Reducing emissions in power plant

In recent years, the technique of pre-mixing air and fuel before combustion has allowed reductions in emissions of nitrous and nitric oxides to less than 10% of their previous lowest levels. This type of technology is being applied in the power industry and is planned in the next generation of aeroengines. Unfortunately, pre-mixing of the fuel/air makes the combustion sensitive to sound waves within the combustion chamber. The sound waves make the combustion unsteady, and the unsteady combustion generates yet more sound! Pressure waves can become so intense that structural damage is done.

Visualisation of flame shape within a sound cycle.

This is a generic problem experienced by all manufacturers of industrial gas turbines and a number of power stations throughout the world have been damaged or are unable to deliver their design output power or emissions. The combined skills in acoustics, computational fluid dynamics and control within the Department of Engineering are being brought to bear on this problem.

Details of the work carried out can be found at the research group's home page.

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Other environment related projects:

Transonic helicopter noise

Tyre Noise

The Silent aircraft