OH-planar fluorescence measurements of pressurized, hydrogen premixed flames in the SimVal combustor

Planar laser-induced fluorescence measurements of the hydroxyl radical in lean, premixed natural gas flames augmented with hydrogen are presented. The experiments were conducted in the Simulation Validation combustor at the National Energy Technology Laboratory at operating pressures from 1 to 8 atmospheres. The data, which were collected in a combustor with well-controlled boundary conditions, are intended to be used for validating computational fluid dynamics models under conditions directly relevant to land-based gas turbine engines. The images, which show significant effects of hydrogen on local flame quenching, are discussed in terms of a turbulent premixed combustion regime and nondimensional parameters such as Karlovitz number. Pressure was found to thin the OH region, but only had a secondary effect on overall flame shape compared with the effects of hydrogen addition, which was found to decrease local quenching and shorten the turbulent flame brush. A method to process the individual images based on local gradients of fluorescence intensity is proposed, and results are presented. Finally, the results of several large eddy simulations are presented and compared with the experimental data in an effort to understand the issues related to model validation, especially for simulations that do not include OH as an intermediate species.