Potential and Challenges of MILD Combustion Control for Gas Turbine Applications

Thivaharan Albin (1) , Aline Aguiar da Franca (1, 2) , Emilien Varea (1) , Stephan Kruse (1) , Heinz Pitsch (1) , Dirk Abel (1)

1 RWTH - Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule Aachen University
2 CAPES - Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (Fundação) = CAPES Foundation [Brasilia]

Moderate and Intense Low Oxygen Dilution (MILD) combustion is characterized by substantial reduction of high temperature regions and thereby reduction of thermal NO x emissions. Beside the application in furnaces, the MILD combustion seems to be also an auspicious concept in stationary gas turbines for simultaneous reduction of NO x and CO emissions. Nonetheless, the maintenance of MILD combustion for gas turbine relevant conditions, as the high temperature, at different operating points poses a challenge. The reason is the necessary fast mixing of recirculated burnt gases with fresh air and fuel in the combustion chamber. In this work the application of control for dealing with this task is investigated. As research approach the pulsation of the fresh gas is examined. On the one side the potential of using control for reducing the emissions level is evaluated. On the other side it is analyzed which challenges have to be solved in future concerning the control algorithm, if control shall be applied.

Mots clés: Gas Turbine Combustion; Combustion Control; Moderate and Intense Low Oxygen Dilution (MILD); Flameless Oxidation (FLOX)

Domaines: Sciences de l'ingénieur [physics]

Thivaharan Albin, Aline Aguiar da Franca, Emilien Varea, Stephan Kruse, Heinz Pitsch, et al.. Potential and Challenges of MILD Combustion Control for Gas Turbine Applications. Active Flow and Combustion Control 2014, Springer, pp.181-195, 2015, 978-3-319-11966-3. ⟨10.1007/978-3-319-11967-0_12⟩. ⟨hal-02419107⟩