Gas turbine combustor for biomass derived LCV gas, a first approach towards fuel-NO x modelling and experimental validation Belkacem Adouane * , Peter Hoppesteyn, Wiebren de Jong, Marco van der Wel, Klaus R.G. Hein, Hartmut Spliethoff Department of Mechanical Engineering and Marine Technology, Section Thermal Power Engineering, Delft University of Technology, Mekelweg 2, NL-2628 CD Delft, Netherlands Received 10 October 2001; accepted 24 November 2001 Abstract The section Thermal Power Engineering of Delft University of Technology operates a 1.5 MW pres- surised fluidised bed gasification rig, including a hot gas cleaning unit and a pressurised downscaled Alstom gas turbines combustor. Regarding the combustion of low calorific value (LCV) gas, experiments are done to validate models describing turbulent steady state combustion. In this paper biomass derived LCV gas combustion experiments are described. The heating value of the gas was in the range of 2.5–4 MJ/m 3 n and the process pressure was 3–8 bar. In all experiments, good combustion efficiency was observed. NO x formed, resulted from NH 3 fuel_nitrogen conversion to NO x was in the range of 10–60%. The combustor was modelled using the CFD program Fluent. As chemistry models, the chemical equilibrium, laminar flamelet and reaction progress variable model were applied. Turbulence closure Reynolds stress and K –e were used in the calculations. The fate of fuel_nitrogen conversion to NO x was one of the main issues studied. The agreement between models and experiment was good for the experiments performed in the higher-pressure range. Ó 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: LCV gas; Combustion; Gas turbine; NO x emission Applied Thermal Engineering 22 (2002) 959–970 www.elsevier.com/locate/apthermeng * Corresponding author. Tel.: +31-15-278-6971; fax: +31-15-278-2460. E-mail address: b.adouane@wbmt.tudelft.nl (B. Adouane). 1359-4311/02/$ - see front matter Ó 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. PII:S1359-4311(02)00013-3