Numerical Investigation of the Nonreacting Swirling Flow Structure Downstream of Industrial Gas Turbine Burner With the Central Body

This paper will discuss the investigation of the nonreacting swirling flow downstream of the burner with the central body. This burner is designed for burning partially prepared fuel-air mixture. The burner consists of the axial swirler and the central body. The swirler plays the role of the premixer, and the central body is used to stabilize the flame. The simulation was conducted with the commercial software ANSYS Fluent 15.0. At present, the most widespread CFD approaches to the swirling flow investigation are URANS and LES. In this study URANS is used for obtaining flow charts and LES is used for detailed research of swirling flow structures. The influences of the model parameters (turbulence models, geometry simplification) and numerical parameters (the number of grid elements) on the burner pressure drop are shown in the simulation results. The LES results were compared with the experimental data on the flow structure downstream of the burner. The measurements were provided by 2D PIV with the imaging frequency of 500 Hz and 1000 Hz. It was found that in the investigated range of parameters the burner pressure drop changes slightly and is in good agreement with the experimental data. It was shown that the results of the PIV measurements with the different imaging frequency are in good agreement. The results show that flow behavior achieved in simulation is in accordance with the PIV measurements. It is shown that the flow separation from the central body trailing edge results in formation of large eddies and high velocity fluctuations. On the one hand it can contribute to the mixing of pilot fuel with air, but on the other hand it can lead to high amplitude pressure oscillations during combustion. The form and the frequency of the precessing vortex core were discovered. It was found that the maximum air flow rate through the recirculation zone is about 12% of the total air flow rate through the burner.