Increasingly stringent emission requirements and dwindling petroleum reserves have generated interest in expanding the role of synthesis gas (syngas) fuels in power generation applications. Syngas fuels are the product of gasifying organic-based feedstock such as coal and biomass and are composed of mainly H₂ and CO. However, the use of syngas fuels in lean premixed gas turbine systems has been limited in part because the behavior of turbulent flames in these mixtures at practical gas turbine operating conditions are not well understood. This thesis presents an investigation of the influence of fuel composition and pressure on the turbulent consumption speed, ST,GC, and the turbulent flame brush thickness, FBT, for these mixtures. ST,GC and FBT are global parameters which represent the average rate of conversion of reactants to products and the average heat release distribution of the turbulent flame respectively. A comprehensive database of turbulent consumption speed measurements obtained at pressures up to 20 atm and H₂/CO ratios of 30/70 to 90/10 by volume is presented. There are two key findings from this database. First, mixtures of different H₂/CO ratios but with the same un-stretched laminar flame speeds, SL,0, exposed to the same turbulence intensities, u'rms , have different turbulent consumption speeds. Second, higher pressures augment the turbulent consumption speed when SL,0 is held constant across pressures and H₂/CO ratios. These observations are attributed to the mixture stretch sensitivities, which are incorporated into a physics-based model for the turbulent consumption speed using quasi-steady leading points concepts. The derived scaling law closely resembles Damkhler's classical turbulent flame speed scaling, except that the maximum stretched laminar flame speed, SL,max, arises as the normalizing parameter. Scaling the ST,GC data by SL,max shows good collapse of the data at fixed pressures, but systematic differences between data taken at different pressures are observed. These differences are attributed to non-quasi-steady chemistry effects, which are quantified with a Damkhler number defined as the ratio of the chemical time scale associated with SL,max and a fluid mechanic time scale. The observed scatter in the normalized turbulent consumption speed data correlates very well with this Damkhler number, suggesting that ST,GC can be parameterized by u'rms/SL,max and the leading point Damkhler number. Finally, a systematic investigation of the influence of pressure and fuel composition on the flame brush thickness is presented. The flame brush thickness is shown to be independent of the H₂/CO ratio if SL,0 is held constant across the mixtures. However, increasing the equivalence ratio for lean mixtures at a constant H₂/CO ratio, results in a thicker flame brush. Increasing the pressure is shown to augment the flame brush thickness, a result which has not been previously reported in the literature. Classical correlations based on turbulent diffusion concepts collapse the flame brush thickness data obtained at fixed u'rms/U₀ and pressure reasonably well, but systematic differences exist between the data at different u'rms/U₀ and pressures.

To contribute to the design of next-generation high performance and low emission combustion devices, this study provides a series of high fidelity numerical simulations of turbulent premixed combustion and autoignition with different clean fuels. The first part of the thesis consists of the direct numerical simulations (DNS) of the lean hydrogen-air turbulent premixed flames at a wide range of Karlovitz number (Ka) conditions up to Ka = 1,126. Turbulence-chemistry interaction is discussed in terms of statistical analysis of the turbulent flame speed and flame structure. Global and local flame speed are separately studied through the fuel consumption speed and displacement speed of the flame front, respectively, and the results are compared with the reference laminar flames as well as similar studies in the literature. The global flame structure is assessed via cross-sectional and conditional averages, and modeling implication is further discussed. Detailed analysis of the local flame structure along the positive and negative curvature is also conducted, providing an understanding of the different behavior of local heat release response. Finally, as the modeling perspectives for Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) and large eddy simulations (LES), the mean quantities of major species, intermediate species, density, the reaction rate of the progress variable, and heat release rate are assessed in the context of the probability density function (PDF). The second part of the thesis consists of applications of the advanced mathematical tool called the computational singular perturbation (CSP). A skeletal chemical mechanism is developed using the CSP algorithm for the autoignition of methanol and dimethyl ether blends, and the ignition delay time and laminar flame speed are validated for a wide range of mixture conditions. A series of autoignition simulations are carried out in the canonical counter flow mixing layer using the developed skeletal mechanism, and detailed analyses of the autoignition for the methanol and dimethyl ether blends at a wide range of strain rate conditions are provided using the CSP diagnostics tools for a wide range of chemical and fluid combinations.

This thesis describes computational and theoretical studies of fundamental physical processes that influence the heat-release response of turbulent premixed flames to acoustic forcing. Attached turbulent flames, as found in many practical devices, have a non-zero mean velocity component tangential to the turbulent flame brush. Hence, flame surface wrinkles generated at a given location travel along the flame sheet while being continuously modified by local flow velocity disturbances, thereby, causing the flame sheet to respond in a non-local manner to upstream turbulence fluctuations. The correlation length and time scales of these flame sheet motions are significantly different from those of the upstream turbulence fluctuations. These correlation lengths and times increase with turbulence intensity, due to the influence of kinematic restoration. This non-local nature of flame sheet wrinkling (called 'non-locality') results in a spatially varying distribution of local consumption speed (i.e. local mass burning rate) even when the upstream flow statistics are isotropic and stationary. Non-locality and kinematic restoration result in coupling between the responses of the flame surface to coherent acoustic forcing and random turbulent fluctuations respectively, thereby, causing the coherent ensemble averaged component of the global heat-release fluctuation to be different in magnitude and phase from its nominal (laminar) value even in the limit of small coherent forcing amplitudes (i.e. linear forcing limit). An expression for this correction, derived from an asymptotic analysis to leading order in turbulence intensity, shows that its magnitude decreases with increasing forcing frequency because kinematic restoration limits flame surface wrinkling amplitudes. Predictions of ensemble averaged heat release response from a different, generalized modeling approach using local consumption and displacement speed distributions from unforced analysis shows good agreement with the exact asymptotic result at low frequencies.

Increasingly stringent pollution and emission controls have caused a rise in the use of combustors operating under lean, premixed conditions. Operating lean (excess air) lowers the level of nitrous oxides (NOx) emitted to the environment. In addition, concerns over climate change due to increased carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and the need for energy independence in the United States have spurred interest in developing combustors capable of operating with a wide range of fuel compositions. One method to decrease the carbon footprint of modern combustors is the use of high hydrogen content (HHC) fuels. The objective of this research is to develop tools to better understand the physics of turbulent flame propagation in highly stretch sensitive premixed flames in order to predict their behavior at conditions realistic to the environment of gas turbine combustors. This thesis presents the results of an experimental study into the flame propagation characteristics of highly stretch-sensitive, turbulent premixed flames generated in a low swirl burner (LSB). This study uses a scaling law, developed in an earlier thesis from leading point concepts for turbulent premixed flames, to collapse turbulent flame speed data over a wide range of conditions. The flow and flame structure are characterized using high speed particle image velocimetry (PIV) over a wide range of fuel compositions, mean flow velocities, and turbulence levels. The first part of this study looks at turbulent flame speeds for these mixtures and applies the previously developed leading points scaling model in order to test its validity in an alternate geometry. The model was found to collapse the turbulent flame speed data over a wide range of fuel compositions and turbulence levels, giving merit to the leading points model as a method that can produce meaningful results with different geometries and turbulent flame speed definitions. The second part of this thesis examines flame front topologies and stretch statistics of these highly stretch sensitive, turbulent premixed flames. Instantaneous flame front locations and local flow velocities are used to calculate flame curvatures and tangential strain rates. Statistics of these two quantities are calculated both over the entire flame surface and also conditioned at the leading points of the flames. Results presented do not support the arguments made in the development of the leading points model. Only minor effects of fuel composition are noted on curvature statistics, which are mostly dominated by the turbulence. There is a stronger sensitivity for tangential strain rate statistics, however, time-averaged values are still well below the values hypothesized from the leading points model. The results of this study emphasize the importance of local flame topology measurements towards the development of predictive models of the turbulent flame speed.

No description available.