I successfully defended my master's thesis! Almost a year ago, I was introduced to Bobby Noble and given the opportunity to intern at EPRI. My primary project involved parametric CFD studies on hydrogen and natural gas blending in gas turbine fuel supply systems. After realizing the industry relevance, overall interest in the research, and lack of experimental studies currently available, we decided to extend this work to a master's thesis. My thesis, "An Experimental and Numerical Assessment of Nonreactive Precombustion Hydrogen-Natural Gas Mixing Dynamics in Gaseous Fuel Delivery Systems", provides the first baseline binary fuel mixing dataset for a T-junction configuration with a paired computational analysis. This research offers insights for the required mixing lengths of H2/NG blends and the capabilities of RANS models to accurately predict mixing rates. This is an additional step towards using alternative fuels for more sustainable power generation and I'm proud to have contributed to this effort. I am tremendously grateful for my advisor, Dr. Christopher Douglas, who has guided every step of this research, my manager, Bobby Noble, for giving me the opportunity to work alongside the P216 and P217 teams, James Harper and Thomas Martz, for their guidance on the experimental design, David Wu, for helping me understand the broader motivation for hydrogen as an energy carrier, and Energy Research Consultants, for conducting the experimental testing. Excited to see the impact this work has on the field!
