CFD INVESTIGATION OF SWIRL-STABILIZED FLEXI-FUEL BURNER USING METHANE-AIR MIXTURE FOR GAS TURBINES

Paper in proceeding, 2011

Combustion modeling based on a multi-step global reaction mechanism [1] is applied to CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) analysis of a scaled swirl-stabilized 4th generation premixed DLE (Dry Low Emission) burner for gas turbines. The flexi-fuel burner consists of a MAIN pre-mixed flame, a premixed PILOT flame and a confined RPL (Rich Pilot Lean) flame. Both steady-state RANS (Reynolds Averaged Navier Stokes) and hybrid URANS/LES (Unsteady RANS/Large Eddy Simulation) results have been computed. The results are compared with high quality experimental data in the form of emission data, PIV (Particle Image Velocimetry) data and OH-PLIF (Planar Laser Induced Fluorescence Imaging) from an atmospheric burner test rig at Lund University [2-3]. There is a good agreement between the CFD simulations and measurements of emissions, velocity field and flame visualization.