Numerical Investigation (H2/CH4) of an Industrial Gas Turbines for NOx Prediction and Validation

Controlling the production of NOx for industrial gas turbine while maintaining a stable combustion operating regime for a wide variety of fuels must be addressed since the development phase. Well-established numerical practices are necessary for the development of gas turbine combustors, as they allow a significant reduction of the required testing. However, the validation of such models is crucial to the quality of the development. The first part of the paper presents the dataset available for the purpose of numerical practice validation: lab-scale experiments at atmosphere conditions had been collected for prototypal burners of an industrial gas turbine. Then the experiments have been carried out at gas turbine relevant pressure and temperatures. In both test campaign, NOx emissions have been collected as a function of burner main regulating parameters, as well as of fuel composition: in particular, data are available for either pure methane or hydrogen. The paper finally focuses on modeling guidelines for NOx prediction and the assessment of pressure losses, fuel air mixing and other combustion performance parameters.