Determination of a correlation for predicting lean blow off limits of gaseous fueled, premixed turbulent jet flame arrays enclosed in a hexagonal dump combustor

Combustion of natural gas with air in gas turbines is a key technology for efficient provision of electric energy and heat. More stringent regulations regarding the emission of pollutants, such as NOx emissions, are necessitating research on technologies to reduce NOx formation during the combustion process. One technical approach onto the reduction of NOx-formation during combustion is fuel-lean premixed combustion.
Current lean combustion concepts applied in stationary gas turbine combustors rely on flame stabilization through recirculation of hot flue gas using swirling flows. Swirl stabilized flames may be prone to combustion instabilities especially in lean premixed arrangements. Therefore, another approach is followed in the present study. In this concept, a matrix of turbulent lean premixed jet flames in a dump combustor is applied. The matrix burner consists of a nozzle with an array of circular channels in a hexagonal arrangement and a combustion chamber with a hexagonal cross section. In order to develop an appropriate burner design based on this concept, the experimental determination and theoretical evaluation of the lean blow out limit using different nozzles and operating conditions were conducted in this work in order to quantify the influence of different parameters on the flame stability. ... mehrThe varied geometric parameters are the diameter of the circular channels in the burner matrix as well as the ratio of the free cross section area of the nozzle to the cross section are of the combustion chamber, the combustor area dump ratio. The lean blow limit was determined at different preheating
temperatures and flow velocities. The results show that the velocity at the LBO limit increases with increasing channel diameter, area combustor dump ratio and preheating temperature. The experimental results of three matrix burner are correlated in terms of
a critical Damkoehler number and it is shown through experimental validation, that the Damkoehler number correlation derived is capable of predicting the LBO of a scaled matrix burner.