Fuel oil concentration in a gas turbine burner

measured with laser-induced fluorescence

A. Arnold*, R. Bombach, W. Hubschmid,

A. Inauen, and B. Käppeli

Paul Scherrer Institut

CH-5232 Villigen PSI, Switzerland

Abstract

We applied the technique of 2-dimensional laser-induced fluorescence to measure relative

local concentrations of the evaporated fuel oil in a premixed gas turbine burner. The

dependence of the fuel oil fluorescence in the burner on the air inlet temperature, on the

total fuel mass flow, and on the residence time of the fuel was investigated. A Mie

scattering experiment was performed in order to observe nonevaporated fuel oil. We

conclude that the fuel oil concentrations can be determined from the fluorescence intensity

within an error of about 25% in regions of complete evaporation of the fuel oil.

* present address: BGN Berufsgenossenschaft Nahrungsmittel und Gaststätten,

Dynamostr. 7-11, D-68165 Mannheim, Germany
1 Introduction

A better knowledge of the process of combustion is required in order to reduce the output

of nitric oxides and other air pollutants. Numerical modeling of the combustion process

and experimental diagnostics are the tools for that objective. Quantitative diagnostics is

necessary in order to validate the calculations from theoretical models.

For premixed combustion of liquid fuels in gas turbines, the process of the evaporation of

liquid fuel and the subsequent mixing with air is of special interest, see e.g. Sattelmayer et

al. 1998, and therefore measurement techniques which allow the studying of these

processes are of preeminent importance. Experimental investigations using commercial

liquid fuel (i.e. fuel oil light, below abbreviated as “fuel oil”) are preferred by gas turbine

manufacturers as they better represent the given technical conditions than measurements

with model fuels composed of one or a few well defined components.

There are a number of articles which reported on laser induced fluorescence (LIF) or other

spectroscopic measurements in order to analyse the fuel mixing in gas turbine burners or

in internal combustion engines (ICEs). These investigations, however, considered either

model liquid (Arnold et al. 1990), unconventional liquid, or gaseous fuels, one dimensional

measurements (Raman scattering), or gave results of a semiquantitative nature (Arnold et

al. 1992). Of the more recent works in this field are the LIF experiment with dye doped

methanol (Bazile and Stepowski 1994), the application of exciplex fluorescence with

isooctane as fuel (Knapp et al. 1996), the combined LIF and Raman measurements of

isooctane mixed with 3-pentanone or acetone (Richter et al. 1997), the Raman scattering

experiment with n-dodecane and n-hexadecane (Rabenstein et al. 1997), the extinction

measurements in ICEs (Astarita et al. 1997), and the LIF measurements in aircraft gas

turbine burners considering mixtures of mineral spirits with naphtalene or fluoranthene

(Harding and Greenhalgh 1998). LIF measurements with technical fuel (kerosene Jet A)

were made by Löfström et al. (1996) and Rachner et al. (1996).

In this paper, we describe concentration measurements of vaporized fuel oil by 2-

dimensional (2-D) laser-induced fluorescence with the goal to give quantitative

concentration measurements allowing the comparison with numerical simulations.

A pulsed excimer laser was used to excite the molecules. No fluoresceing additives were

used throughout the experiments; thus, the determined signal exclusively originated from

the fuel oil molecules. The measurements were performed in an optically transparent tube

of a commercial gas turbine burner for power generation and they depict the mixing

process of the fuel oil with air which takes place in the tube. In addition, Mie scattering

experiments were performed to test the degree or the completeness of the evaporation of

the fuel oil. The quantities we determine and which are relevant for the validation of

numerical calculations are ratios of concentrations, i.e. relative concentrations. For the

determination of local fuel-air equivalence ratios, the knowledge of the flow profile in the

tube is additionally needed to allow the normalization of the fuel oil concentration. Some

previous results of our investigations have already been presented elsewhere (Arnold et al.

1998).

We report first on measurements of the laser light extinction in the mixing tube, before

presenting the results of the LIF measurements in Section 4 of this paper. The values of

the light extinction are compared to the light absorption of liquid fuel at ambient

temperatures (Sec. 3.1). These measurements were performed to decide on the appropriate

excimer laser wavelength for inducing the fuel fluorescence.

The strength of the laser-induced fluorescence signal intensity SF of a medium depends

generally on a number of experimental parameters and is, in case of a medium composed

of various species m, the sum

SF = Σ SF , m
m (1)
of the single species fluorescence signals SF,m. For our case of fuel oil fluorescence, the

functional dependence of the quantities SF,m, for unsaturated transitions, has the general

form

exp( − Em, j / kT )gm, j Bm, j (λ ) Am, j (λ )

SF , m ( x, λ , α , z ) ∝ I L ( x, λ )nm (α , x, z ) Σ → .
j Zm (T ) Am, j (λ ) + Qm, j (λ , T , n, nair )

(2)

The unspecified proportionality factor in Eq. (2) contains the influence of the detection

geometry and the efficiency of the detector, here assumed to be independent of the

emission transition.

The following symbols are used in Eq. (2): x is the spatial position within the detection

volume, λ is the excitation wavelength, α is the brand of fuel oil under investigation, and
the variable z designates the set of the parameters T in (inlet temperature of the preheated

air which mixes with the fuel), the total air mass flow ṁair , and the total fuel mass flow

ṁ fuel . Furthermore, IL(x,λ) is the radiation intensity within the laser light sheet, integrated
→
over the laser pulse duration, nm (or n ) and nair are the local molar concentrations of the

various fuel species and of the air, respectively, T is the local gas temperature, the index j

designates the various upward transitions of the given species m, B m,j and A m,j are the

Einstein coefficients for the absorption corresponding to the upward transition (m,j) and

for spontaneous emission after the transition (m,j), respectively, and Q m,j the total

electronic quenching rates for the final state of the transition (m,j), Zm is the partition

function of species m, and E m,j and g m,j are the energy level and the degeneracy of the

initial state for the given transition. The local molar concentrations of fuel and air, and

therefore also the fluorescence signal intensity SF are stochastic quantities, because of the

random processes of the fuel evaporation and turbulent mixing.

The equations (1) and (2) indicate various effects which can give rise to deviations from a

proportionality between fuel concentration and fluorescence intensity. First, a spatial

inhomogeneity of the temperature is generated in the mixing tube by the evaporation and

heating of the fuel. The spatial temperature inhomogeneity leads to observable effects if
the temperature dependence of the fuel oil fluorescence would be strong. Such a

dependence is caused by the change of the density with the temperature, by a change in the

lower state population, by changes in the collision quenching rates with temperature, and

by chemical reactions.

We simulated the effect of a varying local temperature by changing T in and measuring the

spatially integrated fluorescence intensity. The results of these experiments are presented

in Sec. 4.2. The mechanism of a temperature change due to evaporation and heating of the

fuel oil is directly proportional to the fuel concentration. Therefore, the effect of this

process can also be investigated by varying the fuel mass flow (Sec. 4.4). The same

proportionality approximately holds for exothermic reactions preceeding combustion

(“cold flames”, see Ruhkamp et al. 1993 or Lucka and Köhne 1999). These can rise the

temperature by 50 to 100 K.

The changes in air concentration are small for regions where the fuel is completely

vaporized and we do not have to consider a change in quenching rates by air molecules in

these regions. Quenching of the oil fluorescence by the fuel oil molecules themselves

could, however, to an observable amount reduce the fluorescence yield with higher fuel

concentration. We investigated this effect together with the effects mentioned in the

paragraph above by varying the mass flows of fuel and air in the burner (Sec. 4.4).

Volume elements within the region of the light sheet can have different residence times in

the burner and their species composition can therefore be changed differently by chemical

reactions at the given temperatures of 400 °C and more. Possible effects were examined by

measuring the integrated fluorescence in planes with various distances from the nozzle

(Sec. 4.5).

Finally, because of the different boiling temperatures of the various fuel species, we may

generate different spatial distributions of the various species in the burner. In order to have

a hint from experiment on the strength of this effect, we tested whether different oils, with,

in general, different chemical composition, generate different fluorescence distributions

(Sec. 4.6). These measurements were also a test whether variations in the spatial
distribution of different oils could be detected. The problem of the fuel species

inhomogeneity is further discussed in Sec. 5.2.

Some of the investigations described in this article have been performed as part of a

collaboration with an industrial partner, resulting in limitations of reporting technical

details on the burner construction as well as performing control measurements to the

parameter studies described in Sec. 4.

2 The experimental setup

2.1 Gas turbine burner and fuel oil

The physical properties, the chemical composition, and more specifically the fluorescence

behaviour of fuel oil, which is burned in gas turbine burners, change with origin and

processing. Therefore we made measurement series with different oils brands (labeled A,

B, and C) in order to detect variations in behaviour with the oil brand. A chemical analysis

was performed for oil B. It consisted of 24.4% by volume of aromats (monoaromats in

total 17.9%). The aromats emit the prevailing part of the detected fluorescence.

A nozzle injects the fuel oil into the burner and generates a spray of oil droplets. The

droplets are caught by a flow of preheated and swirled air under atmospheric pressure.

The fuel air mixture passes a tube which is in its center part transparent for the laser beams

and the fluorescence light so that the process of the evaporation of the fuel oil and the

mixture of the oil with the air can be analyzed with optical methods. During the first

measurements the transparent tube was of standard quartz; for later measurements, a tube

of precision ground Suprasil 2 quartz was mounted. We will use the word “mixing tube”

for both the whole tube and its transparent part.

The fuel equivalence ratio φ was in the range 0.25...0.5 (φ = 1 corresponds to stoichiometric
conditions) during the measurements. The air temperature had values between 360 and

486 ˚C. In the course of the experiments various types of nozzles were mounted. Some of

them lead to a quick blackening of the glass tube. The measurements with oil A reported

on here were then carried out with one definite nozzle with one hole, the measurements

with oil B and C with a different one-hole-nozzle.

2.2 Laser excitation of the fuel oil molecules

For the excitation of the fuel oil molecules we used an excimer laser system (Lambda

Physik Compex 150T) with two tubes which can be filled with two different gas mixtures.

The two tubes can be fired with an arbitrary time delay so that LIF pictures with two
different excitation wavelengths can be generated with a time delay, long enough to

separate them by two gated CCD cameras but short enough to have otherwise stationary

conditions. Such measurements were performed, with KrF in one tube (excitation

wavelength 248 nm) and XeF in the other tube (wavelength 351 nm) with a time delay of

100 ns in order to detect inhomogeneities in the fuel species distribution. The result was

not conclusive, however (Arnold et al. 1998).

Because of the higher fluorescence signals, most of the measurements were performed

with the 248 nm light of the KrF laser. For this wavelength, the linewidth is about 0.5 nm

which corresponds to about 80 cm-1. As described in Sec. 3, the absorption of the laser

light at 248 nm is rather strong so that for future measurements at higher gas pressures,

light of longer wavelength will have to be used.

The general layout of the experiment is depicted in Fig. 1. The light beam from the laser

has a rectangular cross section (24x8 mm2). By a diaphragm a 24 mm wide and 1 mm

thick light sheet is formed. The light sheet passes a cylindrical lens so that it diverges and

irradiates a large part of the mixing tube cross section. The tube itself behaves like a

cylindrical lens with a large negative focal length. This effect adds to the divergence of the

light sheet. The energy of the pulse is 10 mJ after diaphragm and cylindrical lens, the

pulse duration is about 25 ns. The irradiance of the light sheet in the mixing tube (cross

section 70x2 mm2) is therefore about 0.3 MWcm-2.

2.3 Setup for the detection of the fluorescence and of Mie scattering

The setup which was mostly used for the detection of the fuel fluorescence is depicted in

Fig.2. The signals are observed at an angle of 37˚ or less with respect to the light sheet

plane, depending on the chosen distance of the observed tube cross section from the

nozzle (see Fig. 1). This leads to a distortion of the observed circular tube cross section to

elliptic form. The maximum observation angle of 37º was determined by the condition that

the fluorescence from the whole light sheet area could be measured. The dichroic beam
splitter between tube and camera separates the LIF signal from stray light of the laser and

from light which is Mie scattered by oil droplets or by other particles. A gated intensified

CCD camera with a gate time of 50 ns registers the lower frequency light which passes

through the beam splitter; a second intensified CCD camera registers the light reflected at

the beamsplitter.

During the experiments, it turned out that the above described setup for the observation of

the LIF signal was not appropriate for the simultaneous observation of Mie signals, as the

intensity of stray light from the laser, originating mainly from light scattered by the mixing

tube, was much stronger than any Mie signal. We used therefore for the detection of Mie

scattering a setup where the light sheet irradiated the tube in an axial cross section and

where the signals were detected in normal direction to the light sheet, see Sec. 4.3.

However, also in this arrangement, because of the disturbance by stray light, the sensitivity

of the Mie camera had to be reduced.

For the data analysis, we assume that a Mie signal of a single particle (droplet) is detected

if it exceeds 3σ of the noise of the background signal. The size of the noise was measured

at positions where there were no bright laser light reflections (unchanged from pulse to

pulse) and where we supposed a very small or absent Mie signal. Taking into account the

smearing effect of the signal over neighboring pixels, the comparison with the calculated

Mie scattering intensity shows that for an axial light sheet cross section the so defined Mie

detection limit corresponded to a single droplet with about 15 µm diameter. Due to the
higher number of droplets in the real flow (about one droplet per voxel) this smearing

effect is overemphasized with espect to the single droplet case above. Thus, the

experimental detection limit is lower than 15 µm.

3 Light absorption and fluorescence of fuel oil

3.1 Light absorption of liquid fuel oil

Light absorption measurements were performed to determine the wavelengths suitable for

the LIF experiments. This was done by solving fuel oil in various concentrations in a 1 cm

cuvette of n-hexane. The light extinction and therewith the absorption of the solutions was

measured in the wavelength range between 200 nm and 400 nm by means of a D2-lamp as

light source and a monochromator. Typical conditions of the experiments with vaporized

fuel in the burner mixing tube (φ = 0.5, 450 °C) correspond for a homogenous mixture, at

the maximal diameter, to an effective light path in liquid fuel oil of 1.9 µm and therefore to

a concentration of 0.019% of fuel oil in our cuvette.

Figure 3 shows the result of the absorption measurements for fuel oil concentrations of

0.01% and 0.1%. The results suggested that the absorption of the KrF laser light for our

experiments would be in the order of 70% and much smaller for XeCl (emission

wavelength 308 nm) or XeF laser light. Thereby we assumed that the absorption does not

differ strongly between fuel molecules in the vaporized phase and in the liquid phase. We

made use of the results on the light absorption of fuel oil while estimating the effect of the

reabsorption of the fluorescence light (Sec. 3.3).

3.2 Laser light extinction in the mixing tube of the burner

The laser light extinction between entrance and exit of the light sheet in the mixing tube of

the gas turbine burner was measured while performing the LIF experiments. It can

originate from absorption by the oil vapour in the tube, from absorption and scattering by

oil droplets in the tube, and from absorption of oil and decomposition products deposited

at the tube walls. This total extinction reached values up to 90% and more for low

temperatures of the gas mixture (400 ˚C). We explain the higher extinction at lower

temperatures by the growing thickness and therefore growing light absorption of the oil
film at the tube wall. This was confirmed by still seeing a light extinction immediately after

stopping the fuel flow in the tube.

In case that the oil in the tube is not completely evaporated, the amout of extinction of light

of 248 nm, averaged over the light sheet cross section, is in tendency reduced compared to

the case of complete evaporation. As stated in the subsection above, the effective liquid fuel

light path in the tube is of the order of 2 µm. The average droplet size, however, is of the

order of 5 to 20 µm as droplets smaller than 5 µm evaporate very fast (Gradinger 1999).

Hence, nonevaporated fuel droplets lead in parts of the light sheet volume to fully

absorbing areas and in other parts to a strengthened decrease of the light extinction.

The extinction from the oil in the mixture with air alone can approximately be determined

by the average reduction of the fluorescence intensity at the light sheet exit of the mixture

tube compared to the fluorescence at the light sheet entrance assuming a radial symmetry

of the burner construction and of the air flow. The assumed burner symmetry was partly

tested by rotating the nozzle by an angle of 180˚ during one of the measurement series. No

change in the induced pulse averaged fluorescence could be observed as consequence of

this operation. A strong argument for the radial symmetry of the burner and the air flow

are the pulse averaged and extinction corrected LIF pictures (see Sec. 5.1). With the

extinction value determined by the method given above they are, at the end of the mixing

tube, in good approximation radial symmetric. The LIF pictures at the entrance of the

mixing tube, on the other hand, show a less clear behaviour. The extinction corrected

pictures show deviations from radial symmetry and some of the determined transmission

values are unplausibly high.

For the 248 nm light, the extinction within the tube was determined with the last mentioned

method to be about 70..80% for oil A and B at φ-values of about 0.5. These values slightly

correct the results previously published in Arnold et al. 1998. At a wavelength of λ = 351

nm on the other hand, the light extinction was small (« 10%) for all conditions considered.

The measured extinction in the tube at λ = 248 nm gives an upper limit for the saturation

of the excited transitions. We assume here that the extinction originates solely from
absorption and that 10% of the fuel oil molecules are chromophors, i.e. absorb laser light

at λ = 248 nm within the bandwidth of 80 cm-1. For the conditions in the experiments,

pulse energy of 10 mJ, light sheet of 140 mm2 cross section, fuel equivalence ratio φ = 0.5,

T = 723 K, and p = 1 bar, we obtain that about 10 to 15% of the chromophor molecules

experience an excitation within the pulse duration of 25 ns. As we neglect in this

estimation all relaxation processes (by fluorescence or molecule collisions) and as we may

assume that the absorbed laser pulse energy is shared among many transitions of a given

chromophor molecule, we can conclude that the excited transitions are not saturated.

The comparison of the measured laser light extinction (which we assume again to be due

to light absorption solely) with the fluorescence yield gives an estimate of the fluorescence

part of the deexcitation of the fuel molecules. For the experimental conditions given in the

paragraph above, we estimate that about 3% of the fuel molecules are deexcited by

fluorescence.

3.3 Emission spectrum of fuel oil

The fluorescence spectrum of the fuel oil was generated with a spectrograph of a focal

length of 250 mm. The grating had 300 lines per mm, the width of the entrance slit was

0.5 mm. An intensified CCD camera registered the spectrum. A mercury lamp was used

for the calibration of the wavelengths. Figures 4a and 4b show the emission spectra of the

vapor of oil A in the mixing tube of the burner at a temperature of 500 ˚C for the two

wavelengths of 248 nm and 351 nm, respectively. The labelled peaks in the figures result

from scattered laser light. (The peak at 496 nm corresponds to the second order diffraction

of the 248 nm light.)

The comparison of the emission spectrum at an irradiation of 248 nm (Fig. 4a) with the

absorption spectrum of fuel oil (Fig. 3, assumed to be essentially unchanged for

evaporated fuel) implies that the reabsorption of fluorescence light in the mixing tube is

negligible (≤ 1%) using 248 nm excitation. The same applies for fluorescence light after

excitation with 351 nm laser light.

4 Fuel oil fluorescence in the burner

The subsection 4.1 gives the generic picture of the laser-induced fluorescence in the

measured gas turbine burner. The following subsections discuss the dependence of the

fluorescence on various parameters. All measurements described in this section, if not

stated differently, were performed in normal cross sections at the exit of the transparent

part of the mixing tube.

4.1 Spatial distribution of the fluorescence and pulse-to-pulse fluctuation

of the spatially averaged fluorescence

We show in Figs. 5 and 6 the spatial LIF distribution at φ = 0.5 and T = 723 K after

excitation with 248 nm light. Figure 5a shows the uncorrected fluorescence intensity,

averaged over 50 pulses. Because of the camera observation angle of 37°, the intersection

of the laser light sheet with the interior of the mixing tube appears as ellipse. Furthermore,

there is an asymmetry in intensity between the entrance side and the exit side of the sheet

which is mainly due to laser light extinction.

For an analysis of LIF data which aims at a quantitative measurement of the fuel

concentration, the effect of the extinction of the laser light has to be taken into account

(Sec. 5.1). Figure 5b shows the corresponding extinction corrected LIF data. Also, the

effect of the projection of the light sheet with respect to the camera plane has been

corrected. Figure 6a and 6b show an example of a single pulse recording, uncorrected and

corrected, respectively. On the pictures one recognizes that the light sheet has an oblique

boundary. This originates mainly from the divergence of the laser beam. The fluorescence

from a narrow area adjacent to the other boundary of the light sheet is hidden by the

projection of the metal construction which holds the quartz tube.

We determined also, for single pulse LIF measurements at a temperature of 723 K and at a

φ = 0.5, the statistical fluctation of the spatially averaged and extinction corrected LIF
signal. We found a σ/µ = 3.5% where σ is the standard deviation and µ is the mean value.
4.2 Temperature variation

Evaporation and heating of the fuel lead for inhomogenous fuel droplet distributions to a

spatial inhomogeneity of the gas temperature. The lowering of the gas temperature for a

homogenous fuel air mixture is calculated to be about 33 K. This gives the order of

magnitude of the temperature inhomogeneity for the case of an inhomogenous mixture.

We examined therefore experimentally the variation of the fuel oil fluorescence with the

temperature.

The experiment consisted in comparing the spatial (over the normal cross section of the

light sheet) and temporal (over 50 pulses) average of the fuel fluorescence intensity for

preheated combustion air of 450 ˚C and of 486 ˚C. Experiments at temperatures below

450 ˚C generated an oil film at the quartz tube. Figure 7 shows the average LIF signal

intensities for air inlet temperatures of 450 ˚C and of 486 ˚C, respectively, extinction

corrected according to Sec. 5.1. The uncorrected data which are used in the argumentation

of Sec. 5.1 show the same behaviour. The dependence on the fuel equivalence ratio φ is
also depicted in Fig. 7 (cp. Sec. 4.4). The background has been subtracted. The result of

the measurements indicate that the fuel fluorescence is lowered by about 15% for the

temperature of 486 ˚C compared to 450 ˚C. This corresponds to a change of about 10%

after taking into account the density difference at the two temperatures.

4.3 Fuel evaporation

In a setup where the laser light sheet crossed the tube in an axial plane, we made Mie

scattering measurements, simultaneously with LIF measurements, in order to detect

nonevaporated fuel droplets. The detection of the Mie signal was in normal direction to the

excitation plane. At air temperatures of 360 ˚C, a Mie signal could be observed in the first

half of the optical access of the mixing tube. Therefore a part of the fuel oil is not yet

evaporated. The absence of a detected Mie signal for the usual burner temperatures (450 to

486 ˚C) is, however, not a proof for the absence of small fuel droplets of about 15 µm and

less which was below the Mie detection limit (see Sec. 2.3). Consequently, from our
experiments, we cannot rigorously conclude, what is suggested very strongly from

numerical simulations (Gradinger 1999), that the fuel was completely evaporated at the end

of the optical access of the mixing tube.

4.4 Connection between fluorescence and total mass flow of fuel and air

The functional connection between local LIF signal intensity and the local fuel

concentration can be determined approximatively by measuring the average LIF signal as a

function of the total fuel mass flow. This was done for the air inlet temperatures of 450

and 486°˚C, as already described in Sec. 4.2, by averaging the LIF signal over normal

cross sections of the light sheet and over 50 pulses. The fuel mass flows corresponded to

fuel equivalence ratios φ in the range between 0.25 and 0.5. Both measurement series (see

Fig.7) show an approximately linear (slightly subproportional) rise of the signal intensity

with increasing values of φ . The increase of the LIF signal for a φ-variation between 0.25

and 0.5 is about 1.7…1.8. The deviation from the proportionality for a mean value of φ is

therefore about ± 7%. We attribute the variations of the measured averaged LIF signals

from a thought straight line in Fig. 7 mainly to instabilities in the burner setup, as these

fluctuations exceed by far expected fluctuations from the optical measurement; see for the

size of pulse-to-pulse fluctations the preceeding Sec. 4.1. Measurements with variation of

the air mass flow (which changes the flow pattern in the mixing tube) at constant fuel mass

flow showed also (within statistical errors) a linear (slightly subproportional) rise of the

LIF signal with the average fuel concentration.

We conclude that both collisions of excited fuel oil molecules with other fuel molecules as

well as other effects connected with varying mass flows have a small or only moderate

effect on the fluorescence intensity for the considered domain of fuel oil concentrations.

From our results we cannot, however, make extrapolations for technical pressures of

15 bar with the corresponding higher fuel concentrations.

4.5 Dependence of the fuel oil fluorescence on the residence time of the

fuel in the burner

At the experimental temperatures of 400 ˚C and more, chemical reactions can change the

species content of the fuel. Depending on the residence time of the fuel, the fluorescence

intensity of the oil may therefore vary. As a test experiment, the intensity of the

fluorescence, induced by light of 248 nm, was measured at a temperature of 486 ˚C at four

different distances of the light sheet from the nozzle in the last fourth of the quartz tube.

The various distances correspond to different average residence times of the fuel in the

tube. Considering the measurement accuracy, the change in the fluorescence intensity

integrated over the beam cross section and averaged over 20 pulses is small (appr. ± 5%,

see Fig. 8), and we conclude therefore that chemical reactions in the vaporized oil have a

small effect on the induced fluorescence under our experimental conditions.

4.6 Variation of the oil

The study of the mixing process with different oil brands (i.e., in general, of different

chemical composition) is both a specification of the general formula for the fluorescence

signal (Eq. 2) and a test on the variability of the behaviour of different oil brands. Indeed,

from different physical properties (viscosity, surface tension) of various oils, we have in

general to expect a different distribution of the real fuel concentration.

For the test experiment of this subsection, we recorded the fluorescence from oils B and C

at the entrance of the mixing quartz tube under otherwise unchanged conditions. In their

physical properties, e.g. the viscosity, oil B and C differed strongly. Contrary to the

scheme of Fig. 1, the CCD camera was on the other side of the light sheet. Figure 9

shows the LIF intensity profiles for the diameter in the mixing tube along the light sheet

for oil brands B and C, respectively. The LIF intensities are extinction corrected and

averages over 100 pulses; the intensity of oil B was multiplied for the comparison by the

factor 1.09. We consider the experimental result that the two oil brands give similar

profiles as of an illustrative nature and do not try to draw rigorous conclusions from it.
5 Analysis of the experimental results

5.1 Extinction correction of the LIF data

The experimental result of Sec. 4.4 showed that the temporally and spatially averaged

fluorescence signal rises approximately linearly with the total fuel mass flow under our

experimental conditions and that it does not strongly depend on the temperature in the

observed domain. Assuming the absence of fuel molecules in the liquid phase (Sec. 4.3),

which presumably would give rise to a modified signal strength due to a different

quenching behaviour, we conclude therefore from the general formulae (1) and (2), that the

fluorescence signal has approximately the following functional dependence:

SF ( x, λ , α , z) ∝ IL ( x, λ ) Σ nm (α , x, z)β m (λ ).
m (3)

The quantity β m (λ ) represents the sum over j of Eq. (2). The summation over m in Eq.
(3) can be written as a scalar product:
→ →
SF ( x, λ , α , z) ∝ I L ( x, λ ) n(α , x, z) ⋅ β (λ ). (4)

By introducing in Eq.(4) the proportionality constant B0 g (see Eq.(6) for the definition

of g), factoring out from IL(x) the spatially constant laser intensity I0 at the tube entrance,

IL(x) = I0Irel(x),

and leaving apart variables other than x, we obtain

→ →
SF ( x) = B0 gI0 Irel ( x) n( x) ⋅ β . (5)

We consider the quantity Irel(x) along a ray in direction of the light sheet and we designate

the position x by its coordinates (x1,x2). The varying coordinate along the ray is x1; x2

designates the transverse coordinate. The relative intensity Irel(x1,x2) obeys the relation

(Lambert law)

⎡ x1 → → ⎤
Irel ( x1, x2 ) = exp ⎢− g ∫ n( x1 ' , x2 ) ⋅ β dx1 ' ⎥.
⎢⎣ 0 ⎥⎦ (6)

Inserting Eq.(5) into (6), we obtain

 x1
1 SF ( x1 ' , x2 )
ln Irel ( x1, x2 ) = −
B0 I0 ∫I rel ( x1 ' , x2 )
dx1 '.
0 (7)

In order to obtain the value of B0 of given experimental conditions, we have to determine

from one pulse averaged experiment, as described in Sec. 3.2, the light transmission T

along the x1-axis at a fixed coordinate x2 = x2, 0 :

T := Irel (l, x2, 0 ) , (8)

l being the x1-value at the exit of the light sheet. Hence we get

l
1 SF ( x1' , x2, 0 )
B0 = −
ln T ⋅ I0 ∫I
0 rel ( x1' , x2 , 0 )
dx1'. (9)

Making use of the technique described by Hertz et al. (1987) for the case of light

extinction by a single species, we iteratively calculate B0 and Irel(x) (Eqs. (9) and (7)) by

initializing Irel(x) ≡ 1 in the integrals and freely exchanging the operation of pulse

averaging with the other mathematical operations. The extinction corrected fluorescence

intensity (single pulse and pulse averaged)

SF ( x)
SF ' ( x) :=
Irel ( x) (10)

is thus obtained.

5.2 Connection between local fuel fluorescence and fuel concentration

We assume that the relative species distribution is x-independent for the volume
→
considered which means that we can write the quantity n(α , x, z) , for the intersection

volume of the light sheet with the interior of the mixing tube, in the form

→ →
n(α , x, z) = c(α , x, z) ⋅n0 (α , z). (11)
 →
The local fuel concentration is designated as c(α,x,z) in Eq. (11) and n0 (α , z) is a x-

independent vector.

Using relation (11) and the definition of the extinction corrected fluorescence signal

(Eq.(10)), we obtain thus from Eq. (4) that the extinction corrected fluorescence signal is

proportional to the fuel concentration within the light sheet:

→ →
SF ' ( x, λ , α , z) ∝ I0 (λ ) c(α , x, z)n0 (α , z) ⋅ β (λ ). (12)

Deviations from this proportionality arise if the assumptions used in the derivation of

equation (12) are only approximately valid, i.e.:

A. The quantity β m (λ ) is not independent of T and ni, as assumed in the derivation of

Eq.(3). In a first order correction, we can insert the experimentally determined

connection between temporally and spatially averaged LIF intensity and fuel

concentration (Sec. 4.4) into β m (λ ) . For the domain of fuel–air equivalence ratios

investigated, however, we prefer to state the measured deviation of ± 7% from the

proportionality as error.

B. Deviations from equation (11) can originate from the following reasons: B1. Inequal

residence time of the various volume elements in a normal tube cross section lead to a

different chemical composition by chemical reactions. This effect was below the

measurement accuracy of the experiment presented in Sec. 4.5. The measured

temporally and spatially averaged LIF signal fluctuations of ± 5% for different

residence times are not systematic, and we suppose that they are mainly caused by
changes in machine parameters, esp. of φ. B2. Unequal boiling temperatures of the

fuel species cause inhomogenous distribution patterns of the molecules due to

different molecule trajectories of the various species, an effect especially occuring at

the entrance of the mixing tube. We could not conceive a simple, yet conclusive

experiment with fuel oil alone to quantitatively measure this effect (see also the remark
at the end of Sec. 4.6).
 Instead, we rely on numerical calculations by T. Gradinger of ETH Zürich (Gradinger

1999, Gradinger et al. 1999). He calculated the evaporation and mixing process of a

three-component model fuel (decane+tetradecane+eicosane) the composition of which

was fitted to reproduce the boiling curve of fuel oil. Throughout the light sheet cross

section at the exit of the transparent mixing tube, he finds deviations of no more than

±20% in the concentrations of higher boiling (eicosane) and lower boiling (decane)

components of the fuel with respect to the total fuel concentration. At the entrance of

the quartz tube, Gradinger’s calculations give deviations of ±30%. However, it is very

unlikely that the experimental error reaches this upper limit as the existence of UV

chromophors is independent of the molecule size. The above cited paper by Gradinger

et al. contains a thorough discussion of both numerical simulations and LIF

measurements of the fuel-oil/air premixing in gas turbine burners at atmospheric as

well as at higher pressures (up to about 15 bar).

The error of local relative fuel concentration measurements from LIF in the fuel oil itself

can now be estimated for the parameter domain investigated. Rounding up the error

discussed in A to 10%, assuming the error from B2 to be not larger than 10%, and

rounding up the random error of single pulse measurements to 5% (see Sec. 4.1), we end

up with a total error of about 25%.

6 Summary and conclusions
We demonstrated in this paper that the technique of laser-induced fluorescence (LIF) can

be successfully applied to the investigation of the fuel-air mixing in gas turbine burners

fed with commercial fuel oil. The local and instantaneous fuel oil concentrations are

determined by analyzing the various effects which influence the LIF signal intensity. No

fluoresceing species were added to the fuel oil; hence, exclusively the fluorescence of the

fuel oil molecules themselves was registered. The burner investigated by us was

specifically adapted to the application of optical techniques as it had a partially transparent

tube in the space between oil injection/air supply and the combustion chamber. The

measurements were mostly performed with KrF excimer laser light of 248 nm. This light

is strongly absorbed by a fuel oil/air mixture already at the atmospheric pressure where we

made the measurements. An absorption correction on the LIF data over the light path had

therefore to be performed.

The degree of fuel oil evaporation was tested with simultaneous Mie scattering

measurements. Because of strong stray light in our experimental setup, only fuel droplets

of about 15 µm and more could be detected. Numerical calculations, however, strongly

suggest that the fuel oil is largely evaporated in the transparent part of the mixing tube and

even completely evaporated at the end of the tube. Hence, in the discussion of the accuracy

of the fuel concentration measurements, we assumed that the oil is completely evaporated.

The dependence of the LIF intensity on the total fuel mass flow was measured in the

domain 0.25 ≤ φ ≤ 0.5, φ being the global fuel-air equivalence ratio. This variation is
smaller than the local φ-fluctuations observed in the gas turbine. The differences of the

LIF intensity upon varying the residence time of the fuel oil in the burner are small (≤ 5%)

and unsystematic in the interval considered. An unequal distribution of the various fuel

species in the detection volume is a further source of error. This effect cannot be corrected

for on the basis of our experiments. Therefore we used results from numerical simulations

on the evaporation and transport of species of different volatility. The calculation showed

that at the end of the transparent mixing tube, a maximal deviation from the average
concentration of ± 20% between species of different volatility (from decane to eicosane) is

expected.

In summary, we conclude that LIF measurements of fuel oil concentrations at conditions

of atmospheric pressure and complete evaporation of the fuel oil can be performed with an

accuracy of about 25%, which is not a generic result, but has been checked only for the

setup (burner construction etc.) used in our experiments. Measurements of this accuracy

yield useful results on the random fluctuations of the fuel distribution, and allow to

validate numerical calculations, e.g. of the development of temporally averaged fuel

concentration profiles along the mixing tube.

As we partially rely on results from numerical calculations, we are aware that a combined

experimental and modeling effort is needed to improve on statements about fuel

concentrations and on the fuel mixing and evaporation. From the experimental side, it

would be helpful to measure the LIF intensity in an enlarged domain of the fuel-air

equivalence ratio φ and under higher pressure. This would answer the question whether the

dependence between LIF intensity and fuel concentration is indeed subproportional. The

influence of the LIF intensity on the fuel residence time should be investigated for a larger

range of distances from the burner nozzle and at other pressures and temperatures. An

experiment designed to separate the LIF signal of different fuel oil fractions would allow

the determination of spacial inhomogeneity of various fuel species and its influence on the

overall LIF intensity.

Acknowledgments

We thank the team of K. Döbbeling, J. Lloyd, D. Winkler, W. Weisenstein, and

T. Sattelmayer of ABB Corporate Research for the possibility to use the test site at ABB,

for the construction of the optical access of the burner, for active help during the

experiments, and for providing us with the chemical analysis of the fuel. For financial

support we acknowledge ABB Corporate Research in Baden-Dättwil, Switzerland and the

Swiss Federal Office of Energy (BFE) in Bern.

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Figure captions
1. General layout of the laser optical measurements in the mixing tube of the burner.

2. Setup of the LIF and Mie experiment.

3. Transmission spectrum of fuel oil dissolved in n-hexane. The concentrations were

a) 0.01% and b) 0.1%, the optical path length 1 cm.

4. Emission spectra of vaporized fuel oil after excitation with excimer laser light of
a) 248 nm and b) 351 nm.

5. Pulse averaged LIF distributions at the end of the optically transparent mixing tube for
φ = 0.5 and T = 723 K. Uncorrected (a, left side) and corrected for extinction and
projection (b, right side). The laser light sheet enters from the left.

6. Single pulse LIF distributions at the end of the optically transparent mixing tube for
φ = 0.5 and T = 723 K. Uncorrected (a, left side) and corrected for extinction and
projection (b, right side). The laser light sheet enters from the left.

7. Spatially and pulse averaged LIF signal intensity as function of the fuel equivalence
ratio for air inlet temperatures of 450°C and 486°C, respectively.

8. Spatially and pulse averaged LIF signal intensity at four different transverse positions
of the light sheet in the mixing tube.

9. Pulse averaged profiles of the LIF distributions for two different fuel oil brands
(B and C). The radial position 0.0 is the tube center, the position 0.5 is the tube wall.