B.

Tech Project

Numerical simulation of Hydrogen fired gas combustor

AE-472
(Year 2011-2012)

Final report
Project Guide: Dr. D.P Mishra

By: Rahul Kumar Y8388

Content
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. Abstract Introduction Geometrical Model and Computational grid Boundary conditions and numerical simulation setup Numerical Results Conclusion References

Abstract
The interest for hydrogen-fuelled combustors is recently growing thanks to the development of gas turbines fed by high content hydrogen syngas. The diffusion flame combustion is a well-known and consolidated technology in the field of industrial gas turbine applications. However, few CFD analyses on commercial medium size heavy duty gas turbine fuelled with pure hydrogen are available in the literature. This paper presents a CFD simulation of the air-hydrogen reacting flow inside a diffusion flame combustor of a single shaft gas turbine. The 3D geometrical model extends from the compressor discharge to the gas turbine inlet (both liner and air plenum are included). A coarse grid and a very simplified reaction scheme are adopted to evaluate the capability of a rather basic model to predict the temperature field inside the combustor. The interest is focused on the liner wall temperatures and the turbine inlet temperature profile since they could affect the reliability of components designed for natural gas operation. Data of a full-scale experimental test are employed to validate the numerical results. The calculated thermal field is useful to explain the non-uniform distribution of the temperature measured at the turbine inlet.

Introduction
In the last decade several research studies have been carried out on hydrogen combustion in gas turbines for stationary applications . The main reasons for the growing interest in this topic are the increasing cost of fossil fuels and the atmospheric climate changes. The prices of oil and natural gas encourage heat and electric power generation from the combustion of industrial byproducts, such as refinery and manufactured coal gases (e.g. coal oven gas), which are often characterised by a high hydrogen content by volume .On the other hand, the increasing concern about global warming and climate change issues pushes towards clean and sustainable cycles (e.g. IGCC, Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle) in which hydrogen often plays an important role as energy carrier. In fact, hydrogen percentage in the gas stream obtained by gasification
is typically from 25% to 40% by volume and sometimes exceeds 50% .

Geometrical Model and Computational grid

The computational domain defined by the whole combustor extends from the plenum inlet to the transition piece outlet for an overall length of 2700 mm. Some minor geometrical features are simplified or neglected in order to use a rough grid approach. In particular: plenum boundary is modelled in accordance with design specifications, but only the main geometrical features are taken into account; liner cooling holes and cap louvres are not included into the geometrical model. Instead their function is preserved by means of a porous wall model which assures the cooling air stream to flow through the liner and cap walls; steam manifolds are not modelled since only dry combustion is simulated.

The remaining geometrical features (liner and cap wall thickness, axial swirler slots, hydrogen injection channels and transition piece shape) are modelled without simplifications. The minor geometrical differences between the numerical model and the true combustor shape may modify, at least locally, the thermal flow field. However, in the authors opinion, the approximation level due to the assumptions mentioned above is consistent with the aim of the study.An almost fully hexahedral coarse grid, of about 55 000 cells, is set up Tetrahedral, pyramidal and triangular prism cell types are employed at the burner outlet and in the zone that links the liner to the transition piece. clarifies the way in which some burner and liner details are modeled and meshed. Outside the liner, the grid becomes gradually finer from the annulus to the swirler slots. Inside the liner, the volume between the head of the burner and the primary holes is meshed with about 15 000 tetrahedral cells in order to better model the shape of the mixing and the ignition zones. The grid near the liner walls and around the air holes is finer to better describe the cooling and combustion air streams, respectively. lists the number of grid cells and the average grid size in each combustor zone. The Back of the Cap zone is the volume in the upper part of the combustor upstream the swirler. The Liner zone includes the volume enclosed by the liner walls down to TP inlet. Due to the rough grid approach, the near wall cell refinement needed for an accurate estimation of the boundary layer has been neglected. Thus, inaccuracies in the flow field are expected where the viscous stresses play an important role. However, it was verified that these inaccuracies do not affect significantly the splitting of the air mass flow rate between the several liner and burner Passages

Boundary conditions and numerical simulation setup

No slip condition is set up for all the walls of the computational domain. The outer boundaries of the model (casing, plenum, fuel channels and swirler walls) are considered as adiabatic. Heat transfer is allowed through the transition piece wall. Thus, the air flowing into the plenum is warmed up by the inner hot gas stream. All the solid surfaces are considered made of steel. The mass flow rate condition is specified at the plenum inlet section and at the hydrogen inlet channels. The constant pressure condition is imposed at the transition piece outlet. Both liner and cap louvred wall thicknesses are modeled by means of an isotropic porous media to take metal

cooling into account. The porosity of the media (defined as the volume fraction of fluid within the porous region) is therefore calculated considering the thickness of the walls. Following the combustor design specifications, the porosity is obtained by dividing the volume of the cooling holes (which does not include the volume of the combustion air holes) by the volume of the wall metal. Thus, the heat exchange between the inner hot stream and the annulus air flow is correctly estimated. The inertial resistance coefficients of the various surface patches are tuned to fit the airflow distribution along the liner derived by an experimental campaign on an isothermal flow rig (data supplied by ENEL). The numerical simulation is performed imposing a set of boundary condition values derived from the data measured during one of the combustion tests.

Numerical Results
The CFD scalar temperature field, shown in Fig. 4, allows some considerations on the reactive flow inside the liner. The upper section plane encloses the thermocouple rows C and D whereas the lower one encloses the thermocouple row A and B. The pictures clearly show the cooling jets exiting from the dilution holes and the first row of primary holes. The computed temperature field reveals two recirculation zones of hot products that ignite the fuel/air mixture, one in front of the burner head and the other near the liner wall, immediately before the primary air jets.The air adduced by these cond and third rows of the primary holes completes the oxidation of the fuel and drives the hot reacting stream towards the combustor axis. The hot axial flow is then partially scattered by the deep penetration of the dilution jets. The numerical results show that the temperature field inside the liner is not perfectly axi-symmetric because of the different periodicity between the burner slots and the second and third rows of the primary holes.
Among the available experimental measures, the data

acquired by the thermocouple rows are useful to validate the capability of the model to describe the temperature field inside the combustor. Thus, these measures are compared with the numerical results extracting the calculated values along the directions defined by the thermocouple rows. The cell temperatures of the outer liner surface along the four rows A, B, C and D are plotted versus the axial coordinate . The four profiles have approximately the same shape and confirm the non axi-symmetrical nature of the thermal. field. Starting from the top of the liner, the first peak in the profiles is due to the hot recirculation of the products which licks the liner inner surface. Downstream, wall temperatures decrease because the hot reacting stream is moved away from the walls by the primary air jets. The spreading of the hot axial stream is the main cause of the temperature rising downstream the dilution holes. the calculated temperatures are also compared with the experimental data. On average, the calculated temperatures are slightly lower than the measured ones. In the authors opinion this is due to the one-step kinetic model. In fact, it is reasonable that the reaction is slightly faster than the real one so the radially extension of the reaction zone is smaller and the walls remain colder. A discrepancy exists in the axial coordinate of the temperature peaks. In fact, the computed local maximum value in the primary reaction zone is slightly closer to the cap compared to the peak found experimentally. Moreover, beyond the dilution holes, the experimental maximum value is in between two CFD peaks. It is very likely that both the grid cell size and the turbulence model are responsible for this difference. In fact, the adopted turbulence model (suitable for coarse grid computations) does not allow to describe properly the interaction between the radial air jets and the hot axial stream. The temperatures along the four rows are affected by the streams flowing close to the internal surface of the liner wall. Fig. 4 shows that the stream licking row A is colder than those of the other three rows and, therefore, the temperatures along row A are lower. These streams are generated by the interaction between the swirler jets and the primary air jets in the primary combustion zone. This difference among the rows does not appear in the experimental data. The disagreement is probably due to a calculated under estimate of the jets penetration. If the air jets remain closer the liner wall: (i) in the primary zone, the local wall temperature results lower and the spreading of the inner hot core is reduced; (ii) downstream the dilution zone, the growth of liner wall temperature is both reduced and axially shifted towards the TP.

The three calculated profiles, which have almost the same shape, show a temperature distribution at the combustor outlet that is non-uniform circumferentially. In fact, the gas stream leaving the top of TP discharge (a between 0_ and 45_ and between 315_ and 360_) is on average hotter than the stream leaving the bottom side (a between 70_ and 270_). The trend is confirmed by the experimental data, which agree well with the calculated curves. The reason of the non-uniform temperature distribution can be explained by the velocity vectors inside the TP shown in Fig. 8. The hot zone in the upper part of the combustor discharge is due to the high temperature axial stream leaving the core of the liner. This stream impacts on the inner surface of the TP and is deflected abruptly towards the upper part of the outlet section. The cold zone in the lower part of the discharge is crossed by the cool stream which surrounds the liner walls. This stream, composed mainly by liner cooling air, splits in two parts before exiting.

Both the calculated and the measured values show that the gas stream leaving the TP through the medium section of the discharge (at radius Rm,) is, respectively, cooler and hotter than the stream exiting though the inner section (at radius Ri) and the outer section (at radius Re). As discussed before, the hot core leaving the liner impacts on the TP surface and is mostly addressed towards the outlet. A small part of it wraps the TP inner surface before exiting and makes the temperature raise. The temperature reduction from the inner profile/thermocouple row (at radius Ri) to the outer one (at radius Re) is strengthened by the cooling effect of the outer surface of the TP which is in contact with the combustion air entering the combustor.

Conclusion
The project presents a CFD simulation of a hydrogen fuelled single can gas turbine combustor. The analyzed configuration was tested with pure hydrogen fuelling to evaluate the reliability of the components designed for natural gas operation. The model was specifically conceived for expensive time dependent analyses, so low CPU cost physical models and a coarse grid are used. The study is aimed at evaluating the Fig. 8 e Velocity vectors inside the transition piece coloured by temperature (in [K]). capability of a rather basic CFD approach to predict the temperature field inside the combustor. Liner wall temperatures and turbine inlet temperatures measured during full scale full pressure experimental tests are employed to validate the numerical results. Despite the low accuracy expected by a coarse grid calculation, the comparison showed an acceptable matching between the CFD profiles and the temperatures measured along the liner wall. Although a discrepancy exists in the axial coordinate of the temperature peaks (probably caused by grid coarseness and the simple physical models) the results are satisfactory considering the choices made about the numerical model. A close match was found between CFD profiles and experimental data at the combustor discharge in terms of non-dimensional values. The calculated thermal field was useful to explain the non-uniform distribution of the temperature measured at the turbine inlet. The hot zone in the upper part of the combustor discharge is due to the high temperature axial stream leaving the core of the liner which does not distribute regularly on the outlet section. According to these results, the presented CFD approach can be employ to make a preliminary selection among new combustor configurations in spite of the basic features of the numerical models.

References
1. Singh K, Varatharajan B, Yilmaz E, Han F, Kim K. Effect of hydrogen combustion on the combustion dynamics of a natural gas, P. ASME Turbo Expo GT2008e52343. 2. Campbell A, Goldmeer J, Healy T, Washam R, Molie`re M, Citeno J, Heavy duty gas turbines fuel flexibility, P. ASME Turbo Expo GT2008e51368. 3. Zhou X, Sun Z, Brenner G, Durst F. Combustion modelling of turbulent jet diffusion H2/air flame with detailed chemistry.Int J Hydrogen Energy 2000;43:2075e88.