Liquid fuels spray and combustion characteristics in a new micro gas turbine combustion chamber design

Abstract

Experimental nozzle spray analysis of different nozzle sizes was performed to investigate the effect of the spray profile on combustion quality. Detailed numerical investigation analysis investigated the effect of discrete phase model (DPM) on liquid fuel atomization and combustion characteristics. Four injectors of 2.98, 5.95, 8.93, and 11.90 kg/h nominal capacities numbered from 1 to 4 were tested on new micro gas turbine (MGT) chamber designed especially for liquid biofuels. The fuel was tested in the range of 2.36 to 9.43 kg/h achieving stable turbine operation in the pressure range of 0.1 to 1 bar. Stable operation was achieved for injector number 2 in the range of 0.1 to 0.5 bar compared with 0.2 to 0.6 bar for injector number 3 and 0.5 to 1 bar for injector number 4, while the smallest injector number 1 was not operational above 0.1 bar. The experimental results produced favourable low CO emissions of 95 ppm, NOx emission of 31 ppm, and average turbine inlet temperature (TIT) of 1316 K at maximum pressure. The numerical simulation with DPM using similar injector and operating conditions showed good agreement with the experimental results averaging CO emissions of 99 ppm and NOx of 13 ppm at TIT of 1329 K.