Structure and dynamics of the wake of a reacting jet injected into a swirling, vitiated crossflow in a staged combustion system

Secondary injection of the fuel, also referred to as staged combustion, is being studied by gas turbine manufacturers as a means of increasing the power output of the gas turbine systems with minimal contribution to NOx emission. A reacting jet issuing into a swirling, vitiated crossflow operating at gas turbine relevant conditions was investigated as a means of secondary injection. In this study, the flow field of the reacting jet was investigated using high repetition rate (HRR) (5 kHz), two-component particle imaging velocimetry and OH-PLIF. In applications similar to the one currently studied in this work, viz. secondary injection of fuel in a gas turbine combustor, rapid mixing and chemical reaction in the near field of jet injection are desirable. Based on our analysis, it is hypothesized that the shear layer and wake field vortices play a significant role in stabilizing a steady reaction front within the near wake region of the jet. Premixed jets composed of natural gas and air were injected through an extended nozzle into the vitiated flow downstream of a low-swirl burner that produced the vitiated, swirled flow. The jet-to-crossflow momentum flux ratio was varied to study the corresponding effect on the flow field. The time-averaged flow field shows a steady wake vortex very similar to that seen in the wake of a cylindrical bluff body which helps to stabilize the reaction zone within the wake of the jet. The HRR data acquisition also provided temporally resolved information on the transient structure of the wake flow associated with the reacting jet in crossflow.