DNS on flame and flow characteristics of a H2-O2-H2O lifted flame with inclining impinging jets geometry

Hydrogen-fueled gas turbines play one of the key roles in future carbon-neutral energy structure. Due to hydrogen's high flame speed and extreme flame temperature, design of burners applying hydrogen as fuel is of challenge. In this work, we conduct direct numerical simulations to investigate a non-premixed steam-diluted oxygen/hydrogen combustion, which is formed by inclined impinging fuel and oxidizer jets injected by submillimeter nozzles. This configuration inherently prevent flashback and has a higher mixing efficiency enhanced by jet impingement, thereby leveraging advantages of both conventional premixed and non-premixed configurations. The flame is lifted flame held at the jet impinging position far away from the wall boundary. The most intensive mixing process occurs at the outer sides of the two branches of hydrogen jet after impinging, forming the flame base and resulting in an edge-flame configuration. A larger jet inclination angle leads to more effective bulk turbulence mixing because of the increased mixing volume, thereby enhancing combustion completeness. Simultaneously, it results in lower wall heat flux due to gentler upstream recirculation of burnt products. Chemical explosive mode analysis is conducted to analyze the combustion procedure from ignition to burnt out. The flame is held by the recirculation of high-temperature burnt products upstream of the impingement position, and its structure is primarily formed by the simultaneous ignition of a widespread explosive mixture enhanced by intense turbulence.