Stability characteristics of non-premixed turbulent jet flames of hydrogen and syngas blends with coaxial air

The stability characteristics of attached hydrogen (H₂) and syngas (H₂/CO) turbulent jet flames with coaxial air were studied experimentally. The flame stability was investigated by varying the fuel and air stream velocities. Effects of the coaxial nozzle diameter, fuel nozzle lip thickness and syngas fuel composition are addressed in detail. The detachment stability limit of the syngas single jet flame was found to decrease with increasing amount of carbon monoxide in the fuel. For jet flames with coaxial air, the critical coaxial air velocity leading to flame detachment first increases with increasing fuel jet velocity and subsequently decreases. This non-monotonic trend appears for all syngas composition herein investigated (50/50 → 100/0% H₂/CO). OH^∗ chemiluminescence imaging was performed to qualitatively identify the mechanisms responsible for the flame detachment. For all fuel compositions, local extinction close to the burner rim is observed at lower fuel velocities (ascending stability limit), while local flame extinction downstream of the burner rim is observed at higher fuel velocities (descending stability limit). Extrema of the non-monotonic trends appear to be identical when the nozzle fuel velocity is normalized by the critical fuel velocity obtained for the single jet cases.     

Flame stabilization in a lifted non-premixed turbulent hydrogen jet with coaxial air

To understand hydrogen jet liftoff height, the stabilization mechanism of turbulent lifted jet flames under non-premixed conditions was studied. The objectives were to determine flame stability mechanisms, to analyze flame structure, and to characterize the lifted jet at the flame stabilization point. Hydrogen flow velocity varied from 100 to 300 m/s. Coaxial air velocity was regulated from 12 to 20 m/s. Simultaneous velocity field and reaction zone measurements used, PIV/OH PLIF techniques with Nd:YAG lasers and CCD/ICCD cameras. Liftoff height decreased with increased fuel velocity. The flame stabilized in a lower velocity region next to the faster fuel jet due to the mixing effects of the coaxial air flow. The non-premixed turbulent lifted hydrogen jet flames had two types of flame structure for both thin and thick flame base. Lifted flame stabilization was related to local principal strain rate and turbulent intensity, assuming that combustion occurs where local flow velocity and turbulent flame propagation velocity are balanced.     

Acoustic excitation effect on NOx reduction and flame stability in a lifted non-premixed turbulent hydrogen jet with coaxial air

The effects of acoustic excitation on the reduction in nitric oxidant (NO_x) emission were experimentally investigated in non-premixed lifted hydrogen jet flames with coaxial air. The purpose of the present work was to analyze the acoustic forcing effect on the flow field, the reaction zone, and NO_x emission, and to study the mechanisms of NO_x reduction and flame stabilization. To analyze of the flow field, a PIV method was used that incorporated two Nd-YAG lasers and a CCD camera. The reaction zone was visualized by taking OH* chemiluminescence images with a 307.1 ± 5 nm narrow band pass filter and an ICCD camera. A flow condition was carefully selected at u_F = 150, 200, 250 m/s and u_A = 12, 16, 20 m/s, which was sustainable for acoustic excitation in a lifted flame region. The frequency was swept from 150 to 1000 Hz in 5 Hz steps. From the measurements of the flow field, the reaction zone, and NO_x emission, we concluded that NO_x emission was reduced and minimized at the resonance frequency. The vortex that was generated by acoustic forcing promoted air entrainment and enhanced the fuel-air mixing rate. This premixing effect resulted in a lower flame temperature, and thus lower NO_x emissions. In addition, the liftoff height periodically fluctuated due to the stretch effect as the vortex interacted with the flame base.     

Study of non-premixed turbulent flame of hydrogen/air downstream Co-Current injector

For three decades, hydrogen has been identified as a versatile potential fuel concurrent to the conventional fuel such as gasoline. In order to fully implement it and to develop the combustion based power devices that may supply much higher energy density, it is very essential to understand the mechanism of Hydrogen/Air combustion. In this work, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) numerical simulations have been performed to study the combustion of non-premixed turbulent hydrogen-air mixture with different equivalence ratios and different mass flow rates and its effect on different species formation, peak temperature and NO_x formation. The performance of the combustor is evaluated by using FLUENT software under adiabatic wall condition. Generalized finite rate chemistry model was used to analyze the hydrogen-air combustion system. The combustion is modeled using multi-step reaction mechanism with 14 species, until complete conversion of fuel to H₂O. Through such a systematic analysis, a proper controlled operation condition for the combustor is suggested which may be used as a guideline for combustor design. Results reported in this work illustrate that the CFD simulation can be one of the most powerful, beneficial and economical tool for combustor design and for optimization and performance analysis. They are more sensitive to the model of the transport properties while the reasonable results can be achieved even with the use of global reaction mechanism and a simple turbulence model as k- ε, which are not excessively time and memory consuming. From an environmental point view, this study shows that the radical production (OH and NO) is very small although maximum temperature reached exceeded 2000 (K). The mass fraction of NO is much lower if we increase the air inlet velocity, which makes the cold reaction mixture do not promote the NO formation by dissociation.     

The effect of hydrogen addition on biogas non-premixed jet flame stability in a co-flowing air stream

An investigation of the stability limits of biogas jet non-premixed (diffusion) flames in a co-flowing air stream was conducted. The stability limits were determined experimentally for two different methane–carbon dioxide mixtures that represent the typical biogas composition. Moreover, the effect of jet nozzle diameter was also investigated. It was found that with the presence of a significant amount of CO₂ in the fuel, the stability limits were very low and the flames can only be stabilized over a very small range of co-flowing air velocities. As expected, an increase in carbon dioxide concentration resulted in the narrowing of the region for stable flames. However, it was shown that the flame stability of such mixtures can be enhanced very significantly over a much wider range of co-flowing air velocities by introducing a small amount of hydrogen into the fuel. Results obtained in the current experimental setup indicate that an increase in the stability limits by approximately four-fold when 10% (by vol.) of hydrogen is added under the same operating conditions. The effect of the addition of hydrogen on the enhancement of biogas stability is most significant with a 10% initial addition. The degree of enhancement diminishes with further increases in hydrogen addition from 10% to 30%.     

Blow-off process of highly under-expanded hydrogen non-premixed jet flame

Relationships between flame lift-off heights and reservoir pressure were experimentally investigated in order to clarify blow-off process of hydrogen non-premixed jet flames with a highly under-expanded jet structure. In this study, straight nozzles with diameters of 0.34, 0.53, 0.75 and 1.12 mm were used with maximum reservoir pressure for spouting hydrogen of 13.2 MPa. Experimental results are shown that lift-off heights in stable under-expanded jet flames do not vary significantly and are independent of the reservoir pressure in the range of studied pressure. However, the lifted heights are affected by the nozzle diameters and become smaller as the nozzle diameters increase. From experimental results, the condition for the blow-off process of under-expanded subsonic jet flames was proposed. It was concluded that the under-expanded jet flame could be blown off when the maximum waistline position, where radial distance from the jet axis to an elliptic stoichiometric contour reaches its maximum comes closer to the nozzle exit than the edge of the jet flame base.     

Non-Boussinesq turbulent buoyant jet resulting from hydrogen leakage in air

This paper is devoted to introduce a numerical investigation of a vertical axisymmetric non-Boussinesq buoyant jet resulting from hydrogen leakage in air as an example of injecting a low-density gas jet into high-density ambient. As the domain temperature is assumed to be constant and therefore the density of the mixture is a function of the concentration only, the binary gas mixture is assumed to be of a linear mixing type. Also, it is assumed that the rate of entrainment to be a function of the plume centerline velocity and the ratio of the mean plume and ambient densities. On the other hand, the local rate of entrainment may be considered to be consisted from two components; one is the component of entrainment due to jet momentum while the other is the component of entrainment due to buoyancy. Firstly, the integral models of the mass, momentum and concentration fluxes are obtained and transformed to a set of ordinary differential equations using some non-dimensional transformations known as similarity transformations. The given ordinary differential system is integrated numerically and the mean centerline mass fraction, jet width and mean centerline velocity are obtained. In the second step, the mean axial velocity, mean concentration and mean density of the jet are obtained. Finally in the third step of this article, several quantities of interest, including the cross-stream velocity, Reynolds stress, velocity-concentration correlation (radial flux), turbulent eddy viscosity and turbulent eddy diffusivity, are obtained. In addition, the turbulent Schmidt number is estimated and the normalized jet-feed material density and the normalized momentum flux density are correlated.     

An experimental study of turbulent flow in attachment jet combustors by LDV

Flame stabilization in attachment jet combustors is based on the existence of the high temperature recirculation zone, provided by the Coanda effect of an attachment jet. The single attachment jet in a rectangular channel is a fundamental form of this type of flow. In this paper, the detailed characteristics of turbulent flow of a single attachment jet were experimentally studied by using a 2-D LDV. The flowfield consists of a forward flow and two reverse flows. The forward one is composed of a curved and a straight section. The curved section resembles a bent turbulent free jet, and the straight part is basically a section of turbulent wall jet. A turbulent counter-gradient transport region exists at the curved section. According to the results, this kind of combustor should have a large sudden enlargement ratio and not too narrow in width. Project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China.     

Effect of shock structure on stabilization and blow-off of hydrogen jet flames

Under-expanded hydrogen jet has characteristic shock structure immediately downstream of the nozzle exit. The shock structure depends on the ratio p_EX/p_A, i.e. the ratio of nozzle exit to ambient pressure, and the distributions of velocity and concentration in an under-expanded hydrogen jet depend on characteristics of the shock structure. Therefore, the shock structure should affect the blow-off behaviour of under-expanded hydrogen jet flame. Since this issue has not been investigated in detail, this study aims to close this knowledge gap. The effect of changes in shock structure on lift-off length and blow-off conditions for non-premixed turbulent hydrogen free jet flame has been experimentally investigated. The shock structure was varied by using three types of nozzles: convergent, straight and divergent nozzles. Inlet diameters of nozzles change from 0.31 to 1.04 mm and outlet diameters from 0.34 to 1.7 mm. The static pressure and the ratio of cross-section area at the nozzle inlet to that at the outlet were varying parameters in this study. Hydrogen was horizontally spouted through a nozzle to atmosphere. The maximum static pressure in a nozzle was 13.2 MPa. The experiments revealed that when the hydrogen jet had sequential shock cell structures, which occurred in the range of p_EX/p_A smaller than 2.45, a higher mass flow rate of hydrogen was needed for the stabilization of a jet flame than that for p_EX/p_A larger than 2.45 and that when closed to the ideal expansion (p_EX/p_A = 1), the mass flow rate for stable flame became maximum. In addition, it was observed that the lift-off length of stable flames followed with sequential shock cell structures were almost the same when the minimum cross-section area of used nozzles was constant. However, when hydrogen jet had a shock structure with single Mach disk, the lift-off lengths and the minimum mass flow rate required for the stable jet flame were decreasing with the decrease of the cross-sectional area ratio of the nozzle exit to inlet.     

Determination of underexpanded hydrogen jet flame length with a complex nozzle geometry

With the growing number of hydrogen-powered cars and hydrogen filling stations, it is essential to have accurate and reliable engineering models for this infrastructure. The length of a hydrogen jet flame resulting from a high pressure release will have an impact on its consequences. This work examined the effect that nozzle geometry has on hydrogen jet flame length. The geometry was modified by varying the diameter of the spouting nozzle downstream from the choked nozzle upstream. These experimental results were compared with an existing model for estimating jet flame length. Sensors upstream from the complex nozzle geometry measured the temperature, mass flow rate, and pressure for the released hydrogen. A high-speed camera recorded the hydrogen jet flame at a stable pressure and mass flow. Flame lengths were determined with an image processing tool used to analyze the high-speed video for each experiment. By analyzing the dataset with the image processing tool, the jet flame length distribution, minimum and maximum jet flame length, and the jet flame length standard deviation could be computed. Results showed that the nozzle geometry can increase the jet flame length by 62% compared to a single nozzle configuration with equal mass flow rate. With the upstream nozzle as input, the smallest average relative deviation from previously published models was 13%. The discharge coefficients for different nozzles were calculated and presented.     

Autoignition of turbulent hydrogen jet in a coflow of heated air

Autoignition of hydrogen, leading to flame development under turbulent flow conditions is numerically investigated including a detailed chemical mechanism. The chosen configuration consists of a turbulent jet of hydrogen diluted with nitrogen which is issued into a coflow of heated air. Numerical simulations are performed with the Conditional Moment Closure model, to capture the transient evolution of the flow. Turbulence closure is achieved using the k–? model. Simulations revealed that the injected hydrogen mixes with coflowing air, autoignites and a stable diffusion flame is established. Sometimes, flashback of the ignited mixture is observed, whereby the flame travels upstream and stabilizes. It is found that the constants assumed in various modeling terms can severely influence the degree of mixing. Hence, certain modifications to these constants are suggested, and improved predictions are obtained. The sensitivity of autoignition length to the coflow temperature is investigated. The predicted autoignition lengths show a reasonable agreement with the experimental data and LES results.     

Measurements of fuel mixture fraction oscillations of a turbulent jet non-premixed flame

This work describes new type of combustion instability for which the 3-way coupling between mixing, flame heat release, and acoustics is modified by local buoyancy effects. Measurements of fuel mixture fraction are made for a non-premixed jet flame in a combustion chamber to assess the dynamics of mixing under imposed acoustic oscillations (22-55 Hz). Infrared laser absorption and phase resolved acetone-planar laser induced fluorescence are used to measure the fuel mixture fraction and then the degree of fuel/air mixing is calculated by determining the unmixedness. Results show acoustic excitation causes oscillations in the degree of fuel/air mixing at the driving frequency, which results in oscillatory flame behavior. This oscillatory flame behavior couples to the buoyancy and this in turn affects the mixing. Results also show that the mixing becomes less effective when the excitation frequency is increased or when the flame is present, compared to the non-reacting case. This work describes a key coupling mechanism that occurs when buoyancy is a significant factor in the flow field.     

Analysis of entropy generation in a hydrogen-enriched turbulent non-premixed flame

The analysis of local entropy generation and exergy loss was performed in a turbulent non-premixed H₂-enriched CH₄–air bluff-body flame. Detailed chemical kinetic, transport properties, and turbulence-chemistry interaction were taken into account in using laminar flamelet model for the simulation of combustion process via an in-house, finite volume code. The analysis was based on local entropy generation calculation. Results showed that thermal conduction made the most contribution to entropy generation followed by chemical reaction and mass diffusion, while the contribution of viscous dissipation was negligible. Entropy generation resulting from thermal conduction occurs in a large volume of the domain, while entropy generation resulting from chemical reaction and mass diffusion occurs only near the bluff surface. The effect of H₂ addition to fuel and air preheating on the entropy generation rate was investigated. It was observed that entropy generation and exergy loss were decreased by H₂ addition, mainly due to a decrease in the chemical reaction component of entropy generation, while entropy generation resulting from thermal conduction slightly increased and entropy generation resulting from mass diffusion remained almost constant. Entropy generation resulting from heat conduction by preheating combustion air decreased, while entropy generation resulting from chemical reaction and mass diffusion remained almost constant. The decrease of thermal conduction contribution in entropy generation is so significant that, by preheating air up to 750 K in the case of pure CH₄, chemical reaction becomes the main source of irreversibility. These investigations show that H₂ addition and preheating the combustion air both lead to the improvement of the second law efficiency, although the second law efficiency is more sensitive to flame structure and air temperature.     

Numerical study on high-temperature diluted air combustion for the turbulent jet flame in crossflow using an unsteady flamelet model

The turbulent jet flame in a crossflow with highly preheated diluted air has been numerically investigated. The Favre-averaged Navier–Stokes equations are solved by a finite volume method of SIMPLE type that incorporates the flamelet concept coupled with the standard k–ε turbulence model. The NO formation is estimated by using the Eulerian particle transport equations in a postprocessing mode. For methane and propane with various conditions of inlet air temperature and oxygen concentration, the three-dimensional characteristics of the flame are successfully captured. The jet-flame trajectory is in remarkably good agreement with the existing cold-flow correlations. When the oxygen concentration is high, the maximum flame temperature becomes high and the two fuels show quite different characteristics in the downstream region. On the other hand, for low oxygen concentrations, the temperature difference between the two fuels is relatively small and remains fairly constant throughout the combustion chamber. The propane gives a higher NO formation compared to the methane especially when the oxygen concentration is high. A higher temperature, longer residence time of the combustion gases may be responsible for the higher thermal NO formation.     

Soot volume fraction in a piloted turbulent jet non-premixed flame of natural gas

Planar laser-induced incandescence (LII) has been used to measure soot volume fraction in a well-characterised, piloted, turbulent non-premixed flame known as the “Delft Flame III”. Simulated Dutch natural gas was used as the fuel to produce a flame closely matching those in which a wide range of previous investigations, both experimental and modelling, have been performed. The LII method was calibrated using a Santoro-style burner with ethylene as the fuel. Instantaneous and time-averaged data of the axial and radial soot volume fraction distributions of the flame are presented here along with the Probability Density Functions (PDFs) and intermittency. The PDFs were found to be well-characterised by a single exponential distribution function. The distribution of soot was found to be highly intermittent, with intermittency typically exceeding 97%, which increases measurement uncertainty. The instantaneous values of volume fraction are everywhere less than the values in strained laminar flames. This is consistent with the soot being found locally in strained flame sheets that are convected and distorted by the flow.     

Large eddy simulation of micro-particles transport with different mass flow rate in turbulent planar jet flow

The motion of micro-particles with different mass flow rate in the planer turbulent jet flow has been simulated,using LES method to obtain the flow vorticity evolution and Lagrangian method to track micro-particles.The results showed that when the flow rate is small,the particles more likely to present in the vortex periphery,the distribution pattern is similar to the flow pattern.When the flow rate is high,some particles will escape from the motion region to the original static region,so that in the jet region,particles are relatively evenly distributed.When the flow field is full developed,the particles average concentration in the y direction affected by the mass flow rate relative slightly,the normalized mean particles concentrations at different flow rate were similar to Gaussian shape.     

Analysis of entropy generation in non-premixed hydrogen versus heated air counter-flow combustion

In this paper, entropy generation in non-premixed hydrogen versus heated air counter-flow combustion confined by planar opposing jets is investigated for the first time. The effects of the volume percentage of hydrogen in fuel mixture and the inlet Reynolds number (corresponding to the global stretch rate) on entropy generation are studied by numerical evaluating the entropy generation equation. The lattice Boltzmann model proposed in our previous work, instead of traditional numerical methods, is used to solve the governing equations for combustion process. Through the present study, three interesting features of this kind of combustion, which are quite different from that reported in previous literature on entropy generation analysis for diffusion hydrogen-air flames, are revealed. Moreover, it is observed that the whole investigated domain can be divided into two parts according to the predominant irreversibilities. The total entropy generation number can be approximated as a linear increasing function of the volume percentage of hydrogen in fuel mixture and the inlet Reynolds number for all the cases under the present study. It is very interesting that most characteristics in this kind of diffusion combustion also can be found in its premixed counterpart investigated in our previous work. Especially, the critical Reynolds numbers determining the order of the predominant irreversibilities in this type of diffusion flame are same as its premixed counterpart, although the flow and scalar fields between them are quite different.     

The regulation effect of methane and hydrogen on the emission characteristics of ammonia/air combustion in a model combustor

Ammonia, made up of 17.8% hydrogen, has attracted a lot of attention in combustion community due to its zero carbon emission as a fuel in gas turbines. However, ammonia combustion still faces some challenges including the weak combustion and sharp NOx emissions which discourage its application. It was demonstrated that the combustion intensity of ammonia/air flame can be enhanced through adding active fuels like methane and hydrogen, while the NOx emission issue will emerge in the meantime. This study investigates regulation effect of methane and hydrogen on the emission characteristics of ammonia/air flame in a gas turbine combustor. The instantaneous OH profile and global emissions at the combustion chamber outlet are measured with Planar Laser Induced Fluorescence (PLIF) technique and the Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR), respectively. The flames are also simulated by large eddy simulation to further reveal physical and chemical processes of the emissions formation. Results show that for NH₃/air flames, the emissions behavior of the gas turbine combustor is similar to the calculated one-dimensional flames. Moreover, the NOx emissions and the unburned NH₃ can be simultaneously controlled to a proper value at the equivalence ratio (φ) of approximate 1.1. The variation of NO and NO₂ with φ for NH₃/H₂/air flames and NH₃/CH₄/air flames at blending ratio (Z_f) of 0.1 are similar to the NH₃/air flames, with the peak moving towards rich condition. This indicates that the NH₃/air flame can be regulated through adding a small amount of active fuels without increasing the NOx emission level. However, when Z_f = 0.3, we observe a clear large NOx emission and CO for NH₃/CH₄/air flames, indicating H₂ is a better choice on the emission control. The LES results show that NO and OH radicals exhibit a general positive correlation. And the temperature plays a secondary role in promoting NOx formation comparing with CH₄/air flame.     

Molecular diffusion effects in LES of a piloted methane–air flame

Molecular diffusion effects in LES of a piloted methane–air (Sandia D) flame are investigated on a series of grids with progressively increased resolution. The reacting density, temperature and chemical composition are modeled based on the mixture fraction approach combined with a steady flamelet model. With a rationale to minimize interpolation uncertainties that are routinely introduced by a flamelet table look-up, quadratic splines relationships are employed to represent thermochemical variables. The role of molecular diffusivity in effecting spatial transport is studied by drawing a comparison with the turbulent diffusivity and analyzing their statistics conditioned on temperature. Statistical results demonstrate that the molecular diffusivity in the near-field almost always exceeds the turbulent diffusivity, except at low temperatures (less than 500 K). Thus, by altering the jet near-field, molecular transport plays an important role in the further downstream jet development. Molecular diffusivity continues to dominate in the centerline region throughout the flow field. Overall, the results suggest the strong necessity to represent molecular transport accurately in LES studies of turbulent reacting flows.     

Improving burning speed by using hydrogen enrichment and turbulent jet ignition system in a rotary engine

Low flame speed restrains engine efficiency and increases HC emissions in rotary engines. Hydrogen addition and turbulent jet ignition have a great potential in increasing engine performance as they increase fuel burning speed. In this study, the classical R13b-Renesis Wankel engine and a modified one with a turbulent jet ignition configuration are numerically investigated by using hydrogen as a supplement. Eccentric motion of the rotor was generated by using User Defined Function in ANSYS-Fluent software. Pure methane and methane blended with 3% and 6% hydrogen energy fractions were used as fuels in the calculations. Combustion was modeled by using reduced mechanism of hydrogen-methane combustion having 22 species and 104 reactions. The Wankel engine was simulated at 2000 rpm speed and partial load conditions. At first, classical engine configuration having two spark plugs was simulated with pure methane. Then, hydrogen blended methane simulations were conducted to investigate the benefits of the hydrogen addition. Similar procedure was applied for the turbulent jet ignition application. The results show that both approaches are effective on increasing the burning speed of the fuel. It is revealed that hydrogen addition increases the indicated mean effective pressure (IMEP) by 1.8% and 5.2% for 3% and 6% hydrogen fraction cases respectively in the classical engine. Turbulent jet ignition with pure methane increases IMEP by 4.7% compared to the classical engine. Hydrogen addition only in pre-chamber is effective as much as 6% hydrogen fraction of classical engine. As the burning speed is increased by the application of these methods, CO and HC emissions are reduced and NO emission is increased. It is concluded that benefits of hydrogen addition and turbulent jet ignition applications can be optimized for both reducing harmful emissions and increasing engine performance.