Computational and Experimental Investigation of Emissions in a Highly Humidified Premixed Flame

Emission formation and flame stability were investigated, both experimentally and computationally, for premixed combustion with varying amounts of water vapor in the mixture. Emission measurements were made in a gas turbine combustor at atmospheric conditions, using Danish Natural Gas (NG) as fuel. The emissions were mapped as a function of humidity, inlet air temperature, equivalence ratio and aerodynamic load. Operating conditions were chosen to match what can be expected from e.g. an EvGT cycle for power generation. The inlet air temperature was slightly lower than the inlet temperatures that would be found in a recuperated cycle. The degree of humidity was varied from 0w% to 33w% of the airflow in the experiment, while the air inlet temperature was varied from 500K to 800K. Computations were made using a single Perfectly Stirred Reactor (PSR) model and a reaction scheme with 821 reactions and 69 species. It was found that the NO_x emissions were strongly reduced by the addition of water. Most of this decrease vanishes in practical combustion since richer combustion is required to keep CO emissions (combustion efficiency) at a tolerable level. The maximum humidity was found to be dependent on inlet air temperature and aerodynamic load. In this experiment, the maximum humidity achieved was 33%.