Steamology Ltd – Zero Emission Power Solutions | Steamology
Delivering Net Zero Clean Energy enabling global abundant living and lifestyles
Steamology are Specialists in Zero Emission Products and Embracing the hydrogen economy, eliminating emissions, replacing fossil fuels and fossil fuel engines
Steamology zero emission products address three markets with common core technology:
Zero emission steam for industrial applications
- Zero emission diesel engine replacement to the Megawatt (MW) scale
- Zero emission Renewable Energy (RE) storage and power generation
Unlike hydrogen fuel cells Steamology’s technology relies on the burning of hydrogen in oxygen to produce steam. This is then passed through a turbine to produce the power for a generator. The only by-product is water that could even be fed back to the electrolysis system in order to produce more hydrogen and oxygen using renewable resources (e.g., wind turbines or solar panels). Such a closed loop system would be ideal for round the clock power generation in remote locations.
Steamology started working with Simerics-MP in 2020 for the development of various nozzle designs found within their steam generators. The driving force behind needing to use CFD was to gain a better understanding of the way the hydrogen and oxygen were mixing within the nozzle assembly. Some unusual non-linear flow behaviour was being observed.
‘Simerics-MP has allowed us to see what we cannot see during physical testing. It’s an incredibly useful tool’ – Jeremy Bliss, Chief Technical officer, Steamology Ltd
Shown below is a brief summary from the CFD studies investigating certain product enhancements of a new revolutionary design of Steam Generator
Steamology – Case Study Work
Designing Nozzles to Optimize Gas Mixing Distribution
An essential component of the Steamology system is the steam generator. Hydrogen and Oxygen are injected into this through an array of nozzles and then ignited to recombine into steam at high temperatures and pressures. To increase the mass flow-rates and reduce the temperature, water is then injected into the chamber through a second set of nozzles. The resultant flow of steam is then injected into a steam turbine coupled with an electric generator or output for other purposes depending on the application.
Steamology are working with CFD (Simerics-MP) to improve the design of both sets of input nozzles for their steam generators. An early project involved the simulation of a sixth segment model of the device which included the water injection nozzles. This allowed the manifold upstream of the nozzle to be included and showed how the nozzle angles lead to the water jets impinging on the central casing of the generator (figure 1). By quickly changing the parametric model in SolidWorks and rerunning the Simerics-MP simulation it was possible to assess the sensitivity of the flow patterns to changes in the nozzle angles and manifold design.
Figure 1 – Water injection nozzle simulation showing water impingement onto the central casing
After initial improvements to the steam nozzles further simulations were run to create a look up table to enable the selection of the number of nozzles needed for a range of steam flowrates. This enables a selection of which manifold design to use for a required application.
Figure 2 – View of water nozzles showing Coanda effects
The design of the hydrogen and oxygen nozzles at the combustion end of the steam generator is also benefitting from the use of simulation. To model the physics of this the multi-component mixing capability of Simerics-MP was used. This allows for the tracking of the two fluids around the flow domain showing the diffusion and mixing between the components. Better mixing near the inlet of the steam generator should allow for more efficient combustion.
With the SolidWorks and Simerics-MP integration Steamology were able to virtually test numerous configurations of hydrogen and oxygen nozzles in rapid succession. By assessing the graphical output from these simulations, it was possible to determine which configurations produced the best mixing (Figure 3 and 4). After a number of runs it was observed that the more unstable flow patterns predicted by the CFD simulations produced the better levels of mixing allowing for earlier design decisions because of the interactive nature of the Simerics runtime environment. This is still an ongoing project with the aim of optimizing the designs of the nozzles.
Fig. 3–Sections of H2 and O2 mixing downstream of nozzles Fig. 4–Centre plane showing mixing from nozzles
Further CFD projects are planned to look into improving other areas of the system. This will include studying the design of the de-Laval injectors into the steam turbine.
UpFront Engineering Simulation is a specialist Fluid Flow Simulation Solutions and Thermal Analysis Consultancy Company. We have a long track record of helping companies implement Design Friendly or UpFront CFD user environments that we believe will play an ever-increasing role within the product development process. Equally, the client project demands are such that there is an urgent need for a design to be improved or a problem resolved. In these situations, we have a team of experienced simulation engineers to call upon.
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