Effects of Hydrogen/ Methane on the Thermal Environment of Heavy-Duty Gas Turbine Combustor

Hydrogen is the most promising fuel for reducing carbon emissions, but hydrogen combustion produces higher temperature compared to hydrocarbon fuel. In this paper, a three-dimensional compressible combustion–flow–heat transfer model of combustor was established, and a dry-low-emission combustor was examined by using the realizable k − ε model, transported probability density function, and discrete ordinates model combining weighted sum of gray gas model, analyzing the effects of hydrogen/methane blended fuel and thermal boundaries on the combustor thermal environment. The results show that when the fuel hydrogen volume percentage increases from 0 to 75%, the maximum gas temperature and H₂ O concentration on the central axis of the combustor increase by about 160.8 and 662.9%, respectively; the maximum incident radiant heat flux of the combustor wall increases by about 150%; and the local maximum ratio of the radiant heat transfer to the total heat transfer through the wall increases from about 34 to about 49%. The effect of the boundary conditions varies depending on the hydrogen percentage. At the hydrogen percentage of 75%, the maximum wall-incident radiant heat flux under the adiabatic condition is nearly 180.3 and 77.4% higher than the values at 1370 and 1920 K isothermal boundaries, respectively.