程度。     

Numerical study of fuel temperature influence on single gas jet combustion in highly preheated and oxygen deficient air

Combustion of a single jet of propane in a cross-flowing stream of preheated and oxygen deficient air is numerically analyzed with emphasis on influences of fuel temperature. Both Eddy-Break-Up and PDF/mixture fraction combustion models coupled with RNG k–ε turbulent model were applied and the predicted results were compared. Thermal and prompt NO models were employed to calculate NO emissions. Results show that the Eddy-Break-Up model is more suitable for predicting temperature field and flame shape. It was showed that flame during high temperature air combustion condition is spread over a much larger volume. Flame volume increases with a reduction of oxygen concentration, and this trend is clearer if oxygen concentration in the preheated air is below 10%. Additionally, it is almost constant at fixed oxygen concentration and fuel inlet temperature for the temperature of the preheated and oxygen deficient air equal to 1041–1273 K. Increase of the fuel inlet temperature results in smaller flame, shorter mean residence time, smaller temperature peaks, and lower emission of NO.     

Numerical study on steam‐added mild combustion

Numerical study on flame structure and NO emission is conducted covering a wide range of atmospheric temperature, high temperature, and mild combustion regimes in H₂‐Air laminar flames diluted with steam. Special concern is focused on the difference of flame structure and NO emission behaviour between high‐temperature combustion and mild combustion modes. The important role of chemical effects of added steam in flame structure and NO emission behaviour is also discussed. It is seen that there exists an oxidizer‐side temperature limit which the combustion mode changes from high temperature combustion to mild combustion. In high temperature combustion modes the OH production via the reaction step, (‐R23) is suppressed while in mild combustion modes is enhanced by the increase of oxidizer‐side temperature. It is also found that chemical effects of added steam are influenced by the competition between both the reaction steps, (R21) and (‐R23). NO emission index increases with increasing oxidizer‐side temperature and decreases with mole fraction of added steam. The remarkably produced OH due to chemical effects of added steam does not contribute to the increase of NO but plays a role of holdback on NO in thermal mechanism. It is also seen that in both the high temperature combustion and mild combustion modes NO emission indicates a consistently similar tendency, and is consequently recognized that in the whole ranges steam addition suppresses NO emission. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.