Impact of injection conditions on flame characteristics from a parallel multi-jet burner

This numerical study systematically investigates the influence of initial injection conditions of reactants on flame characteristics from a parallel multi-jet burner in a laboratory-scale furnace. In particular, varying characteristics from visible flame to invisible Moderate or Intense Low-oxygen Dilution (MILD) combustion is explored. Different parameters examined include the initial separation of fuel and air streams (S), air nozzle diameter (D_a), fuel nozzle diameter (D_f), and air preheat temperature (T_a). The present simulations agree qualitatively well with previous measurements reported elsewhere for two reference cases investigated by experiment. A number of new and significant findings are then deduced from the simulations. For instance, all S, D_a and D_f are found to play significant roles in achieving a proper confluence location of air and fuel jets for establishing the MILD combustion. Particularly, varying D_a is most effective for controlling the combustion characteristics. It is also found that the stability limits of the non-premixed MILD combustion varies with different combustor systems and inlet reactant properties. Moreover, for the first time, several analytical approximations are obtained that relate the flue-gas recirculation rate and the fuel-jet penetration to D_a, D_f, S and also reactant properties.     

Effects of CO2 and N2 dilution on the characteristics and NOX emission of H2/CH4/CO/air partially premixed flame

For the combustion of the mixture of blast furnace gas, natural gas, and coke oven gas in industrial burners, how to improve combustion efficiency and reduce pollutant emission are of significance. To accomplish this, an industrial partially premixed burner with a combustion diagnostic system is used to experimentally reveal the characteristics and NO_X emission of H₂/CH₄/CO/air flame under CO₂, N₂, and CO₂/N₂ (replacing half of N₂ with CO₂) dilution. NO_X emission and flame length, temperature profile, along with CO, CH₄, and CO₂ concentration profiles are analyzed with the three diluents in the fuel stream under different dilution rates (0–32% by volume). Experimental results show that for lean H₂/CH₄/CO combustion, greater proportions of CO₂ in the diluent affect flame characteristics in various ways. These effects include longer flame length, lower highest flame temperature, the highest flame temperature being located farther away from the nozzle, and the highest CO₂ concentration being located nearer the nozzle. Furthermore, results of CO, CH₄, and CO₂ concentrations indicate that chemical reactions in the flame are significantly affected by CO₂ owing to the series reaction CH₄?CH₃→CO?CO₂. Finally, increasing diluents or the ratio of CO₂ in diluents has the benefit of reducing NO_X emission.     

Effect of hydrogen enrichment on combustion characteristics of methane swirling and non-swirling inverse diffusion flame

Influence of hydrogen addition on appearance of swirling and non-swirling inverse diffusion flame (IDF) along with emissions characteristics are investigated experimentally. The combustion characteristics including flame length, axial and radial temperature variation, and noise level are analysed for hydrogen addition in methane by mass basis for constant energy input and by volume basis for constant volumetric fuel flow rate. Hydrogen addition in methane IDF produces shorter flame by compressing entrainment zone, mixing zone, reaction zone, and post-combustion zone. Hydrogen addition shift these zones towards fuel and air exit from the burner. Enrichment of methane with hydrogen on a mass basis up to 6% reduces CO emission considerably and increases NO_x emission moderately. Effect of H₂ addition on combustion and emission characteristics is more prominent in non-swirling IDF. Combustion noise is augmented with the hydrogen addition and the magnitude of sound level depends on the hydrogen concentration.     

Non-premixed flame characteristics and exhaust gas concentrations behind rifled bluff-body cones

Four bluff-body cones with/without rifled v-grooves were installed behind a non-premixed traditional combustion nozzle to intensify the bluff-body effects and swirl flow. The spiral rifles transformed axial momentum (or axial velocity) into tangential momentum (or tangential velocity). The interaction between the fuel tangential component and axial air flow increased turbulence intensity (T.I.). The Schlieren photography was utilized to visualize the flame structures and classify three flame patterns—jet flame, recirculation flame, and turbulence flame. The jet flame occurs when fuel-jet velocity is high and air-jet velocity (u_a) is low. However, the turbulence flame exists at the high air-jet velocity. The flame lengths were measured using the direct photography scheme. The flame length at high u_a is significantly shorter than that at low u_a. Furthermore, the increase of rifle number (i.e., increasing T.I.) induces the high maximum temperature and low nitric-oxide concentration.     

In-depth numerical analysis on the determination of amount of CO2 recirculation in LNG/O2/CO2 combustion

The determination of proper amount of CO₂ recirculation is one of the critical issues in oxy-fuel combustion technology for the reduction of CO₂ emissions by the capture and sequestration of CO₂ species in flue gas. The objective of this study is to determine the optimum value of O₂ fraction in O₂/CO₂ mixture to obtain similar flame characteristics with LNG–air combustion. To this end, a systematic numerical investigation has been made in order to resolve the physical feature of LNG/O₂/CO₂ combustion. For this, SIMPLEC algorithm is used for the resolution of pressure velocity coupling. And for the Reynolds stresses and turbulent reaction the popular two-equation (k–ε) model by Launder and Spalding and eddy breakup model by Magnussen and Hjertager were incorporated, respectively. The radiative heat transfer is calculated from the volumetric energy loss rate from flame, considering absorption coefficient of H₂O, CO₂ and CO gases. A series of parametric investigation has been made as function of oxidizer type, O₂ fraction and fuel type for the resolution of combustion characteristics such as flame temperature, turbulent mixing and species concentration. Further the increased effect of CO₂ species on the flame temperature is carefully examined by the consideration of change of specific heat and radiation effect. Based on this study, it was observed that the same mass flow rate of CO₂ with N₂ appears as the most adequate value for the amount of CO₂ recirculation for LNG fuel since the lower C_p value for the CO₂ relative to N₂ species at lower temperatures cancels the effect of the higher C_p value at higher temperatures over the range of flame temperatures present in this study. However, for the fuel with high C/H ratio, for example of coal, the reduced amount of CO₂ recirculation is recommended in order to compensate the increased radiation heat loss. In general, the calculation results were physically acceptable and consistent with reported data in literature. Further work is strongly recommended for a large-scale combustor such as coal-fired power plant to figure out important parameters caused by the effect of increased combustor size and the presence of particle phase, etc.     

Laminar burning velocities and flame stability analysis of H2/CO/air mixtures with dilution of N2 and CO2

Experimental measurement of the laminar burning velocities of H₂/CO/air mixtures and equimolar H₂/CO mixtures diluted with N₂ and CO₂ up to 60% and 20% by volume, respectively, were conducted at different equivalence ratios and conditions near to the sea level, 0.95 atm and 303 ± 2 K. Flames were generated using contoured slot-type nozzle burners and Schlieren images were used to determine the laminar burning velocity with the angle method. Numerical calculations were also conducted using the most recent detailed reaction mechanisms for comparison with the present experimental results. Additionally, a study was conducted to analyze the flame stability phenomenology that was found in the present experiments. The increase in the N₂ and CO₂ dilution fractions considerably reduced the laminar burning velocity due to the decrease in heat release and increase in heat capacity. At the same dilution fractions this effect was higher for the case of CO₂ due to its higher heat capacity and dissociation effects during combustion. Flame instabilities were observed at lean conditions. While the presence of CO in the fuel mixture tends to stabilize the flame, H₂ has a destabilizing effect which is the most dominant. A higher N₂ and CO₂ dilution fraction increased the range of equivalence ratios where unstable flames were obtained due to the increase in the thermal-diffusive instabilities.     

Development of high intensity CDC combustor for gas turbine engines

Colorless distributed combustion (CDC) has been demonstrated to provide ultra-low emission of NOx and CO, improved pattern factor and reduced combustion noise in high intensity gas turbine combustors. The key feature to achieve CDC is the controlled flow distribution, reduce ignition delay, and high speed injection of air and fuel jets and their controlled mixing to promote distributed reaction zone in the entire combustion volume without any flame stabilizer. Large gas recirculation and high turbulent mixing rates are desirable to achieve distributed reactions thus avoiding hot spot zones in the flame. The high temperature air combustion (HiTAC) technology has been successfully demonstrated in industrial furnaces which inherently possess low heat release intensity. However, gas turbine combustors operate at high heat release intensity and this result in many challenges for combustor design, which include lower residence time, high flow velocity and difficulty to contain the flame within a given volume. The focus here is on colorless distributed combustion for stationary gas turbine applications. In the first part of investigation effect of fuel injection diameter and air injection diameter is investigated in detail to elucidate the effect fuel/air mixing and gas recirculation on characteristics of CDC at relatively lower heat release intensity of 5 MW/m³ atm. Based on favorable conditions at lower heat release intensity the effect of confinement size (reduction in combustor volume at same heat load) is investigated to examine heat release intensity up to 40 MW/m³ atm. Three confinement sizes with same length and different diameters resulting in heat release intensity of 20 MW/m³ atm, 30 MW/m³ atm and 40 MW/m³ atm have been investigated. Both non-premixed and premixed modes were examined for the range of heat release intensities. The heat load for the combustor was 25 kW with methane fuel. The air and fuel injection temperature was at normal 300 K. The combustor was operated at 1 atm pressure. The results were evaluated for flow field, fuel/air mixing and gas recirculation from numerical simulations and global flame images, and emissions of NO, CO from experiments. It was observed that the larger air injection diameter resulted in significantly higher levels of NO and CO whereas increase in fuel injection diameter had minimal effect on the NO and resulted in small increase of CO emissions. Increase in heat release intensity had minimal effect on NO emissions, however it resulted in significantly higher CO emissions. The premixed combustion mode resulted in ultra-low NO levels (<1 ppm) and NO emission as low as 5 ppm was obtained with the non-premixed flame mode.     

Characteristics of flame stability and gaseous emission of biocrude-oil/ethanol blends in a pilot-scale spray burner

A burner system with capacity of 30,000 kcal/h was designed for the combustion of biocrude-oil and ethanol blends. An air atomizing spray nozzle with larger fuel orifice was adopted to prevent nozzle clogging, with swirl flow introduced to the combustion air for flame stabilization. Biocrude-oil was prepared from the fast pyrolysis of woody biomass and was blended with ethanol to improve flame stability and ignition characteristics. At various mixing ratios of biocrude-oil and ethanol, flame stability was determined, and gaseous emissions of CO and NO were measured. It was found that stable combustion could be achieved with up to 90 vol% of biocrude-oil. CO emissions of biocrude-oil/ethanol blends were smaller than those of pure ethanol, whereas CO concentration increased significantly in case of pure biocrude-oil due to incomplete combustion. Pollutant NO emission increased slightly with the biocrude-oil mixing ratio. The biocrude-oil burner in this study could provide a design database for industrial burner development.     

Numerical investigation of turbulent combustion with hybrid enrichment by hydrogen and oxygen

In this study, the NG + H₂/air + O₂ turbulent flame is numerically investigated using the Computational Fluid Dynamics CFD code. The modulation of combustion and radiation is performed respectively by the Eddy Dissipation Model and the Discrete Ordinate Model. The turbulence modeling is carried out by Shear Stress Transport (SST/k-ω) turbulence model. The H₂ amount in the fuel mixture varies under constant volumetric fuel flow between 0 and 60% and the oxidant is composed by 80% air and 20% pure oxygen. The results obtained show the hydrogen addition to Natural Gas improves the mixing between the reactants, reduces their residence time and reduces the length and thickness of the flame. On the other hand, the hydrogen enrichment minimizes the CO₂ and CO production and increases the NO_x level.     

Design and development of a SPMB (self-aspirating, porous medium burner) with a submerged flame

This work reports design and development of a SPMB (self-aspirating porous medium burner) for replacing the self-aspirating, CB (conventional gaseous fuel, free flame burners), which are widely used in heating process of SMEs (small and medium scale enterprises) in Thailand but they have relatively low thermal efficiency of about 30 percent. Design of the SPMB relies on the same important characteristics of the CB, i.e. using the same mixing tube and the same fuel nozzle. The SPMB is formed by a packed bed of alumina spheres. The pressure drop across the packed bed, diameter of particles and a combustion chamber diameter are estimated by Ergun’s equation in combination with Pe (Peclet number). The SPMB yields a submerged flame with an intense thermal radiation emitted downstream. An output radiation efficiency as high as 23 percent can be achieved at relatively high turn-down ratio of 2.65 and firing rate ranging from 23 to 61 kW. The SPMB shows a more complete combustion with relatively low CO emission of less than 200 ppm and acceptably high NO_x emission of less than 98 ppm as compared with the CB throughout the range of firing rate studied, suggesting the possibility of the SPMB in replacing the CB.     

Turbulent flame structure characteristics of hydrogen enriched natural gas with CO2 dilution

This paper investigated the hydrogen enriched methane/air flames diluted with CO₂. The turbulent premixed flame was stabilized on a Bunsen type burner and the two dimensional instantaneous OH profile was measured by Planar Laser Induced Fluorescence (PLIF). The flame front structure characteristics were obtained by extracting the flame front from OH-PLIF images. And the turbulence-flame interaction was analyzed through the statistic parameters. The role of hydrogen addition as well as CO₂ dilution on the features of turbulent flame were revealed by those parameters. In this work, hydrogen fractions of 0, 0.2 and CO₂ dilution ratios of 0, 0.05 and 0.1 were studied. Results showed that hydrogen addition can enhance turbulent burning velocity ST/S_L through decreasing the scale of the finer structure of the wrinkled flame front, caused by the smaller flame instability scale. In contrast, CO₂ dilution decreased turbulent burning velocity S_T/S_L due to its inactive response to turbulence perturbation and larger flame wrinkles. For all flames, the probability density function (PDF) profile of the local curvature radius R shows a bias to positive value, resulted from the flame intrinsic instability. The PDF profile of R decreases with CO₂ dilution, while the value of local curvature radius corresponding to the peak PDF is larger. This indicates that larger wrinkles structure was generated due to CO₂ dilution, which leads to the decrease in S_T/S_L as a consequence. Hydrogen addition increases the flame volume and results in more intense combustion. CO₂ dilution has a decrease effect on flame volume for both X_H2 = 0 and X_H2 = 0.2 while the decrease is obvious at X_H2 = 0.2, Z_CO2 = 0.1. In all, hydrogen enrichment improves the combustion while CO₂ can moderate combustion. Therefore, adding hydrogen and CO₂ in natural gas can be a potential method for adjusting the combustion intensity in combustion chamber during the combustor design.     

Active control of jet premixed flames in a model combustor with manipulation of large-scale vortical structures and mixing

Active control of a bluff-body stabilized methane/air jet flame issued from a coaxial nozzle is made by using miniature magnetic flap actuators attached to the outer nozzle. CH radical chemiluminescence, and CO and NO_x emissions are measured to assess the flame characteristics. By changing the flapping Strouhal number, the flame stability and CO emission are drastically improved under different equivalence ratio (?) conditions. At ? = 0.72, the optimum Strouhal number for stable combustion is unity, since methane/air mixing is enhanced by large-scale vortices synchronized with the flap motion. On the other hand, at a lower equivalence ratio of ? = 0.48, the optimum Strouhal number is much larger than unity; with small-scale vortices, the premixed combustion is stabilized by stratified mixing. In addition to acetone and OH-PLIF, a new two-line OH-PLIF is employed for flame temperature measurement. The longitudinal flame temperature distribution is obtained from conditional-averaged OH fluorescence intensities at the OH front taken with two different excitation lines. CO and NO_x emission characteristics of the controlled flame are discussed on the basis of the local fuel and OH distributions and the flame temperature.     

Investigation of flame characteristics using various design parameters in a pulverized coal burner for oxy‐fuel retrofitting

In oxy‐coal combustion for carbon capture and storage, oxygen and recirculated CO₂ are used as oxidizers instead of air to produce CO₂‐rich flue gas. Owing to differences between the physical and chemical properties of CO₂ and N₂, the development of a burner and boiler system based on fundamental understanding of the flame type, heat transfer, and NOx emission is required. In this study, computational fluid dynamic analysis incorporating comprehensive coal conversion models was performed to investigate the combustion characteristics of a 30 MWth tangential vane swirl pulverized coal burner. Various burner design parameters were evaluated, including the influence of the burner geometry on the swirl strength, direct O₂ injection, and O₂ concentrations in the primary and secondary oxidizers. The flame characteristics were sensitive to the oxygen concentration in the primary oxidizer. The performance of direct O₂ injection around the primary oxidizer with low O₂ concentration was dependent on the mixing of the fuel and oxidizer. The predictions showed that swirl number adjustment and careful direct oxygen injection design are essential for retrofitting air‐firing pulverized coal burners as oxy‐firing burners.     

Investigations of swirl flames in a gas turbine model combustor: II. Turbulence–chemistry interactions

The thermochemical states of three swirling CH₄/air diffusion flames, stabilized in a gas turbine model combustor, were investigated using laser Raman scattering. The flames were operated at different thermal powers and air/fuel ratios and exhibited different flame behavior with respect to flame instabilities. They had previously been characterized with respect to their flame structures, velocity fields, and mean values of temperature, major species concentrations, and mixture fraction. The single-pulse multispecies measurements presented in this article revealed very rapid mixing of fuel and air, accompanied by strong effects of turbulence–chemistry interactions in the form of local flame extinction and ignition delay. Flame stabilization is accomplished mainly by hot and relatively fuel-rich combustion products, which are transported back to the flame root within an inner recirculation zone. The flames are not attached to the fuel nozzle, and are stabilized approximately 10 mm above the fuel nozzle, where fuel and air are partially premixed before ignition. The mixing and reaction progress in this area are discussed in detail. The flames are short (<50 mm), especially that exhibiting thermoacoustic oscillations, and reach a thermochemical state close to adiabatic equilibrium at the flame tip. The main goals of this article are to outline results that yield deeper insight into the combustion of gas turbine flames and to establish an experimental database for the validation of numerical models.     

Heat transfer characteristics of an array of impinging pre-mixed slot flame jets

An experimental study was carried out to investigate the shape and the heat transfer characteristics of an array of three laminar pre-mixed butane/air slot flame jets impinging upwards normally on a horizontal water-cooled flat plate. The effects of jet-to-jet spacing and nozzle-to-plate distance were examined at the Reynolds number (Re) of 1000 and the equivalence ratio (?) of unity. Comparisons of the heat transfer characteristics between single and multiple slot flame jets, as well as multiple slot and round jets, were made. The between-jet interference decreased with increasing jet-to-jet spacing (s/d_e) and nozzle-to-plate distance (H/d_e). Strong interference was obtained at s/d_e = 1 and H/d_e = 2, at which the central jet was suppressed while the side jets were deflected towards their free sides. In addition, there was no minimum heat flux found in the inter-jet interacting zone, instead, a peak heat flux was obtained. Thermal performance was reduced when H/d_e became smaller than the length of the conical luminous reaction zone of the flame. A maximum average heat flux occurred at the moderate jet-to-jet spacing of s/d_e = 2.5 at Re = 1000, ? = 1 and H/d_e = 2. The resultant heat flux distribution of the central jet of a multiple slot jets system was higher than that of a single slot jet when the jet-to-jet spacing was small, but this advantage in thermal performance diminished when the jet-to-jet spacing was increased. Besides, the area-averaged heat flux of the multiple slot flame jets was higher than that of the multiple round flame jets arranged at the same geometric configuration.     

Turbulent flame topology and the wrinkled structure characteristics of high pressure syngas flames up to 1.0 MPa

The turbulent flame topology characteristics of the model syngas with two different hydrogen ratios were statistically investigated, namely CO/H₂ ratio at 65/35 and 80/20, at equivalence ratio of 0.7. The combustion pressure was kept at 0.5 MPa and 1.0 MPa, to simulate the engine-like condition. The model syngas was diluted with CO₂ with a mole fraction of 0.3 which mimics the flue gas recycle in the turbulent combustion. CH₄/air flame with equivalence ratio of 1.0 was also tested for comparison. The flame was anchored on a premixed type Bunsen burner, which can generate a controllable turbulent flow. Flame front, which is represented by the sharp increased interface of the OH radical distribution, was measured with OH-PLIF technique. Flame front parameters were obtained through image processing to interpret the flame topology characteristics. Results showed that the turbulent flames possess a wrinkled character with smaller scale concave/convex structure superimposed on a larger scale convex structure under high pressure. The wrinkled structure of syngas flame is much finer and more corrugated than hydrocarbon fuel flames. The main reason is that scale of wrinkled structure is smaller for syngas flame, resulting from the unstable physics. Hydrogen in syngas can increase the intensity of the finer structure. Moreover, the model syngas flames have larger flame surface density than CH₄/air flame, and hydrogen ratio in syngas can increase flame surface density. This would be mainly attributed to the fact that the syngas flames have smaller flame intrinsic instability scale l_i than CH₄/air flame. S_T/S_L of the model syngas tested in this study is higher than CH₄/air flames for both pressures, due to the high diffusivity and fast burning property of H₂. This is mainly due to smaller L_M and l_i. V_f of the two model syngas is much smaller than CH₄/air flames, which suggests that syngas flame would lead to a larger possibility to occur combustion oscillation.     

Characterization of confined hydrogen-air jet flame in a crossflow configuration using design of experiments

Hydrogen combustion has many industrial applications and development of new hydrogen burners is required to fulfil new demands. A novel configuration of hydrogen burner utilizing crossflow injection of fuel jets into swirling combustion air is characterized empirically in this work. It is intended as a first step in the development of new burner technologies having reduced emission levels and improved efficiency. Experiments were designed using the full factorial design method. Operating parameters were varied simultaneously and the NO_X emissions from the flame stabilized on the burner were measured. Statistical analysis of the experimental data showed that overall equivalence ratio is the dominant factor and lower NO_X emissions are observed at low equivalence ratios, irrespective of the burner power level. The analysis yielded an empirical relationship among NO_X emission, overall equivalence ratio, and power level that is useful in the design activity for a future combustion system based on the proposed configuration.     

Rapidly mixed combustion of hydrogen/oxygen diluted by N2 and CO2 in a tubular flame combustor

In this study hydrogen flames have been attempted in a rapidly mixed tubular flame combustor for the first time, in which fuel and oxidizer are individually and tangentially injected into a cylindrical combustor to avoid flame flash back. Three different cases were designed to examine the effects of fuel and oxidizer feeding method, diluent property, oxygen content and equivalence ratio on the characteristics of hydrogen flame, including the flame structure, lean extinction limit, flame stability and temperature. The results show that by enhancing mixing rate through feeding system, the range of equivalence ratio for steady tubular flame can be much expanded for the N₂ diluted mixture, however, at the oxygen content of 0.21 (hydrogen/air) the steady tubular flame is achieved only up to equivalence ratio of 0.5; by decreasing oxygen content, the lean extinction limit slightly increases, and the upper limit for steady tubular flame establishment increases significantly, resulting in an expanded tubular flame range. For CO₂ diluted mixture, the stoichiometric combustion has been achieved within oxygen content of 0.1 and 0.25, for which the burned gas temperature is uniformly distributed inside the flame front; as oxygen content is below 0.21, a steady tubular flame can be obtained from the lean to rich limits; and the lean extinction limit increases from 0.17 to 0.4 as oxygen content decreases from 0.21 to 0.1, resulting in a shrunk tubular flame range. Laminar burning velocity, temperature and Damköhler number are calculated to examine the differences between N₂ and CO₂ diluted combustion as well as the requirement for hydrogen-fueled tubular flame establishment.