UC Irvine Combustion Laboratory Receives DOE Award for Hydrogen Gas Turbine Research
May 24, 2021 – The U.S. Department of Energy has awarded the UC Irvine Combustion Laboratory, a component of the Advanced Power and Energy Program, $800,000 for advanced research on efficient hydrogen gas turbines. The UCI research is one of eight university-led projects selected for the DOE Office of Fossil Energy’s University Turbines Systems Research (UTSR).
The UTSR goal for these research and development projects is to advance hydrogen as a carbon-free fuel for high-performing, efficient gas turbines for electricity generation. Such projects work to increase reliability, efficiency and performance of hydrogen power to reduce carbon emissions and reach the Biden-Harris administration’s goal of 100 percent clean electricity by 2035.
“Our economic competitors are getting serious about harnessing carbon emissions-free power from hydrogen, and so the U.S. must as well,” said U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm. “Congress has entrusted DOE as the nation’s leading funder of the physical sciences, and we’re proud to invest in the brilliant scientific minds in our nation’s university system that are helping us ensure every American can access reliable, zero-carbon power.”
The three-year project, titled “Development and Application of Multipoint Array Injection Concepts for Operation of Gas Turbines on Hydrogen Containing Fuels,” fits this goal. Led by principal investigator Vince McDonell, Combustion Lab director and adjunct professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the Samueli School of Engineering, the team will partner with Solar Turbines, Inc., a leading power generation technology company, and Collins Aerospace, an aviation industry technology and components maker.
McDonell says the project creates a unique opportunity to adapt technology developed for one purpose, namely low-emission, high-performance liquid-fueled aircraft engines, for an entirely different purpose, which involves injection of gaseous hydrogen for generating electricity. This effort will combine computational fluid dynamics simulations, experiments via laboratory studies, and development of designs to eventually incorporate the technology into future industrial gas turbines that operate on hydrogen.
The UCI team will adapt advanced micromixer liquid fuel injectors designed by Collins Aerospace for aero-propulsion engines to inject hydrogen and hydrogen/natural gas blends to produce a set of modular test hardware configurations. The team will demonstrate high-performance operation using experiments from laboratory-scale model combustor configurations at elevated pressure and temperatures at UCI. The hardware configurations will be screened for stability, flashback and reaction structure. In addition, emissions performance will be documented. Finally, they will develop a design for testing hardware that can be demonstrated at engine conditions at Solar Turbines.
The three-year project is expected to increase the readiness levels of this technology and set the foundation for further development.
“The continued support from the U.S. Department of Energy underscores the nation’s commitment to decarbonizing future systems through the development of gas turbines that can operate reliably with low emissions and high performance on renewable fuels such as hydrogen,” said McDonell. “This project continues a long tradition of the UCI Combustion Lab tackling challenging knowledge gaps in the hydrogen fuel space by obtaining and analyzing relevant data for phenomena such as autoignition and flashback, which has helped industry gain more comfort with using hydrogen in combustion systems.
“The effort also represents a tremendous opportunity for students and staff to be engaged in innovative research that bridges fundamental understanding and practical application.”
– Tonya Becerra
