Implication of Different Fuel Injector Configurations for Hydrogen Fuelled Micromix Combustors

A design of a hydrogen fuelled micromix concept based combustor is proposed in this paper. The proposed micromix concept based combustor yields improved mixing, which leads to wider flammability range of the hydrogen-air flames compared to conventional kerosene and micromix concept based combustors. This improved mixing allows the combustion zone to operate at a much lower equivalence ratio than the conventional kerosene based and micromix concept based combustors considered in this study. Furthermore, when burning hydrogen the thermal energy radiated to the surroundings is lower (as the result of using lower equivalence ratio) than that of kerosene, consequently resulting in an increased liner life and lower cooling requirement. The aim of this paper is to highlight the impact of using hydrogen as a fuel in gas turbine combustors. It is perceived that this new micromix concept based combustor would also help in achieving low emissions and better performance. Possibilities for lowering NO_x emissions when using hydrogen as a fuel in new designs of micromix combustor are also discussed.