Stratified Flames in Dual Annular Counter-Rotating Swirl Burner for Wider Operability Gas Turbines

This study investigates numerically the effects of equivalence ratio (phi) on flow/flame interactions and emissions of stratified oxy-methane (CH4/O-2/CO2) flames in a dual annular counter-rotating swirl (DACRS) burner for wider operability and environmental-friendly gas turbines. The flow mixture entering the combustor is split into two coaxial streams of different equivalence ratios. The central stream is characterized by higher phi to continuously ignite the flame for enhanced flame stability, whereas the annular stream is a highly lean mixture to sustain the environmental performance of the combustor. The partially premixed combustion model is adopted in the ansys-fluent 2021-r1 software to model the reaction kinetics of the generated stratified flames in the two-dimensional axisymmetric domain. Nine cases of the same inlet velocity ratio (primary stream to secondary stream) of 3.0 are examined at a fixed oxygen fraction (OF: volumetric percentage of oxygen in the O-2/CO2 mixture) of both streams of 30%. Flame stratification is achieved by varying the equivalence ratios of the primary (phi(p) = 0.9, 0.8, and 0.7) and secondary (phi(s) = 0.7, 0.55, and 0.4) streams. The results indicate effective flame/flow interactions, complete combustion, and reduced emissions for the DACRS stratified flames.