Australia has massive potential for renewable electricity generation that significantly exceeds our own needs. Embodying this energy in a chemical form such as hydrogen (H2) would enable its international trade, helping to decarbonise economies elsewhere. To convert the energy in such fuels back into electricity at the point of end use, large combined cycle gas turbines offer the most efficient option; however, their ability to burn hydrogen needs to be improved, with the most important issue being boundary layer flashback. In this off-design condition, the flame propagates upstream from its design location into fuel/air mixing sections, leading to catastrophic failure.
In this project, you will evaluate a measure of mitigating flashback, by injecting air at or near to the wall. This will lead to local dilution and a reduced flame speed, potentially enhancing flashback resistance. To evaluate this concept, you will carry out two-dimensional, laminar direct numerical simulations, with a highly scalable open-source computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code (PeleLMeX) using high-performance computing. Your task will be construct and analyse a series of simulations designed to understand the effectiveness of wall air injection to mitigate flashback.
Applicants for this project should be very strong in mathematics, physics, and engineering thermofluids, and ideally would have basic knowledge of chemistry and some scripting experience, though the last two are not strictly necessary.
School
Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering
Research Area
Combustion | Renewable energy | Hydrogen
Suitable for recognition of Work Integrated Learning (industrial training)?
No
- Research environment
- Expected outcomes
- Supervisory team
- Reference material/links
You will join a thriving, highly focused group working on using supercomputers to understand turbulent, chemically reacting flows in sustainable energy applications. You will be well supported by a PhD student and postdoc as well as the primary advisor. Additionally, you will join in social activities of the group.
- You will learn a lot about combustion, CFD, and high-performance computing. The project outcomes will help understand the mechanisms behind flashback mitigation using wall air injection, providing useful information for industry to design more flashback resistant combustors, and ultimately an efficient way to burn renewable, zero-carbon hydrogen fuel.
