LES/Thickened Flame Model of Reheat Hydrogen Combustion With Water/Steam Injection
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Abstract
In this study, the effects of water injection are analysed in a simplified geometry of a reheat combustor, which is based on a state of the art sequential reheat combustor from Ansaldo Energia. The inlet temperature of this burner and the chemical properties of hydrogen in terms of flame speed and autoignition imply that combustion occurs in an autoignition-assisted propagation regime. Large eddy simulations with an Artificial Thickened Flame modelling have been employed to analyse the dynamic behaviour of the hydrogen flame in lean premixed combustion mode. Results show that this approach can accurately predict the position of the flame front and the autoignition process as compared to a pre-existing DNS dataset. The flame front behaviour is further investigated, and observed to quickly move upstream and downstream, driven by the effect of pressure waves on the autoignition process. The study conducted here shows how the injection of water droplets can prevent the autoignition upstream and thus effectively help in achieving flame stability. Some light is also shed on the influence of the spray design parameters on the stability of the H2 flame and the NOx emissions.