The energy transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources is crucial for climate resilience. In particular, hydrogen combustion in gas turbine combustors is expected to play an essential role in the energy transition. Hence, a fuel-flexible gas turbine combustor operating with a wide range of natural gas and hydrogen fuels is necessary. Low Swirl Burner(LSB), developed at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), is one of the promising solutions for fuel-flexible gas turbine combustors. However, hydrogen combustion in LSB at lean conditions is accompanied by several challenges, especially flame flashback. Flashback results in damage and shutdown of gas turbines. Recent experimental studies performed on LSB revealed the occurrence of flame flashback at a high volume percentage of hydrogen, but the exact cause of the flashback in LSB is yet to be discovered.

In this study, numerical modelling of low swirl premixed burner with turbulent flow and high hydrogen content is performed. RANS simulations are performed initially for the non-reacting flow and are validated with the experimental measurements. Flamelet combustion model with Zimont Turbulent Flame speed correlation is employed to model the reacting flow. The flame front position obtained from the Zimont correlation closely agrees with the experiments.
Further, Algebraic Flame Surface Wrinkling (AFSW) correlation is compared with the Zimont correlation for hydrogen-enriched flames. Based on the comparison, it is concluded that the AFSW correlation did not lead to a significant difference. However, both the correlations failed to model the flashback process. Therefore, the potential mechanism responsible for the flame flashback in LSB is examined. It has been found that none of the standard flashback mechanisms is accountable for the flame flashback in LSB. Furthermore, the effect of different flame shapes reported in the experiments is evaluated. It has been observed that ’M’ shape flame has more propensity to flashback than ’V’ shape flame. Then, a shear layer and turbulent wakes in the premix nozzle of the LSB were noticed. Hence, an increase in flame speed due to the local enrichment of thermo-diffusive unstable hydrogen flame and all the aforementioned effects might lead to a sudden flashback in LSB.