Numerical Study of Air Nozzles on Mild Combustion for Application to Forward Flow Furnace

An attempt was made to extend mild combustion to forward flow furnace, such as the refinery and petrochemical tube furnace. Three dimensional numerical simulation was carried out to study the performance of this furnace. The Eddy Dissipation Concept(EDC) model coupled with the reaction mechanism DRM-19 was used. The prediction showed a good agreement with the measurement. The effect of air nozzle circle(D), air nozzle diameter(d), air nozzle number(N), and air preheating temperature(Tair) on the flow, temperature and species fields, and the CO and NO emissions was investigated. The results indicate that there are four zones in the furnace, viz.: a central jet zone, an ignition zone, a combustion reaction zone, and a flue gas zone, according to the distribution profiles of H_2 CO and OH. The central jet entrains more flue gas in the furnace upstream with an increasing D while the effect of D is negligible in the downstream. The air jet momentum increases with a decreasing d or an increasing Tair, and entrains more flue gas. The effect of N is mainly identified near the burner exit. More heat is absorbed in the radiant section and less heat is discharged to the atmosphere with a decreasing d and an increasing N as evidenced by the flue gas temperature. The CO and NO emissions are less than 50 μL/L and 10 μL/L, respectively, in most of conditions.

Effect of Steam Dilution on the MILD Combustion Characteristics of Methane in a Model Combustor

Moderate or Intense Low-oxygen Dilution(MILD)combustion has low emission potential in gas turbines.The present work has investigated the performance of MILD combustion with parallel-jet burner arrangement in dry and steam-diluted conditions.The combustion tests were conducted in atmospheric pressure at various equivalence ratios from LBO(Lean Blow Out)to near-stoichiometric conditions and steam-to-air mass ratios from 0 to 0.2.A simplified chemical reactors network(CRN)model based on MILD combustion concept has been established to study the effect of steam dilution on different pathways of NO production.The experimental results show that under the same adiabatic flame temperature,the reaction zone gradually moves downstream with the increase of steam content.For the high steam content(0.2 kg/kg),the reaction zone is widely distributed,and the distribution of reaction intensity in the reaction zone is more uniform.The average lift-off height of reaction zone is proportional to the steam content.For the steam content of 0.2 kg/kg,the average lift-off height reaches 2.5 times that of the dry conditions,which brings the risk of blowout.For the adiabatic flame temperature of 1650–1900 K,the emissions of NOxare below 3×10–6(at 15%O2,dry)when the steam content varies from 0 to 0.2 kg/kg,which indicates the ultra-low emissions can be obtained under large changes in steam content.For the inlet temperature of 381 K,as the steam content increases,the Prompt NO is dominant in the total NO production.Steam dilution results in a smaller operating range with lower CO emissions.When the steam content reaches 0.2 kg/kg,compared to the dry condition,the carbon monoxide emission increases significantly.In addition,the LBO equivalence ratio of combustion with larger steam content is significantly higher.

MILD Combustion for Hydrogen and Syngas at Elevated Pressures

As gas recirculation constitutes a fundamental condition for the realization of MILD combustion, it is necessary to determine gas recirculation ratio before designing MILD combustor. MILD combustion model with gas recirculation was used in this simulation work to evaluate the effect of fuel type and pressure on threshold gas recirculation ratio of MILD mode. Ignition delay time is also an important design parameter for gas turbine combustor, this parameter is kinetically studied to analyze the effect of pressure on MILD mixture ignition. Threshold gas recirculation ratio of hydrogen MILD combustion changes slightly and is nearly equal to that of 10 MJ/Nm3syngas in the pressure range of 1-19 atm, under the conditions of 298 K fresh reactant temperature and 1373 K exhaust gas temperature, indicating that MILD regime is fuel flexible. Ignition delay calculation results show that pressure has a negative effect on ignition delay time of 10 MJ/Nm3syngas MILD mixture, because OH mole fraction in MILD mixture drops down as pressure increases, resulting in the delay of the oxidation process.

Experimental and Numerical Study of the Effect of Fuel/Air Mixing Modes on NO_(x) and CO Emissions of MILD Combustion in a Boiler Burner

The Moderate or Intense Low-oxygen Dilution (MILD) combustion is characterized by low emissions,stable combustion and low noise for various kinds of fuel,which has great potential in the industry.The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of fuel/air mixing modes on NO_(x) and CO emissions of MILD combustion in a boiler burner by experiments and numerical simulations.Three types of fuel/air mixing modes (premixing mode,diffusion mode and hybrid mode) have been considered in this study.The realizable k-ε turbulent model and the Eddy Dissipation Concept (EDC) combustion model were used in numerical simulations.In addition to the temperature near the burner head,the calculation results match very well with the axial temperature distribution at the furnace center.The flow pattern under different mixing modes is similar,while the hybrid mode has a higher OH concentration near the diffusive fuel nozzle than the premixing mode,and the corresponding position of the peak OH concentration is closer to the rear half of the furnace.The distribution of temperature is extremely uniform for the premixing mode in the main reactive zone,which is typical for MILD combustion.There is a distinct area where the reaction temperature is higher than 1600 K for the hybrid mode.Moreover,in the main reactive zone,the gas recirculation ratio is high enough to ensure flue gas recirculation,which is beneficial to achieve MILD combustion at local areas.At the location where the axial distance is greater than 0.2 m,the gas recirculation ratio of the premixing mode is larger than that of the hybrid mode,which strengthens the entrainment of hot flue gas into the recirculated gas.The experimental results show that when the thermal intensity is less than 1.67 MW·m^(-3),the NO_(x) emissions are less than 15× 10^(-6)@3.5%O_(2) in near stoichiometric ratio in the premixing mode,and the CO emissions are less than 10× 10^(-6)@3.5%O2 under the same conditions.In the diffusion mode,the NO_(x) emissions are less than 30×10^(-6)@3.5%O_(2).In order to keep NO_(x) and CO emissions low,the hybrid modes with optimized fuel distribution ratio are found under different thermal intensities.

A numerical study of accelerated moderate or intense low-oxygen dilution(MILD)combustion stability for methane in a lab-scale furnace by off-stoichiometric combustion technology

Moderate or intense lowoxygen dilution(MILD)combustion has become a promising lowNOX emission technology,while the delayed mixing of reactants and slower oxidation rate could potentially cause ignition instability in some scenarios.This paper proposes a new idea for enhancing the ignition stability for methane MILD combustion by combining with offstoichiometric combustion(OSC),and its performances have been numerically assessed through a comparison against the original MILD combustion burner.The results reveal although nonpremixed pattern has the lowest NO emission,it suffers from a larger liftoff distance,thus less ignition stability.Contrarily,both partiallypremixed and fully premixed patterns exhibit excellent ignition stability.Among the considered OSC conditions,the pattern of Inner ultrarich and Outer lean produces the lowest NO emission while maintains a high ignition stability.Furthermore,the enhancement of the combustion stability by implementing OSC to the original MILD combustion burner is shown by comparing the operational range of furnace wall temperature(Tf),CO and NO emissions,as well as the evolution of chemical flame.The comparison reveals that OSC can extend the lowest operational Tf from 900 K to 800 K.More importantly,OSC can significantly improve the ignition stability in the whole range of Tf as compared to the original MILD combustion burner.

Characteristics of Nitric-Oxide Emissions from Traditional Flame and MILD Combustion Operating in a Laboratory-Scale Furnace

This study investigated the formation and emission characteristics of nitric oxide(NO) from flameless MILD(moderate or intensive low-oxygen dilution) combustion(MILDC) versus traditional visible-flame combustion(TC) in a 30-k W furnace. Both combustion processes were experimentally operated successively in the same furnace, burning natural gas at a fixed rate of 19 k W and the equivalence ratio of 0.86. Numerical simulations of TC and MILDC were carried out to explain their distinction in the measured furnace temperature and exhaust NO emissions. Present measurements of the NO emission(XNO) versus a varying furnace wall temperature(Tw) have revealed, at the first time, that the relationship of XNO ~ Tw was exponential in both TC and MILDC. By analyzing the simulated results, the average temperature over the reaction zone was identified to be the common characteristic temperature for scaling NO emissions of both cases. Moreover, relative to TC, MILDC had a fairly uniform temperature distribution and low peak temperature, thus reducing the NO emission by over 90%. The thermal-NO formation was found to contribute more than 70%-80% to the total XNO from TC while the N2O-intermediate route dominated the NO emission from MILDC.

Experimental investigation on the NO formation of pulverized coal combustion under high-temperature and low-oxygen environments simulating MILD oxy-fuel combustion conditions

The NO formation experiments simulating moderate and intense low-oxygen dilution(MILD)oxy-coal combustion conditions were conducted on a laminar diffusion flame burner with the coflow temperatures of 1473-1873 K and the oxygen volume fractions of 5%-20%in O_(2)/CO_(2),O_(2)/Ar and O_(2)/N_(2)atmospheres.The flame images of pulverized coal combustion were captured to obtain the ignition delay distances,and the axial species concentrations were measured to obtain the variation of NO formation and reduction.The NO yield in O_(2)/Ar atmosphere decreased by nearly 0.2 when the oxygen volume fraction decreased from 20%to 5%and by about 0.05 when the coflow temperature decreased from 1873 K to 1473 K.The NO yield in O_(2)/CO_(2)atmosphere was 0.1-0.15 lower than that in O_(2)/Ar atmosphere.The optimal kinetic parameters of thermal NO and fuel NO formation rate were obtained by a nonlinear fit of nth-order Arrhenius expression.Finally,the relative contribution rates of thermal NO to total NO(Rth)and NO reduction to fuel NO(Rre)were quantitatively separated.Rth decreases with the increase of oxygen volume fraction,below 6%at 1800 K,25%at 2000 K.Rre is almost unaffected by the coflow temperature and affected by the oxygen volume fraction,reaching 30%at 5%O_(2).

Numerical investigation of the effects of turbulence on the ignition process in a turbulent MILD flame

In this study,we conduct three-dimensional nonlinear large-eddy simulation to investigate the interaction between turbulence and reaction during the initial ignition process of a turbulent methane/hydrogen jet-in-hot-coflow flame under moderate or intense low-oxygen dilution(MILD)condition.Special focus has been placed on the spatial development of the flame and the temporal evolution of representative ignition spots that characterize the range of ignition behaviors observed in the case.Results show that the ignition process of the flame consists of four consecutive phases.Ignition occurs initially with relatively lean mixtures,and compared to the corresponding homogeneous stagnant adiabatic combustion,the loss of radical species associated with flow transportation causes a delay in ignition.The initial ignition spots formed during the autoignition phase provide sufficient conditions for the stabilization of the flame,including the provision of a variety of key radicals.Results also show that the flow convection accompanying the hot coflow dominated the slow flame propagation,and the turbulent mixing is of great importance for rapid flame propagation.These findings will broaden our knowledge of MILD combustion and provide useful insights into advanced ignition contr.