Numerical Analysis of Water Injection Effect on NOx Reduction of MGT-40 Gas Turbine

Controlling the gas turbine emissions has led the manufacturers to use new technologies. Nitrogen oxides (NOx) are one of the major pollutants of gas turbines with natural gas as fuel. Thermal NOx is the main cause of NOx formation in gas turbines at high temperatures. So, water injection can be useful in reducing the NOx emission. In addition to NOx reduction, water injection causes an increase in carbon monoxide emission and damage to combustion chamber. Therefore, it is desirable to find the optimum amount of water injected to the combustion chamber to meet the regulations. To find the optimal water mass flow rate, we numerically investigated the combustion inside the chamber for full load and part load before and after water injection. Then, the effect of water injection at different flow rates was studied to obtain optimal water flow rate. The results showed that for the full load, the optimal water flow rate was 100% of the fuel flow rate and the upstream pressure of the feed water system was 24.45 bar. For the part load (fuel flow rate equals to 75% of the full load), the optimum water injection rate is 80% of the fuel flow rate. In this case, the pressure required for water injection is about 16.5 bar. Results also show that the change in water temperature in the range of 10-80˚C has no significant effect on NOx formation and water can be injected at the ambient temperature.