Design and setup of a low calorific SOFC off-gas combustion chamber for a pressurized MGT hybrid power plant test rig

Abstract

A demonstrator system for a hybrid power plant is currently being built at DLR, designed for an electrical power output level of 30 kW. Since the very low energy dense exhaust gas of the fuel cell anode side represents the fuel for the combustion chamber in this application, a low calorific SOFC off-gas combustor was developed at DLR specifically for this use case. With thorough investigations on the atmospheric test rig, the expected operational range of the combustor was quantified in preceding works. Now, a novel machine design, including dilution air with an adjustable air split configuration is derived to validate the gathered information on the micro gas turbine test rig under pressurized machine conditions. This work explains the design of the combustion system and addresses the different design features specifically implemented for this use case. Since simplifications had to be made for the atmospheric combustor prototype, a significant positive influence on the operational envelope is expected with the transition to the machine configuration.