Session: 04-26: Novel Combustors II

Paper Number: 102502

102502 - Development of a Hydrogen Fueled Gas Turbine Combustion System From Conceptual Through Full Scale Verification Test 

Development phases of a hydrogen fueled combustor for industrial gas turbine are presented in this paper, from conceptual burner design definition to the verification phase in gas turbine realistic environment. The development strategy has been conceived to properly balance the market needs and the effort required to achieve them.  The hydrogen combustion technology is mainly focused on the flashback free gas injectors and the fuel gas system development and represents a significant advancement of the fuel flex for the NovaLT family of gas turbines. The readiness of the currently available technology in dealing with hydrogen has been verified in a dedicated testing session, in a full-scale annular combustor rig. Stable flame windows have been identified for different operating conditions, and characterized in terms of pollutant emissions, pressure pulsations and system component temperatures. A bunch of alternative solutions have been designed with the aim of reducing NOx emission while maintaining adequate limits to either blowout, flashback or thermoacoustic instabilities. To further mitigate the risk of high NOx emissions, abatement though water injection has been investigated as well. Atmospheric reduced scale rig has been used to characterized different viable burner solutions, ensuring fast and somehow iterative design changes, and arranged to mimic main features of a small size gas turbine combustor, namely combustion air inlet temperature, hot gases residence times and equivalence ratios. Results clearly indicated viable candidates to be assessed in the more realistic environment represented by the full annular rig. The main outcomes of such a test campaign are also reported in this paper, with focus on both NOx emissions and operability related aspect. Flashback and flame holding resistance tests were thus performed, demonstrating that such a solution is mature for the next verification step in a real engine. Results, while recommending different development paths for each of the investigated concepts, clearly indicate the most mature among them, allowing authors to address detailed investigations for future development.

Presenting Author: Matteo Cerutti Baker Hughes

Presenting Author Biography: Ph.D. at Energy Dept. of University of Florence completed in 2009.
Main early career interest since 2005 was combustion and heat transfer modeling in gas turbines cooperating with Ansaldo Energia.
In GE Oil and Gas (now Baker Hughes) from 2010 working on products development and new combustion technology introduction

Authors:

M. Cerutti Baker Hughes
E. Pucci Baker Hughes
C. Romano Baker Hughes
V. R. Dabiru Baker Hughes