Quantification of Mixing Quality Effects on Flashback Limits for H₂-Rich Fuel Gases in Lean Premixed Combustion Using Laser-Induced Fluorescence of Acetone

One of the main challenges arising from hydrogen-rich fuel mixtures is to prevent flame flashback. In typical gas turbines, the fuel is commonly injected through holes in the axial swirler vanes to achieve a high mixing quality. However, this injection method is not perfect and can cause nonhomogeneous mixing regions, so that locally rich fuel clusters can significantly increase flashback propensity. This work aims to establish a link between the local mixing quality of fuel and air and flashback limits obtained experimentally under elevated pressure conditions. The nonreacting experiments have been conducted at an atmospheric mockup test rig and acetone-planar laser-induced fluorescence (PLIF) has quantified the local fuel concentration. Zones of high equivalence ratio are evident close to the center body wall. The near-wall equivalence ratio fields reveal that the critical probability of the local equivalence ratio being greater than the one for perfect premixing is between 20% and 35% for all hydrogen concentrations at the flashback limits observed. A probability of 35% is selected as a critical threshold to derive a correlation between the local and the global equivalence ratio in technical premixing. Even though the correlation is specific to the investigated burner configuration, the presented methodology offers valuable insights into the impact of the local mixing quality on flashback propensity, which can improve flashback prediction models formulated for perfect premixing conditions.