Title:
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Numerical investigations of the combustion process of hydrogen-enriched fuels
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This thesis presents a numerical investigation into the combustion characteristics
of hydrogen-enriched fuels using large-eddy simulation. Flame instabilities and
fuel variability effects have been studied, which are some of the main concerns
on applications of burning hydrogen mixtures in the power industry. The present
work investigates these effects on burners of theoretical and practical interest. The
role of instabilities is addressed in an annular flame with possible swirl motion,
while the influence of fuel variability in the flame dynamics is described in an
impinging configuration.
The study shows that buoyancy plays an important role in the dynamics of hydrogen
flames, promoting flow acceleration and creating large scale vortical structures.
The azimuthal momentum introduced by the swirl motion leads to a large
flame spreading and shortening. The effects of swirl induce the development of a
toroidal recirculation zone, which enhances the mixing process and combustion.
In addition, the swirling flames exhibit a vortex breakdown bubble that vanishes
allowing the formation of a large central recirculation zone when the swirl number
is increased.
The fuel variability analysis shows that when the hydrogen content is increased
in the fuel mixture, the flame becomes less vortical and wrinkled due to the more
diffusive and less viscous flow field. Lower burning speeds and lower temperature
values are found for hydrogen-leaner mixtures. Different finite-rate chemical kinetic
mechanisms are also considered and their effects on the flame dynamics are
addressed. These results show that some reduced models have a damping effect on
turbulence due to the dissipation caused by an excess of heat-release and a poor
prediction of the flame /turbulence interactions.
The subgrid scale model implementation includes a one-equation model to compute
the unresolved momentum transport, while two different approaches are considered
to account for the subgrid scalar transport. These two models include a simple
closure using the eddy diffusivity method, which is based on a gradient diffusion
closure and the linear-eddy model, which is based on the one-dimensional turbulence
theory. Comparison against experimental data is performed to validate the
models for combustion applications. It is found that the gradient diffusi0l1 approach
is not valid to represent the subgrid scalar transport for fuels containing
hydrogen. The model predicts unphysical temperature fields suggesting that an
alternative model must be used instead. Results using the linear-eddy model show
a more accurate representation of the temperature field across the shear layers and
better agreement with the experimental results.
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