Speaker
Description
The Shockless Explosion Combustion (SEC) concept, introduced by Bobusch et al. (Combust. Sci. Technol., Vol. 186, (10-11), 2014), seeks to achieve constant volume combustion in gas turbines by using acoustic confinement to trigger close-to-homogeneous auto-ignition of small premixed fuel-air packets. The authors recently (Klein et al., ASME J. Eng. Gas. Turb. Pow., Vol. 147, 2025) presented a comprehensive computational study of a whole engine SEC-driven gas turbine model with detailed investigations of the highly unsteady reactive gas-dynamics inside the combustor. Thermodynamic cycle analyses have shown thermal efficiencies close to the theoretical Humphrey cycle for pressure gain combustion for compressor pressure ratios of 6:1 and 20:1. The study demonstrated the potential of an SEC-driven gas turbine to deliver substantial efficiency gains over classical gas turbines designs. The study of Klein et al. utilizes a simple one-step Arrhenius type chemical reaction with parameters adjusted to mimic key parameters of real fuels such as ignition delay and heat release rate, which are essential for the resonant behavior of the SEC combustor. In this study we advance the study of Klein et al. by presenting results for an SEC-driven gas turbine using a detailed chemical reaction mechanism for hydrogen, which has been identified as a suitable fuel for pressure gain combustion. For a compressor pressure ratio of 6:1 a thermal efficiency of 49,3% is achieved for the engine operating in SEC mode compared to 38,4% thermal efficiency for the classical Brayton-Joule process. The investigations demonstrate the overall robustness of the SEC combustion mode.