Title:	Plasma Assisted Combustion
DNr:	SNIC 2020/5-139
Project Type:	SNIC Medium Compute
Principal Investigator:	Christer Fureby <christer.fureby@energy.lth.se>
Affiliation:	Lunds universitet
Duration:	2020-04-01 – 2020-07-01
Classification:	20399 20303 20304
Homepage:	http://www.fm.energy.lth.se/
Keywords:

Abstract

This proposal is indented to support two ongoing research projects: (i) EFFECT (EFFicient Electric Combustion Technology) II, funded by the Swedish Energy Agency under grant agreement No 42555-1, and (ii) STRATOFLY (Stratospheric Flying Opportunities for High-Speed Propulsion Concepts) funded by European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 769246. Both projects were initially managed by the Swedish Defence Research Agency, FOI, but have since January 2020 been reallocated to the Department of Energy Sciences at the Faculty of Engineering, Lund University, LTH, as the Principle Investigator Prof. Fureby has moved from FOI to LTH. Originally, all numerical simulations were carried out at FOI, using in-house resources, but due to the reallocation of these projects computational resources need to be provided from the Swedish National Infrastructure for Computing. The project EFFECT II, running 2017-2021, is a continuation of the project EFFECT, 2012-2016, focusing on further reducing fuel consumption and emissions for gas turbine engines using Plasma Assisted Combustion (PAC). By adding a small amount of electrical energy (<0.5% of the thermal power) stable combustion can be achieved not only for lean combustion but also for ultra-lean combustion. This technology can support power generation and marine gas turbines but may in the future also be used to reduce aircraft jet-engines fuel consumption and emissions. In EFFECT II PAC is examined experimentally and computationally. The computational approach is based on Large Eddy Simulation (LES) with pathway-centric reaction mechanism augmented by plasma chemistry and associated Joule heating. Good agreement has been demonstrated and further LES simulations are deemed necessary for the successful completion of the project. The project STRATOFLY is addressing the issues of crowded air corridors and the need to reduce emissions from the flight sector by investigating a new type of flight vehicle intended for the stratosphere using hydrogen. The project investigate multiple aspects of such an infrastructure including vehicle technology as well as marketing and human aspects. The flight vehicle will be different from current airlines and powered by a combined cycle engine composed of jet-engines for take-off and landing, and a dual mode ramjet engine for cruise. The latter engine is intended to run on hydrogen but as such engines do not yet exist, one of the objectives is to investigate this type of engine. This part of the project is carried out jointly by DLR, ONERA, CIRA, FOI and LTH. DLR and ONERA perform experiments whereas CIRA, FOI and LTH carry out simulations using RANS and LES with global and pathway-centric reaction mechanisms. The use of PAC will be examined as part of potential stabilization mechanisms during the transition from the jet engines to the dual mode ramjet, and during ramjet to scramjet transition just before cruise. These projects share the PAC technology and the exploitation of new physics using a novel combination of experiments and high-fidelity numerical simulations. This has proven useful as experiments and simulations on this level provide reciprocal validation to each other, and complement each other in terms of physics elucidation.