Effect of the air–fuel mixing on the NOх yield in a low-emission gas-turbine plant combustor

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The article deals with construction of a simplified model of inhibition of nitric oxides formed in the combustors of the gas-turbine plants (GTPs) operating on natural gas. A combustor in which premixed, lean air–fuel mixtures are burnt is studied theoretically and experimentally. The research was carried out using a full-scale combustor that had parameters characteristic of modern GTPs. The article presents the results computed by the FlowVision software and the results of the experiments carried out on the test bench of the All-Russia Thermal Engineering Institute. The calculations and the tests were conducted under the following conditions: a flow rate of approximately 4.6 kg/s, a pressure to 450 kPa, an air temperature at the combustor inlet of approximately 400°C, the outlet temperature t₃ ≤ 1200°C, and natural gas as the fuel. The comparison of the simulated parameters with the experimental results underlies the constructed correlation dependence of the experimental NO_x emission on the calculated parameter of nonuniform fuel concentration at the premixing zone outlet. The postulate about a weak dependence of the emission of NO_x formed upon combustion of a perfectly mixed air–fuel mixture—when the methane concentration in air is constant at any point of the air–fuel mixture, i.e., constant in the mixture bulk—on the pressure in the combustor has been experimentally proven. The correctness and the practicability of the stationary mathematical model of the mixing process used to assess the NO_x emission by the calculated amount of the air–fuel mixture generated in the premixing zone has been validated. This eliminates some difficulties that arise in the course of calculation of combustion and formation of NO_x.