Hydrogen Enriched Combustion Testing of Siemens Industrial SGT-400 at Atmospheric Conditions

Abstract

In order to further extend the turbine fuel flex capability, a test under atmospheric condi tions of a full-scale SGT-400 burner was performed to study the combustion behavior when operating on hydrogen enriched natural gas (NG). A high speed camera was in stalled in the rig to investigate the flame dynamics on different operation conditions. NOx emissions were measured for all presented conditions. The combustion system was instru mented with thermocouples on all the key locations to allow flame position monitoring and to avoid flame attachment on the hardware. Further measurements included static pressure probes to monitor combustor pressure drop. The test was conducted in a system atic matrix format to include the most important combustion parameters in order to iden tify their individual effects on the combustion behaviors. The quantity of hydrogen in natural gas, fuel split, air preheat temperature, air reference velocity and flame tempera ture were the combustion related variables studied in the presented test campaign. The volumetric hydrogen quantity could be increased to 30% maintaining stable operation for all measured conditions. Higher hydrogen contents up to 80 vol. % were reached without flash back tendency. A glowing spark igniter prevented testing at even higher hydrogen contents. Hydrogen enriched gas showed higher NOx emissions and improved blowout limit. Hydrogen blending in the fuel also reduced the combustor pressure drop, lowered the prechamber temperature and raised the pilot tip temperature.

Thermoacoustic Instability Considerations for High Hydrogen Combustion in Lean Premixed Gas Turbine Combustors: A Review

“…At the same full load firing temperature, the RMS pressure fluctuations were reported to be three times higher compared to 100% natural gas operation. Prior high speed imaging at atmospheric pressure using the same combustor [88] showed a more compact H 2 flame compared to the methane flame with more intense burning and unsteady heat release characteristics. This indicates that hydrogen addition not only rendered the combustor unstable, the effect was exacerbated with increasing pressure.…”

“…Using Large Eddy Simulation (LES), Moëll et al [73] simulated the effect of hydrogen enrichment on combustion instabilities in the third generation DLE burner used by Siemens Energy in the SGT-800 industrial gas turbine. The computational model was based on an experimental test rig which has been used for various studies [72,76,88]. The study [73] compared the flame dynamics of 100% CH 4 with a blend of 70% CH 4 and 30% H 2 by volume at the same adiabatic flame temperature.…”

Performance and emission analysis of hydrogen and natural gas cofiring in combined cycle gas turbine power generation

“…Compared to natural gas, the technological problems associated with hydrogen include a higher flame speed, a higher adiabatic flame temperature, shorter delay times, a wider range of flammability, and an increase in the volumetric fuel flow rate [30] [31]. A test on a SGT-400 industrial gas turbine burner to study hydrogen-enriched combustion at atmospheric conditions shows that hydrogen volumetric composition of up to 30% could still maintain stable operation [32] and testing on the high pressure condition shows that up to 20% H2 volumetric composition the combustion system can operate up to 20% of the H2 volumetric composition without the risk of flashback [33].…”

Hydrogen as the futuristic fuel for the aviation and aerospace industry – review

“…An experimental investigation hydrogen rich fuel on gas turbine was performed by Lam et.al. (Lam et al , 2015). No flames were detected in the investigation and from the results they concluded that to achieve improvement in the combustion efficiency the design of ignition system needs to be concentrated by injecting hydrogen at higher proportions.…”