Nonlinear Unsteady Motions and NOx Production in Gas Turbine Combustors

Abstract

Chiefly for improved efficiency, the trend to increasing use of gas turbine engines in stationary powerplants has been firmly established. The requirement for minimum NOx production has motivated operation as close as practically possible near the lean flammability limit, to reduce flame temperatures and consequently reduce formation of nitrogen oxides via the Zeldovich thermal mechanism. However, experience has shown that under these conditions, stability of the chamber is compromised, often leading to the presence of sustained oscillations in the combustor. That possibility raises the problem of the influence of oscillatory motions on the production of nitrogen oxides. Numerically calculating these influences for a complex geometry gas turbine combustor is too computationally expensive at this ?me. Nonlinear analytical methods making use of these influences are a promising direction for simplei ways to design and develop operational gas turbine combustors. However, this analysis needs results on which to base unsteady models of the interaction between nonlinear oscillations and species production within a gas turbine combustor. In this paper, two methods are explored briefly as an initial step. The first is based on a configuration of perfectly stirred and plug flow reactors to approximate the flow in a combustion chamber. A complete representation of the chemical processes is accommodated, but the geometry is simplified. The second is a full numerical simulation for a realistic geometry, but at this stage the chemistry is simplified.