Advanced Turbulent Combustion Modeling for Gas Turbine Application: Doctor of Philosophy dissertation

Modern gas-turbine based systems represent one of the most efficient large-scale power generation technology currently available. Alongside this, gas-turbine power plants operate with very low emissions, have flexible operational characteristics and are able to utilize a broad range of fuels. It is expected that gas-turbine based plants will play an important role as an effective means of converting combustion energy in the future as well, because of the vast potential energy savings.

The numerical approach to the design of complex systems such as gas-turbines has gained a continuous growth of interest in the last few decades. This because simulations are foreseen to provide a tremendous increase in the combustor efficiency, fuel-flexibility and quality over the next future.

In this dissertation, an advanced turbulent combustion technique is implemented and progressively developed for the simulation of all the features that are typically observed in stationary gas-turbine combustion, including hydrogen as a fuel. The developed turbulent combustion model retains most of the accuracy of a detailed simulation while drastically reducing its computational time. As a result of this work, the advancement of power generation plants can be accelerated, paving the way for future developments of alternative fuel usage in a cleaner and more efficient combustion.